Posts

Asbestos matters: Waltham Forest Council, PR, and keeping stum

February 11, 2015 LBWF spin, Town Hall asbestos

So you are an employer who has just been found guilty of breaking the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 – of running your affairs, in other words, in such a way as to endanger your employees and those who visit your premises. What do you do? Publicly apologise? Offer everyone involved some advice and support? Perhaps even take action against those who directly presided over the negligence? Most of us would expect (and do) all of these things. Yet after the recent court case, which has left LBWF in exactly the position I’m talking about, the only reaction currently discernible is…silence. Check the Council’s website for instance. The ‘Latest... »

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Residents of Fredd Wigg and John Walsh Towers talk about gentrification

February 11, 2015 Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers

Worth reading: East London Residents talk about gentrification in their own words by residents of Fredd Wigg and John Walsh Towers http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/residents-of-fredd-wigg-and-john-walsh-towers-speak-to-vice-102?utm_source=vicefbuk »

Tower Hamlets and Rotherham

February 10, 2015 Lutfur Rahman, Rotherham Council, Tower Hamlets

I have posted the recent reports on Tower Hamlets and Rotherham in the documents box on the left. Each discuses a disturbing range of pathologies, and more of these than is comfortable have echoes in Waltham Forest. For example, two passages from the Rotherham report particularly resonate: ‘RMBC [Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council] has a culture of suppressing bad news and ignoring difficult issues. This culture is deep-rooted; RMBC goes to some length to cover up information and to silence whistle-blowers’ (p.11). and ‘Cover up in RMBC needs to be looked at within the culture of a Council that, as has already been described, does not welcome challenge and chooses inste... »

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Documenting Past Failures: (4) NRF, EduAction, and the Youth At Risk programme

February 10, 2015 EduAction, NRF, Youth at Risk

Between 2003 and 2006, LBWF paid EduAction £340,000 for a programme called ‘Youth at Risk’, the objective of which was to reduce exclusions from schools in targeted areas, broadly the poorer parts of the borough. From 2006 onwards, rumours about this programme began to spread, with the central allegation being that EduAction had not spent the money as intended. Various investigations ensued, and a complaint was made to the police. The issue rumbled on, receiving extensive coverage in the Waltham Forest Guardian (see links below). Finally, in 2010, thanks to the persistence of several campaigners and whistleblowers, together with sterling work by Iain Duncan Smith MP, the Information Commissi... »

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

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. However, I was never convinced, and gradually, too, LBWF’s relations with EduAction came under increas... »

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