I was interested to read a story last week in the Guardian which suggested that Newham’s growing affluence was partly the result of its council’s ‘reimagined jobs scheme’, Workplace (‘What’s behind the huge fall in deprivation in east London? And no, it’s not gentrification’, 14 January 2016).

In past years, apparently, Newham council simply ‘advised residents on their CVs, pointed them to job postings, and sent them on their way’, a system that resulted in a mere 2 per cent then finding work. Now, because more than a dozen Workplace managers are embedded with major local employers, they are better able to ease residents into vacancies, and then up-skill them through appropriate training, in turn raising their incomes. The change in approach, it is claimed, has benefited no less than 30,000 people.

Whether Workplace really has produced the overall impact attributed to it is of course open to question. Some of those commenting beneath the story in the Guardian are certainly sceptical. It is unarguable that many factors have contributed to Newham’s recent progress. Nevertheless, taken on its own terms, Workplace appears sensible, and seems to have produced some positive results.

And as a Waltham Forest resident, that, for me, is the main point, because as I’ve related in previous posts, if you look at LBWF’s efforts to boost local employment, the contrast could not be greater. Lest we forget, here are some excerpts from monitoring meetings about LBWF’s Worknet, a programme that the council financed, and its favoured charity, O-Regen, delivered with ‘partners’:

12 August 2010

‘There has been significant under achievement for July, where the consortium have so far delivered 15 registrations against a target of 63, with 9 clients receiving employability support against a target of 88 and 1 job start against a target of 15…

 Further investigations with front line delivery staff have confirmed that they have not been allocated to the projects as made to believe but are instead reporting outcomes and outputs to other more prioritised funded projects’.

22 October 2010

‘There continues to be serious concerns over the quality of the beneficiary files. In particular partner [XXXX] and [XXXX] files that have been submitted…to our internal monitoring…have significant issues relating to…pre-signed documents…which could be perceived as fraudulent…

O-Regen generally comes across as a disorganised project lead that lacks collaboration between contractors and seemly disengagement in providing good performance and quality delivery [sic]’.

 2 November 2010

‘DB [a LBWF auditor] started by saying…there were many concerns that needed to be clarified…

Problems were across the board from Registration forms…no work history, eligibility sloppy…Differing lengths of time unemployed ticked and evidenced.

Another problem…was double counting…

DB found a lot of clients that had only registered and never been contacted again…

DB explained that the [client] files he had seen had been very poor. There were pre-signed timesheets, very large hours claimed with no reviews, or evidence, not even a CV sometimes. Some of the revised CVs were worse than the original’

No further comment is needed.

Mark Baynes at Love Wapping has a powerful story on the latest development in the Lutfur Rahman affair, which begins as follows:

‘Lutfur Rahman, ex-Mayor of Tower Hamlets, has been damned once again by the law of the land. A strongly worded press statement released today by Richard Slade & Company, solicitor for the electoral petitioners, details why the latest court judgement against Rahman has found him to be “a mortgage fraudster and tax evader” and Mrs. Rahman (aka Mrs Ayesha Farid) has been called an “unreliable witness who adjusts her evidence under pressure.”’

For the rest, see

http://lovewapping.org/2016/01/lutfur-rahman-mortgage-fraudster-and-tax-evader/

while the full court judgement is here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzbw7ZJwsF8Aekl1VGZDUi1FbEE/view

Those who so shrilly denounced last year’s action against Mr. Rahman as an Islamophobic plot would appear to have further egg on their faces.

In a recent post, I warned that LBWF’s Prevent strategy, and the secrecy that surrounds it, invite trouble.

