Posts

LBWF’s glaring failure to obey official – and mandatory – transparency rules: an update

August 12, 2024 LBWF spin, Local Government Transparency Code, Mark Hynes 0

Slowly, and through persistent questioning, the full truth about LBWF’s disgraceful disregard for the mandatory Local Government Transparency Code (LGTC) is beginning to be revealed. My initial focus was on LBWF’s failure to publish, as the LGTC demands, information about tendering and contracting. But LBWF’s Monitoring Officer, Mark Hynes, was having none of it, telling me: ‘The London Borough of Waltham Forest publishes all requirements under the LGTC regarding its Procurement Information, as stated in Part 2.1, in real time and ahead of the quarterly requirement. This information is publicly available without registration via the web pages of our e-tendering platform, the London Tenders P... »

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LBWF Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes gets knocked back by the Information Commissioner, and is caught out muddling evidence, while council resources drain away

August 6, 2024 Freedom of Information Act, Mark Hynes 0

This blog has periodically highlighted the slipshod way that LBWF administers its information services, and the waste of time and public money which often ensues. In the last couple of years, LBWF Director of Governance and Law, Mark Hynes, who is also Data Protection Officer, together with LBWF CEO, Linzi Roberts-Egan, have each promised reviews and improvements, but as a new case again shows, in reality little has changed. In February 2024, local commentator, Michelle Edwards, who authors the Anything BUT Countryside & Waltham Forest Council Twitter/X feed, sent LBWF a Freedom of Information Act (FIA) inquiry. In response, LBWF repeatedly advised that, because her inquiry rel... »

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Town Hall shambles: Chief Executive Linzi Roberts-Egan slams the scheme that her senior managers have been using to appraise staff performance, branding it ‘not fit for purpose’

July 23, 2024 LBWF finance, LBWF spin, Linzi Robers-Egan

Sometimes LBWF surprises even those who have followed its antics for many years. As a previous post indicated, the Town Hall is now stuffed with several hundred senior managers, their number having quadrupled since 2015. Many are well paid, too. Thus, 126 (about quarter) earn between £70,000 and £100,000 p.a.; while 37 earn £100,000 p.a. plus, topped off by the Chief Executive, Linzi Roberts-Egan, who is on £217,671 p.a., far more than the Prime Minister. Given such numbers, it is reasonable to assume that the Town Hall must be tolerably well run. Yet, an internal message that Ms Roberts-Egan has circulated today implies that the truth may be rather different. She focuses on the scheme that ... »

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New investigation reveals that since 2015 LBWF has failed to comply with the official transparency rules, so limiting outside scrutiny and accountability

July 18, 2024 LBWF spin, Local Government Transparency Code

In 2015, the Conservative government introduced an updated version of the Local Government Transparency Code (hereafter LGTC) which set out the information councils must place in the public domain, and how often, with the aim of increasing ‘democratic accountability’. Subsequently, the LGTC has remained unchanged down to the present. But it now can be revealed that, although the LGTC is mandatory rather than discretionary, LBWF has blatantly failed to fully comply.  The LGTC covers 14 categories of information, three to be published quarterly, the other ten annually, thus: It also explains the details to be included in each category, so that, for instance, the listing of a tender m... »

Leytonstone cartoonist Woox on Lord Cryer and You Know Who…

July 10, 2024 Woox

(Reproduced by kind permission of Woox) »

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