Independent Panel

Looking back at the past, an occasional series. Part one: LBWF CEO Roger Kilburn is sacked and walks away with £356,000

The story reproduced below is from the Oldham Evening Chronicle of 11 June 2010, and deals with the dismissal of current LBWF CEO Martin Esom’s immediate predecessor, Andrew Kilburn. Briefly, Mr. Kilburn had come to Waltham Forest with a big reputation, gained during a long career in local government, and burnished by his recent leadership of Oldham Council through a period of heightened... »

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

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... »

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 2009)  culminating in the PwC report, but some were obviously flawed, few convinced, and almost all begged further questions. Negative press coverage continued, as when the Waltham Forest Guardian re... »

Some background: a short history of local scandals

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... »