As if on cue, up pops the stage army of the Left, guided by the ubiquitous ‘red vicar’, Cannon Stephen Saxby, with a meeting tonight aimed squarely at denunciation:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/waltham-forest-against-prevent-tickets-20742107201

The blog Harry’s Place does a public service by revealing the true identities of some of those involved:

http://hurryupharry.org/2016/01/31/steven-saxby-corbynista-vicar-for-extremism/

Meanwhile, a report by Andrew Gilligan in the Sunday Telegraph supplies further background germane to Waltham Forest, beginning as follows:

‘An organised campaign to undermine Britain’s fight against terrorism can be revealed today.

Islamist activists linked to Cage, a group known to sympathise with terrorists, are using coordinated leaks to mainstream news organisations, including the BBC, to spread fear and confusion in Muslim communities about the Government’s anti-terror policy, Prevent.

Investigations by the Telegraph reveal that several widely reported recent stories about Prevent are false or exaggerated – and many of the supposedly “ordinary Muslim” victims are in fact activists in the campaign, known as Prevent Watch. The stories include a claim which became a cause célèbre for Prevent’s opponents – that a Muslim schoolboy from London was “interrogated like a criminal” for using the phrase “ecoterrorism” in class’.

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/12132054/Organised-campaign-to-hobble-anti-terror-fight.html)

It is well worth reading in full.

The broader point is obvious. If you shroud a policy in secrecy, and refuse to engage with residents at all, you inevitably cede ground to those with their own very different agendas, and thus allow them a measure of influence which, if their true objectives were publicly and honestly stated, would be inconceivable.

PS for those who are unfamiliar with the antics of the Socialist Workers Party, this is a revealing read:

http://madammiaow.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/swp-sex-implosion-its-dehumanisation-in.htm

In the mid- to late 2000s, Delta Club (hereafter DC) was one of the most high profile organisations in Waltham Forest. Incorporated as a private company in 2003, with sometime Labour Cabinet portfolio holder Cllr. Afzal Akram on its board, DC seemed to have established itself as the ‘go to’ authority on, and provider of, training, especially where ethnic minorities were concerned. A self-penned profile of 2009 read as follows:

‘Delta club [sic] Group is a BAME led and Customer First and Matrix accredited organisation that since its inception has either directly delivered or delivered through a service level agreement over twelve EU/Government funded programmes. We have successfully provided project management on four of these programmes and have delivered parts of the remaining programmes. All these projects have been delivered successfully or are in the process of being delivered. These programmes include providing training and advice to disadvantaged groups as well as those from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities’.

Indeed, so successful was DC in its chosen market that it apparently earned £1.4m. in grant income between 2005 and 2010 alone.

Then, all rather abruptly, Cllr. Akram resigned his directorship, and DC largely disappeared from public view. When Cllr. Akram subsequently split with his Labour Party colleagues and left the area, like many people I quickly forgot that the company had ever existed.

However, recently, it emerged that DC was a partner in North London Ltd.’s mediocre Exporting Success programme (see earlier posts), and so I’ve been looking again at the company’s sudden fall from grace. It is a short but instructive episode.

The first sign that anything was wrong with DC surfaced in 2010, when a Dispatches investigation into the misuse of EU funding alleged that the company was being instructed to hand back £380,000 of training grants because of doubts about what it had achieved in terms of outputs.

For their part, DC directors vigorously refuted the claims, explaining that though their company had indeed worked on the programmes in question, it was the London East Ethnic Business Association (LEEBA) that had actually signed the contracts with the EU and so was legally responsible for any shortcomings.

Yet whichever side was telling the truth, some of the information that then emerged was hardly reassuring. LEEBA, it turned out, was in the process of liquidation. Vital documents ‘proving the contested work had been done’ could not be produced ‘because of floods and a burglary’. According to the Waltham Forest Guardian, a LEEBA director who also acted as a consultant for DC had a conviction for fraud.*

A year later DC itself went into liquidation. It claimed total assets of £124,000, but owed £109,000 to Lloyds TSB (a preferred creditor), and another £42,000 to various businesses, some private individuals, the Skills Funding Agency, and HMRC.

