A note for readers…
This is a personal blog, which aims to scrutinise the powers that be in Waltham Forest, from the Council (hereafter London Borough of Waltham Forest or LBWF), both elected members and staff; to our MP... »
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Town Hall asbestos: LBWF comments, at last
On 27 January 2015, Trevor Calver and I called for LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom to resign over the Town Hall asbestos affair. Here is the correspondence that followed in date order, beginning at t... »
Documenting Past Failures: (9) the collapse of LBWF’s pet charity, O-Regen
The registered charity O-Regen was set-up in 1997 as part of the redevelopment of Cathall estate, and charged with running community facilities in the south of the borough together with various progra... »
Documenting Past Failures: (8) the self-defeating silence of Councillor Marie Pye
Shortly after the Independent Panel report, I attended a Community Council meeting, and heard Cllr. Marie Pye vociferously denying any responsibility for the NRF/BNI fiasco. So I wrote her an open let... »
‘Forget the homeless, what about the coffee drinkers?’ LBWF v. The Christian Kitchen (Part 1): Councillor Terry Wheeler makes a stand
A local correspondent writes as follows: ‘Waltham Forest Council is big on celebrating its own perceived achievements and spending our money to do so. You would think that having a local charity... »
Waltham Forest Pool and Track, again
Reporting on Tuesday’s planning committee meeting, Amanda Connolly writes: ‘Last night we had a great turnout at the Pool and Track Application. We had 12 articulate, emotional and compell... »
Documenting Past Failures: (7) The Independent Panel and a ‘scathing’ report on LBWF’s ‘deep-rooted culture of non-compliance with procedures to prevent fraud’.
In mid-2009, the crisis around the BNI finally came to a head. The Council had spent c. £116,000 on a series of seven or eight disparate inquiries into the programme, (Waltham Forest Guardian, 17 June... »
Documenting Past Failures: (6) Cllr. Loakes, PwC, and the BNI Community Cohesion Projects
As I have described in the previous post in this series, the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report was a revelation. The figures already recounted tell much of the story. But to get a full picture of th... »
Documenting Past Failures: (5) The BNI – ‘We’re awfully sorry, folks. Mistakes were made about how we spent millions of pounds of public money. But it’s all in the past. Let’s move forward and forget it’.
By the spring of 2008, the situation with the Better Neighbourhoods Initiative (BNI) programme was becoming untenable. The Council’s Corporate Audit and Anti-Fraud Team had just reported on the Dr. Fo... »
North London Ltd. – an enigma wrapped in a mystery?
A name that crops up in the context of the E11 BID Co. fiasco is North London Ltd. (NLL), a company that was launched in 2004 and apparently went into compulsory liquidation ten years later, put there... »
Ex-Cllr. Afzal Akram, again: why no MBE?
Mention of ex-Councillor Akram in a previous post brings to mind what we have lost since he decamped to West London. The website of his new company, which appears to be a high end mini-cab firm, handi... »