register of interests

Complaint upheld: Cllrs Eglin, Ihenachor, Imre, and Malik found not to have declared their interests, and LBWF drops links to councillors’ party political websites

A recent post (see link, below) recorded that (a) Cllrs Rhiannon Eglin, Chrystal Ihenachor, Sazimet-Palta Imre, and Zafran Malik had not declared their interests, and (b) several other councillors, including Clyde Loakes, were using their profile pages on the LBWF website to link to Twitter feeds that were blatantly partisan, in contravention of the 1986 Local Government Act’s clear instruction th... »

LBWF councillors’ Register of Interests sparks controversy… yet again

Over recent years, whenever anyone from outside the Town Hall examines councillors’ publicly declared interests – their jobs, landholding, membership of clubs and societies, etc. – it’s almost guaranteed that controversy will follow. Who can forget, for example, that, extraordinarily, the immediate predecessors of the present Leader, Chris Robbins and Clare Coghill, were both found to have m... »

Ex-Leader Cllr. Clare Coghill’s breach of the LBWF Code of Conduct: Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes adds further fuel to the fire

Leading on from previous posts about Cllr. Coghill and her breach of the LBWF Code of Conduct by not declaring in 2017 that she was on the staff of Barry Sheerman MP, Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes has just provided some new details, small in themselves but nevertheless significant. First, he underlines that Cllr. Coghill’s error ‘was down to her and no one else’ (in other words, ruling... »

Cllr. Clare Coghill confirmed to have broken LBWF’s Code of Conduct by not declaring her work for Barry Sheerman MP, but Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes declines disciplinary action

A recent post (see first link below) looked at ex-Leader Cllr. Clare Coghill’s LBWF register of interests in the period 2014 to 2018, and noted some discrepancies.  In 2014, Cllr. Coghill declared that she was office manager for the Labour MP Barry Sheerman, but in her next register three years later, she included no such entry: The clear implication was that her job with Mr. Sheerman ha... »

Complaints by residents about Waltham Forest councillors: another can of worms

As many readers of this blog will know, Waltham Forest councillors must comply with the ‘Code of Conduct for Members’, Part Nine of the LBWF Constitution. This document covers matters such a ‘General Standards of Conduct’ and ‘Registration of Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests’; applies only when councillors are acting in their official capacity; and is presided over by Mark Hynes, Director of ... »

Ex-Leader of LBWF Cllr. Clare Coghill joins the board of private sector housing provider Square Roots: cue furore

A couple of weeks ago, Cllr. Clare Coghill, the ex-Leader of LBWF, amended her Town Hall register of interests form to acknowledge that she has joined ‘Square Roots One York Road Uxbridge UB81RN’ as board vice chair. To seasoned Waltham Forest watchers, this development is perhaps not unexpected. Square Roots (or Square Roots Registered Provider Ltd., its full name) is a recently incorporated ‘aff... »

LBWF councillors right to withhold ‘sensitive’ information about themselves on the Register of Interests: use and possible abuse

Though relatively rarely discussed, a clause in the current local government legislation allows councillors to withhold information on their register of interests forms so long as the monitoring officer agrees the information in question is ‘sensitive’, meaning, if made public, would lead to ‘violence or intimidation’ either directly or against ‘a person connected’. The reasoning here is fairly ob... »

Cllrs Anna Mbachu and Victoria te Velde: register of Interests controversy re-surfaces UPDATED

Given the frequency over the years with which they have been discussed by this blog, it might be thought that councillors’ register of interests (RoI) forms now must be a non-issue – all present, up-to-date, and correct as to fact. Yet, regretfully, this seems not to be the case. Take that Town Hall veteran, Cllr. Anna Mbachu. As readers of this blog will remember, her RoI has attracted reproval b... »

The East End Enquirer and Tower Hamlets council’s lack of transparency: a valuable investigation that unsurprisingly resonates in Waltham Forest

In the autumn of 2019, the website Love Wapping begat East End Enquirer, and from that point on, this new site for ‘investigative community journalism’ has broken many excellent stories, most of great interest to WFM readers. One piece that particularly catches the eye is entitled ‘Poplar Papers 9 – How Tower Hamlets Council avoids public scrutiny’: https://www.eastendenquirer.org/2020/05/poplar-p... »

LBWF Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes and Labour Councillor Liaquat Ali: Punch meets Judy, again

At the beginning of November 2018, The Waltham Forest Guardian’s Alice Richardson reported that at a full Council meeting in 2015, the Labour Cabinet portfolio holder, Cllr. Liaquat Ali, had failed to declare an interest. She explained: ‘On the council’s website, Cllr Liaquat Ali, who is a private landlord, is recorded as being present in a full council meeting on July 9, 2015 where private rental... »

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