Thereafter, the liquidation process trundled on, until the company was dissolved via compulsory strike-off in September 2014. The liquidator had clearly not enjoyed his job, for example observing some months previously: ‘As per the Statement of Affairs the only asset pertaining to the Company was that of book debts estimated in the sum of £112,630.16. No realisations have been made in this respect due to disputes and lack of supporting evidence’.

All told, it’s a very Waltham Forest story: up like a rocket, down like a stick.

* see

 http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/8680671.WALTHAMSTOW__EU_funds_claim_denied/

and

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/8685091.WALTHAMSTOW__Delta_Club_not_asked_to_repay_cash/

A correspondent writes as follows:

‘No doubt so as to further underline his left-wing credentials, John Cryer has always presented himself as anti-EU, and a good example of this occurs in the latest of his (very infrequent) parliamentary reports:

“Report from John Cryer

Dear Member,

The big news has been David Cameron’s much-vaunted renegotiation of the treaties of the EU. In fact, he secured very little and I suspect that fact will become increasingly clear in the coming months.

He started out by claiming that his plan was for a profound and fundamental renegotiation, returning powers to Westminster and changing the founding principle of freedom of movement. No powers have been returned and freedom of movement remains sacrosanct.

There have been minor changes to benefits for EU migrants (all the evidence shows that hardly any migrants from accession countries come to Britain for benefits). There are also promises to pursue those who arrange bogus marriages (already illegal, as I know from my own caseload) and it is apparently set in stone that we will not join the Euro, something that has never really been a possibility.

You may know that I have never been a great admirer of the EU. I regard it as a wealthy and exclusive club set up largely to defend the interests of big banks and business. Repeated rulings by the ECJ and many directives emphasise this.

The debate at the GC meeting on Friday will be about EU membership.

As the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party I have been appointed to a small group, led by Ian Lavery MP, to look at rights at work and to design a charter of rights. There will be further such meetings in the future.

This is crucial, as the government tries to destroy employees’ rights via the Trade Union Bill and through myriad other parliamentary measures”.

However, those who know him well often find he has a much more flexible (some might say opportunist) approach, and that his primary and overriding aim appears to be to remain an MP at all costs, especially with boundary changes on the horizon. His report would lead you to believe that he is in favour of leaving the EU (though he is careful not to actually state this). However, a quick check through the list maintained by the political website Guido Fawkes, and widely reported on by John Rentoul of the Independent (linked to below), finds him listed as ‘In’, a position that may well be connected to the desire to keep his sponsors, the pro-EU UNITE union, onside.

So as ever with John Cryer, always check the small print….’.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vp6viBi5DA4avMgR2Y8lKrrAUqJp-0zL2LZB6iVD3uU/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=1717428605

Our favourite figure of fun marches on!

From Private Eye, no. 1413,  4-17 March 2016:

A corespondent with his finger on the pulse of Labour politics revisits the Cryer flit:

‘Back in July 2015, we reported that one of our local Labour MPs, John Cryer, had moved to Lewisham two months after retaining his seat in the General Election, prompting various wags to call for the house he had sold to be awarded a blue plaque in honour of his relatively brief residency [see ‘John Cryer MP Once Lived Here’ – linked below].

News of Mr. Cryer’s move slipped out rather haphazardly, though it must have been planned for some time, and this provoked a degree of comment. Sundry residents felt that he should have been more forthright, sooner. Local Labour activists, too, were unamused, especially as, when first elected, Mr. Cryer had pledged to live in the constituency. The belief gained ground that he was only really interested in keeping his place on the green benches of the House of Commons and had little loyalty to the area, with one rank and file party member concluding: “for all he cares, he just as well could be MP for Orkney and Shetland”.

