LBWF

LBWF: it’s parsimony for the poor, but kerching for councillors

November 9, 2016 Council tax, LBWF, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

Like many people who have followed Waltham Forest politics over a number of years, I often wonder what the Labour administration in the Town Hall imagines is its overall purpose, its mission in life. Two recent developments have increased my sense of bafflement. Let’s start with an issue that directly impacts on the borough’s poor. Until 2013, every household in England struggling with low income or on benefits was part of the centrally administered Council Tax Benefit (CTB) scheme, and as a result was exempt from council tax. Subsequently, the government has replaced this system with the Coun... »

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LBWF and the Freedom of Information Act: dumb insolence reigns?

March 30, 2016 Freedom of Information Act, LBWF, Martin Esom

LBWF’s response to Freedom of Information Act inquiries has, in my experience, always been pretty hit and miss, but recently things seem to have deteriorated sharply, ostensibly due to the fact that the system has been automated. I reproduce a letter that I have sent today to LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom, as it well illustrates the kind of muddle that the innocent inquirer now can so easily find themselves enmeshed in. In some respects, the events outlined are comic, but there is a serious side, as well. LBWF has never been very open about its workings. If it ignores the Freedom of I... »

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LBWF in Private Eye again, this time over ISIS and Prevent

December 11, 2015 ISIS, LBWF, Prevent, Private Eye

From Private Eye, no.1407, 11-18 December 2015:   »

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LBWF and the fight against ISIS

November 27, 2015 ISIS, LBWF, Prevent

As a previous post has indicated, there are serious questions to be asked about Waltham Forest’s attempts to confront local Islamist extremists. The record over the past decade has been at best mixed, and includes some embarrassing failures. The fact that LBWF will not discuss its current Prevent programme in any detail only adds to the sense that someone, somewhere is afraid of further revelations. LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom may think of himself as an expert in this area, and chair the London Prevent Board, but whether the local authority as a whole is fulfilling its responsibilities re... »

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LBWF’s relationship with the local business sector: new revelations about the E11 BID Co.

November 13, 2015 E11 BID Co., Fawaad Sheikh, LBWF, Martin Esom

I have written before about LBWF’s relationships with the local business sector, and pointed out that our council appears to treat certain businesses and business organisations rather more favourably than might be expected. Money is handed out, and assets handed over, but there seems to be no great urgency about due process. It is all very relaxed, even informal, and contrasts strikingly with the way that, for example, LBWF commonly interacts with the local community and charity sector (as I can vouchsafe). Against this background, I have been looking again at the legal contracts that LBWF has... »

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Reforming local government (2) an agenda from Tower Hamlets

October 28, 2015 LBWF, Local government reform, Lutfur Rahman, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets

On the subject of local government reform, it is notable that another of our neighbours, Tower Hamlets, also has begun examining the status quo, in this case through the medium of a Transparency Commission, described in an August press release as follows: ‘The council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee has launched an Overview and Scrutiny Transparency Commission (OSTC) to identify actions the council should take to improve transparency, openness and accountability. The Commission began its work at the July 27 Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) meeting. The OSC meetings in September, O... »

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Reforming local government: (1) an agenda from Newham

October 23, 2015 LBWF, Local government reform, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

In a recent post on his blog about the downsides of one-party administrations in local government, John Gray, councillor for West Ham ward in Newham, writes as follows: ‘Finally, I think just as important as electoral reform, local government needs structural and legislative reform. Such as making the role of scrutiny committees much more robust and truly independent of the Executive; beefing up Standard Boards; time limits on Council leaders; stopping backbench Councillors being refused information by Chief officers for no substantiated reasons; being open and transparent and stop restricting... »

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The LBWF Gang Prevention Programme: yet another missed opportunity

October 22, 2015 Cllr. Chris Robbins, Gang Prevention Programme, LBWF, Martin Esom, Youth at Risk

I have been meaning to write about Waltham Forest’s Gang Prevention Programme (GPP) for some time, and now seems as good a time as any. The GPP is coming towards the end of its fourth year, has cost several million pounds, and garnered significant national attention. Yet this summer the local newspaper reported a series of seemingly awful stabbings, shootings, and murders, often featuring young people either as victims of perpetrators, and a couple of weeks ago alleged that there had been a ‘riot’ in Walthamstow – a story that then went national. So it is apposite to ask: has the GPP made a di... »

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LBWF in Private Eye, again, this time over Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers

October 14, 2015 Cllr. Keith Rayner, Cllr.Patrick Edwards, Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers, LBWF, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest, Waltham Forest Labour Party

To no-one’s real surprise, the current edition of Private Eye once again features LBWF, with a fairly long piece tracing the Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers’ fiasco (see below, from No.1403, 16 October to 29 October 2015), also covered in previous posts here.  This is further embarrassment for local councillor and Liberal turncoat Keith Rayner, who despite claiming to have lived in one of the Towers sometime in the hazy past, and being given to lachrymose descriptions of Tory-induced poverty, now parrots his new senior Labour colleagues’ line that the planned privatisation, a... »

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LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom’s evidence at the Town Hall asbestos trial: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

September 18, 2015 LBWF, LBWF spin, Martin Esom, Town Hall asbestos

The following speaks for itself. 18 September 2015 Dear Mr. Esom, We write to you about the letter dated 30 January 2014 that you submitted to the HSE and the courts prior to LBWF’s recent prosecution over Town Hall asbestos contamination. We remind you that this letter was produced in lieu of an interview under PACE; and that you explicitly recognised it might ‘be used in the event of any enforcement proceedings’. We further remind you that in the letter, you underline that you are intent upon ‘frankly’ dealing with the issues at hand. All this being the case, we are very surprised at some of... »

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