Private Eye reports LBWF’s failure to properly monitor the corporate credit cards issued to its senior managers
From Private Eye No.1646 4-17 April 2025 »
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LBWF, lobbyists, and ‘partner’ companies: greasing the wheels of commerce or corporate capture?
For the past fifteen years or so, LBWF has worked with a variety of private developers and infrastructure engineers to radically reshape the borough’s built environment. The formal relationships between these different parties of course are recorded in council minutes, contracts, press releases, and similar. But there has been plenty going on behind the scenes as well, and to shed some light on these less overt interactions, the following looks at two brief case-studies. The first is about lobbying, and its starting point is a short Linkedin comment that was posted by one Peter Bingle: Why is this noteworthy? Well, Peter Bingle is a director of the Terrapin Group, and one of the latter’s con... »
LBWF has issued corporate credit cards to its senior managers, but broken the law for many years by failing to publish data tracking their use
For the past two decades or so, LBWF has issued its senior managers with corporate credit cards. And, since 2015, following the introduction of the Local Government Transparency Code (LGTC), LBWF also has been legally required to publish data on how these cards are being used. But with the exception of one year, 2016, the latter is something which LBWF has, without explanation, completely failed to do. Challenged about this in January 2025, LBWF’s Corporate Director – Internal Audit, Anti-Fraud, Revenues and Benefits, Gemma Young, states that ‘The corporate credit card data is being collated and will look to be published [sic] as soon as possible’, and then attempts some reassura... »
Private Eye covers the latest LBWF safeguarding scandal
From Private Eye No.1643 21 February-6 March 2025. It’s good that PE highlights the witless response of Cllr. Mitchell. In another, more honourable time, many would have expected her to resign. »
LBWF’s equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) programme: necessary corrective or self-serving extravagance?
In the past couple of years, and without much public commentary, the senior management team in LBWF has been seeking to transform the prevailing culture in the Town Hall by introducing and then championing a major equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) programme. Specifically, the aim has been to ensure that: (a) ‘our workforce reflects the diversity of our community’, on the basis that this will ‘lead to stronger connections with our communities and better design of services’; (b) there is maximum ‘inclusivity’ so that ‘people feel safe to bring their authentic selves to work’; (c) the work environment allows ‘everyone…to access good quality and suitable opportunities for... »