It has now come to light that the present Cryer home is not in Lewisham after all but in the borough of Bromley, even further from Leyton and Wanstead. Back in 2015, the chair of our local Labour party was heard to comment that there were clear parallels with Lady Macbeth, as the move seemed to be being driven by Ellie Reeves – Mr. Cryer’s new wife, long-time member of the Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee, and sister of rising star and potential post Corbyn Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves MP.  The Cryer camp did not deny Ms. Reeves’ salience, though it added a twist to tug at the heartstrings. Following the birth of their son, it was said, the couple wanted to be close to Ms. Reeves’ family in Lewisham, so they could get help with childcare.

However, there are some who suspect that this is only part of the story, with Ms. Reeves long held ambition to become an MP being of at least equal importance.

It often has been the practice of those with Parliamentary ambitions to establish themselves in the constituencies of members approaching retirement. Ms. Reeves is clearly putting down the right kind of roots, for example launching her own local legal practice, Working Mums Advisory. On the other hand, choosing Bromley seems at first sight odd, because it is a prominent Tory stronghold. However, a few minutes research reveals some interesting facts. The Cryer-Reeves home may be geographically in Bromley, but for electoral purposes it sits in the Lewisham West and Penge constituency. The latter is currently held for Labour by Jim Dowd with a 12,700 majority.

And Mr. Dowd’s age?

Sixty-Five’.

A local resident writes as follows:  

‘Waltham Forest Council (hereafter LBWF) wants to demolish Selwyn Primary School in Highams Park and replace it with a modular building block of the same capacity.

Executive head teacher Maureen Okoye appears to be spearheading the plans.

Shortly after she took over running Selwyn there were allegations that she had a “dictatorial” style, and treated staff “unfairly”. Eventually, 12 teachers resigned in unison, leading Ms. Okoye to comment (in what must be one of the understatements of the year): “when you introduce new ideas there will be a bit of resistance”. The Waltham Forest Guardian covered the story at length here:

www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/9031850.HIGHAMS_PARK__Head__bullied_and_harassed__teachers/?ref=rl

www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/9793871.HIGHAMS_PARK__12_teachers_resign_from_strike_hit_school

The ostensible justification for the new proposals is that the school has a roof that leaks, rooms that are draughty, and an £80,000 annual maintenance bill, much of which comes from money that is really meant for books, trips, and teaching staff.

However, many believe that wider questions of finance are probably uppermost.

It is understandable that LBWF should enthusiastically back the plans for Selwyn, because the funding comes from central government’s PF2 programme (the re-branded Private Finance Initiative or PFI, which involves Whitehall borrowing from the private sector, and spreading repayments plus interest and service charges over the following decades).

However, the precise details of the sums involved remain shrouded in mystery.  One estimate is that the whole project will cost £8m, but people in the know suggest this figure is a bit low and will result in substandard building finish.

Some think LBWF has got a bargain, but the ugly truth is that – as with other similar schemes under PF2 – the final cost to the public exchequer probably will be about five and a half times the initial outlay, i.e. c. £50m.

Thus, future generations are being saddled with a massive debt.

It is little wonder that, when faced with such harsh realities, some influential MPs now believe that PFI has had its day. The chair of the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge, comments: “The irony is that we privatised the buildings but nationalised the debts. It’s crazy…PFI feels like a rotten deal, for the taxpayer and the citizen…how can you end up being locked into massive payments which pre-empt your priorities? The current scheme rips us off”. And George Osborne is no fan, either, having once described PFI as “totally discredited”.

So finance is a pressing issue. But the way that the Selwyn plans have been handled also remains controversial. The Education Funding Agency is necessarily playing a key role in proceedings, but has withheld significant documentation, including its Refurbishment Assessment.  More generally, it is unclear whether any alternatives to demolition and rebuild have been considered, even though an energy survey for Selwyn completed last summer listed various cost effective options for upgrading heating and lighting. All in all, it appears that LBWF is intent on rushing the project through, with the recent decision to grant permission for temporary classrooms on the site, and thus expedite demolition, simply adding further fuel to the fire.

