BNI – Waltham Forest Matters

Documenting Past Failures: (11) some conclusions, part one

Nick Tiratsoo June 10, 2015 Past failures: overview

The previous ten posts in this series have looked at LBWF’s record of extensive failure over the past decade or so, and it is now apposite to offer some general conclusions. First, it is notable that, by and large, the cases examined share some common characteristics, which may be summarised as follows: (a) rule breaches On paper, LBWF has always possessed clear rules to govern programme inception and governance. Yet the evidence shows that these were often disregarded. Contracts were procured without seeking the requisite number of bidders; contract documents remained unsigned, sometimes und... »

Andrew Kilburn, BNI, Camden New Journal, Chris Robbins, Clyde Loakes, Common Purpose, EduAction, Elizabeth Phillips, Goss Consulting Ltd., Independent Panel, Jacquie Dean, Keith Rayner, LBWF, Marie Pye, Martin Esom, NRF, NRF Youth at Risk, O-Regen, past failures, Roger Taylor, Sir Peter Rogers, Waltham Forest Council, Worknet

Documenting Past Failures: (8) the self-defeating silence of Councillor Marie Pye

Nick Tiratsoo March 13, 2015 Cllr. 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 letter explaining why I thought she was wrong. Needless to say, in true Waltham Forest style, she never replied. However, to some extent the last laugh is on her, because if you Google ‘Cllr. Marie Pye’ today, amusingly, my letter comes up as entry four. Anyway, here is the letter in full, as I believe still that it makes a perfectly valid point. 22 January 2010 Dear Councillor Pye... »

BNI, Clyde Loakes, Colin Moon, Harry Cohen, Iain Duncan Smith, Jan Wickham, LBWF, NRF, past failures, Peter Musgrave, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Terry Wheeler, Waltham Forest Council, Waltham Forest Guardian, Wood Street and Hoe Street

Documenting Past Failures: (6) Cllr. Loakes, PwC, and the BNI Community Cohesion Projects

Nick Tiratsoo March 6, 2015 BNI Community Cohesion Projects, Cllr. Clyde Loakes

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 But to get a full picture of the chaos that PwC uncovered, it is necessary to look at some of its unpublished findings on individual BNI files, and there is no better place to start than with the batch concerning ‘community cohesion’. Let me set the scene. At the beginning of 2007, I was becoming increasingly anxious about the BNI programme (not least because there appeared to be a looming underspend on the financia... »

BNI, Clyde Loakes, Community Cohesion Projects, Heaton Wilson Communications, Jonathan Bunn, Kath Myers, LBWF, LSP, NRF, past failures, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Waltham Forest Council, Waltham Forest Guardian

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’.

Nick Tiratsoo March 6, 2015 The BNI

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. Foster episode, had nearly completed its work on EduAction’s Youth at Risk project, and was chasing new leads. A consultant’s examination of the BNI which was presented to Cabinet concluded there had been ‘systematic failures by officers to follow sound procedures’. Police investigations were said to be ongoing. Negative coverage in the local press continued. So LBWF reacted as it had always done, ... »

BNI, Corporate Audit and Anti-Fraud Team, Dr. Foster, EduAction, LBWF, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Waltham Forest Council, Waltham Forest Guardian

Documenting Past Failures: (3) NRF, EduAction and an open letter to Cllr. Chris Robbins

Nick Tiratsoo February 10, 2015 Cllr. Chris Robbins, EduAction, NRF

One of the outside organisations that LBWF paid NRF monies to was EduAction, or more properly EduAction Waltham Forest Ltd., a joint venture formed by Amey Plc (‘one of today’s leading public services providers’) and Nord Anglia Education. In the 2000s, EduAction ran the schools in the borough, after a damning Ofsted report at the turn of the century had disposed of the idea that the local authority was up to the job. It was always said that EduAction was receiving NRF monies to help it run special programmes, aimed for instance those at those most at risk of failure or truancy. Ho... »

BNI, Chris Robbins, contracts, Corporate Audit and Anti-Fraud Team, Dr. Foster, EduAction, LBWF, NRF, past failures, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Roger Taylor, Waltham Forest Council

Documenting Past Failures: (2) NRF and Dr. Foster

Nick Tiratsoo February 10, 2015 Dr. Foster, NRF, The BNI

The Dr. Foster episode is one that always will be close to my heart, not only because it demonstrated everything that was wrong about the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF)/Better Neighbourhoods Initiative (BNI) programme, but also because it had a surprising kick in the tail, and one that was highly gratifying to me. The story is as follows – and I apologise for the minutiae, but as will become clear, they are necessary to expose the scale of the duplicity that occurred. In late 2006, LBWF’s Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), chair Cllr. Clyde Loakes, paid Dr Foster Intelligence (DFI) £47,150 f... »

BNI, Clyde Loakes, Colin Moon, Dr. Foster, Dr. Jack Tinker, LBWF, LSP, NRF, past failures, Roger Taylor, Waltham Forest Council, Waltham Forest Guardian

Documenting Past Failures: (1) Introduction

Nick Tiratsoo February 4, 2015 Cllr. Clyde Loakes, NRF, Past failures: overview, The BNI

Over the coming months, and at irregular intervals, I’ll be posting Documenting Past Failures pieces, which will look at some of the episodes that I’ve been involved in since 2004, broadly in chronological sequence. To start with, I’ll be looking mostly at how LBWF used Neighbourhood Renewal Fund monies. The background is as follows. In 2001, the government launched a new National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal which aimed to reverse long-term decline in wards defined as ‘deprived’ by tackling key issues (such as poor health, worklessness, and crime), and at the same time... »

BNI, Clyde Loakes, LBWF, LSP, NRF, past failures, Waltham Forest Council

Some background: a short history of local scandals

Nick Tiratsoo February 2, 2015 Past failures: overview

Here’s an article that I contributed to the Dec14/Jan15 issue of Labour Briefing (which I reproduce with the kind permission of the editors). It looks at some recent Waltham Forest history, and gives more than a clue as to why this blog was set up. Waltham Forest’s missing millions ‘In 2009, spurred on by a spate of bad publicity about its flagship Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) programme, and premonitions that the Audit Commission was about to halve its star rating, London Borough of Waltham Forest (LBWF) appointed an Independent Panel, chaired by the LDA’s Sir Peter Roger... »

BNI, E11 BID Co., Independent Panel, LBWF, Michael Polledri, North London Ltd., NRF, O-Regen, past failures, Private Eye, Sir Peter Rogers, Waltham Forest Council, Waltham Forest Guardian