Tower Hamlets, again
Great story over at Love Wapping about Tower Hamlets Council and lunch clubs: http://lovewapping.org/2015/03/councillor-maium-miah-tower-hamlets-lunch-clubs/ »
Nick Tiratsoo's Posts
Documenting Past Failures: (10) LBWF and Worknet: a tale of underperformance, failure, and the betrayal of local people
Between 2008 and 2014, LBWF operated Worknet, a multi-million pound programme, funded from London and central government sources, delivered by outside ‘partners’, and aimed at helping local people find employment. At first, LBWF gave Worknet significant publicity, and presented it as a major initiative. For example, in November 2009, Council Leader Cllr. Chris Robbins told WFN: ‘“Walth... »
Town Hall asbestos: LBWF comments, at last
On 27 January 2015, Trevor Calver and I called for LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom to resign over the Town Hall asbestos affair. Here is the correspondence that followed in date order, beginning at the bottom with our initial e-mail. 20 March 2015 ‘Dear Mr. Fenwick, Thank you for your e-mail. Most of it of course is entirely irrelevant to the points that we raised with Mr. Esom on 27... »
Documenting Past Failures: (9) the collapse of LBWF’s pet charity, O-Regen
The registered charity O-Regen was set-up in 1997 as part of the redevelopment of Cathall estate, and charged with running community facilities in the south of the borough together with various programmes to benefit local residents. From the start, O-Regen appeared blessed. It was presented with a £4.5m endowment as well as a portfolio of 16 leasehold properties yielding an income of £120,000 p.a.... »
Documenting Past Failures: (8) the self-defeating silence of Councillor Marie Pye
Shortly after the Independent Panel report, I attended a Community Council meeting, and heard Cllr. Marie Pye vociferously denying any responsibility for the NRF/BNI fiasco. So I wrote her an open letter explaining why I thought she was wrong. Needless to say, in true Waltham Forest style, she never replied. However, to some extent the last laugh is on her, because if you Google ‘Cllr. Marie... »
‘Forget the homeless, what about the coffee drinkers?’ LBWF v. The Christian Kitchen (Part 1): Councillor Terry Wheeler makes a stand
A local correspondent writes as follows: ‘Waltham Forest Council is big on celebrating its own perceived achievements and spending our money to do so. You would think that having a local charity like the Christian Kitchen which feeds the homeless 365 days a year would be worth celebrating, but unfortunately, in 2013 our less than enlightened leaders decided otherwise by revoking its licence ... »
Waltham Forest Pool and Track, again
Reporting on Tuesday’s planning committee meeting, Amanda Connolly writes: ‘Last night we had a great turnout at the Pool and Track Application. We had 12 articulate, emotional and compelling speakers. The Chamber and seating areas were full. The general feeling from Committee and Councillors was that if we didn’t pass the plans, the whole project was at risk of failing (and as t... »
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... »
Documenting Past Failures: (6) Cllr. Loakes, PwC, and the BNI Community Cohesion Projects
As I have described in the previous post in this series, the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report was a revelation. The figures already recounted tell much of the story. But to get a full picture of the chaos that PwC uncovered, it is necessary to look at some of its unpublished findings on individual BNI files, and there is no better place to start than with the batch concerning ‘community c... »
Documenting Past Failures: (5) The BNI – ‘We’re awfully sorry, folks. Mistakes were made about how we spent millions of pounds of public money. But it’s all in the past. Let’s move forward and forget it’.
By the spring of 2008, the situation with the Better Neighbourhoods Initiative (BNI) programme was becoming untenable. The Council’s Corporate Audit and Anti-Fraud Team had just reported on the Dr. Foster episode, had nearly completed its work on EduAction’s Youth at Risk project, and was chasing new leads. A consultant’s examination of the BNI which was presented to Cabinet concluded there had b... »