The fact that asbestos is known to be present at Selwyn in a number of locations has also raised concerns, because though the material is currently being managed, demolition could trigger health risks. Of course, the removal of asbestos can be – and should be – carried out entirely safely. But LBWF has a poor record in similar circumstances, and with the example of, in particular, St Mary’s Primary School, Walthamstow, before them [see linked post, below], it is understandable that local people should be wary.

Selwyn has a proud history (notable ex-pupils include Sir George Edwards, designer of Concorde, and Sir Johnny Dankworth, the eminent jazz musician), and is the last publicly owned Victorian building in Highams Park. Such heritage is now threatened.

However, all is not completely lost. Historic England (previously English Heritage) recently has become involved and in next few weeks will submit a report to the Secretary of State for Culture outlining the case for preservation. Delay will inevitably follow, and hopefully this will then allow further probing of all the salient issues raised here.

If you would like to be part of the campaign to prevent demolition, please submit your views directly to LBWF, citing Application Reference Number 153749FUL’.

The portly one gets the full GF treatment:

http://order-order.com/2016/03/18/will-khan-name-and-shame-the-ali-family/

How long will ‘Strong Leader’ Robbins keep standing by this embarrasing liability?

We published Part 1 of this story some months ago (see link below in Related Posts).

Our correspondent now provides the sequel.

‘The Christian Kitchen has been feeding the homeless in Walthamstow for over 20 years. On the 17 April 2013, LBWF revoked its longstanding licence to operate from the Mission Grove car park (located just behind the High Street), citing the apparent incidence of associated anti-social behaviour, and a desire to regenerate the immediate area.

In Part 1 of this investigation we documented how veteran councillor Terry Wheeler made known his opposition to the licence decision in a letter to Labour Group colleagues.

 Here, we turn to what happened subsequently, looking first at the role of Cllr. Clyde Loakes, senior Cabinet member and ex-Leader; and then at the Council’s disastrous approach to meeting its legal obligations over this issue, and the inevitable denouement at the High Court.

 On 2 March 2014, as news of LBWF’s likely licence revocation gradually percolated out, BBC Radio London invited Cllr. Loakes and the Christian Kitchen to meet at Mission Grove for an on-air debate. But at the appointed hour, Cllr Loakes was missing. Where had he got to?

In a telling mistake, it turned out that Cllr. Loakes had gone to the wrong Walthamstow car park. For all his insistence that the use of Mission Grove was untenable, he apparently did not even know where it was.

This was indicative of LBWF’s approach throughout. If challenged, Cllr. Loakes would become visibly agitated, but his apparent passion did not seem to be matched by attention to detail. Indeed, as will become clear, the unhealthy combination of vehemence and ineptitude was to cost LBWF dear.

The origins of the Christian Kitchen saga are hard to fathom. It is rumored that a few years previously Cllr. Loakes had differences of opinion with the some of the Christian Kitchen personnel when they operated in his Leytonstone patch, though how far this impacted on later events is hard to gauge. What we do know, though, is that the decision to revoke the Christian Kitchen’s license in 2013 was made by Keith Hanshaw, the Divisional Director Public Realm in LBWF’s Environment and Regeneration Directorate.

However, it is unlikely that Mr. Hanshaw acted in isolation. Cllr. Loakes held Cabinet portfolio responsibility for Environment and Regeneration, kept a close eye on developments at all levels, and had a forceful personality. This might be an ‘officer decision’, in the jargon, but since the fate of a high profile local charity was involved, it also had political and public relations ramifications, something that any councillor would have been acutely aware of from the first. Indeed, it appears likely that Cllr. Loakes may have seen this as very much his own baby. If you are going to pick a fight with a group of churchgoers who spend their spare time feeding the destitute, it makes sense to gain as much political cover as possible. Yet indicatively the issue did not reach the Labour Group until much later, and was never discussed at either the Cabinet or the Full Council.

After the decision to revoke the Mission Grove license was announced, the two parties discussed how to find a mutually agreeable way forward. For its part, LBWF suggested that the Christian Kitchen should transfer to what is essentially a lay-by on a slip road, immediately adjacent to the North Circular, and close to the very busy Crooked Billet roundabout.

This was hardly either generous or practical. The constant flow of heavy traffic made the environs noisy and uncongenial. Moreover, how were the homeless supposed to get there? And anyway would this obviously vulnerable group be safe in such an isolated location?

Prompted by these concerns, the Christian Kitchen decided to seek a judicial review, and the case was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice before Mrs. Justice Simler in April 2014. The outcome turned on several key arguments, and these can be summarised as follows. (1)

In reaching its decision on the Christian Kitchen’s licence, LBWF had to respect the Equality Act of 2010, and particularly the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) which required it to have due regard to the impact of its actions on those with protected characteristics such as age, disability and race.

In detail, this meant preparing an evidence-based assessment. Addressing the court, Mr. Hanshaw confirmed that he had taken all the relevant factors into consideration, stating: “in relation to any site considered, I had in mind factors such as who would be going there, how would they get there, is it by car, or by bus, walking and, if walking, is it accessible and safe for users, and how close to public transport links etc. In assessing accessibility I had in mind the elderly, disabled, and women. This is a fundamental aspect of my area of expertise and work”.

However, Mr. Hanshaw’s authority was to some extent undermined when it emerged that his understanding of who exactly used the Christian Kitchen stemmed not from a comprehensive appraisal of the evidence but rather from what he had seen during a single drive by. At any rate, after considering this and related evidence, Mrs. Justice Simler was scathing:

“What the Council failed to do…having recognised and identified a potentially affected vulnerable group, is follow its own guidance requiring that ‘negative impacts must be fully and frankly identified so the decision-maker can fully consider their impact’ so that the impact assessment is ‘evidence based and accurate’. It failed to identify in clear and unambiguous terms, the most likely adverse impact this vulnerable group might face as a consequence of the decision proposed; and failed to engage with mitigating measures to address that impact, by failing to engage with the very real prospect that the soup kitchen would close altogether because Christian Kitchen would not move to the alternative site offered if forced to leave Mission Grove. Rather than examining and assessing this impact, the Council instead, examined and assessed a hoped for and much less serious impact” [emphasis added].

As to the other arguments presented by LBWF, they met largely the same fate, with Mrs. Justice Simler referring here to “a flawed process”, there to “failure…at a basic level”. Her assessment of LBWF’s contention that the alternative site was “within easy reach of several bus routes” so that “it is not expected that access will be adversely affected for those with physical disabilities and reduced mobility” appeared especially withering, and is worth quoting at length:

“There is no evidence basis for this assumption identified in the Equality Analysis; and no attempt to establish its accuracy was made by the Council. Given that users of the soup kitchen are the disenfranchised and street homeless without fixed abodes, it is significantly more likely that they will not be able to access public transport as asserted…In any event, the statement fails to accord with reality or common sense: a move from a central, busy location on the High Street to a lay-by adjacent to the North Circular close to the Crooked Billet roundabout in a non-residential area (not identified as close to any homeless hostels) is bound to create difficulties with access; not least because people are likely to start their journey to the soup kitchen from a more central area of town where other facilities are located, rather than from an area closer to a lay-by off the North Circular, where no facilities likely to be accessed by homeless people are located.”

Given this drubbing, Mrs. Justice Simler’s conclusion was predictable:

“In my judgment, for all the reasons given above, it is appropriate to grant both a declaration that the Council’s decision to revoke the licence at Mission Grove was unlawful because taken without due regard to the PSED and to quash that unlawful decision with a view to reconsideration. This application for judicial review therefore succeeds.”

With ‘substantial’ costs also awarded against it, (2) the rebuke to LBWF could not have been more pronounced.

What had gone wrong? In theory, LBWF could call on considerable capability in the equalities field. It had a large and well-paid legal department, covering all the different specialisms. Moreover, Cllr. Marie Pye, at the time a Cabinet member and close colleague of Cllr Loakes, believed herself to be “a recognised expert in relation to equality & the public sector”, and had hectored party members on access issues. Finally, the Leader, Cllr. Chris Robbins was said to be on friendly terms with Trevor Philips, no less than the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The mystery, then, is why LBWF apparently plunged on regardless.

Perhaps Cllr. Loakes’ career trajectory holds a clue. He had been appointed to lead LBWF at a young age, and at first seemed to be achieving some excellent results, particularly in terms of Audit Commission ratings. But then things started to go drastically wrong. In quick succession, he became enmeshed in the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund/Better Neighbourhoods Initiative fiasco; opted to resign as chair of the local strategic partnership “amid financial chaos” (as the Waltham Forest Guardian put it); was replaced as Leader by Cllr. Chris Robbins;  and finally saw LBWF’s recent performance damned for systematic failures by the Independent Panel. Always ambitious, his next move was to try for the Northampton South seat at the 2010 General Election, but this, too, ended badly. The Conservatives won, with Labour’s vote declining by a massive 16 per cent. By 2013, Cllr. Loakes was back virtually where he started – representing Leytonstone ward, with a rather unexciting portfolio in Cabinet. Might it be that what transpired with the Christian Kitchen stemmed ultimately from the one time tyro’s determination to rebuild his career by kick starting the regeneration of a prime site in the borough’s centre? Did his palpable penchant for action over words lead him to assume that, faced with bluster, all opposition would simply melt away? Was this whole episode, in other words, largely a product of hubris?’

Postscript

Keith Hanshaw left LBWF’s employment in December 2014, and joined NSL.

Happily, the Christian Kitchen continues to thrive in Mission Grove, having in 2015 fed over 15,000 people.

And Cllr. Loakes? Well, he is still looking for his A to Z…’

(1) The succeeding paragraphs are based upon High Court Of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court, Case No: CO/6173/2013, 7 April 2014.

(2) ‘the court ordered, pursuant to Rule 46.7 of the Civil Procedure Rules, that the council should pay the proportion of the Claimants’ costs incurred representing the Christian Kitchen on a pro bono basis to the Access to Justice Foundation. The parties have subsequently reached a settlement of costs which resulted in a significant payment to the Foundation to help fund further free legal advice and representation’. See:

www.legalvoice.org.uk/2014/10/01/pro-bono-costs-orders-post-laspo/ 

The LBWF councillor code of conduct requires each member to answer questions on a register of interest form at the beginning of their term of office, and then update as necessary, with the results being published on the authority’s website.

In 2012, the Waltham Forest Guardian reported that councillors were finding this requirement challenging. Some had missed out crucial details, with, for example, the Leader, Chris Robbins, neglecting to mention his family home. Others – incredibly – overlooked their party membership. A few had simply failed to keep their forms up to date. The full story is here:

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/9527377.WALTHAM_FOREST__Concern_over_councillors__register_of_interests/

Today, the form used is shorter and simpler. Some highly pertinent questions (for example, those relating to membership of outside organisations) have been quietly dropped. Altogether, this makes for a more anodyne read, though one that nevertheless is certainly not devoid of interest.

The table below summarises how councillors have answered two central questions – those that deal with paid employment, on the one hand, and ownership of ‘land’ – in reality, virtually always, property – on the other.

Before looking at this material in detail, a few words of warning. The register provides a snapshot – it illuminates the present, but says little or nothing about the past. Second, some councillors are permitted to withhold information because it is judged sensitive. Third, the focus as regards land/property is exclusively on Waltham Forest. Councillors may (and certainly do) own second homes, and rent out houses and flats in other locations, but they are not required to say so. Finally, the information supplied varies in character and scope, with councillors to some extent choosing how much, or how little, to reveal. For example, while Cllr. Pye clearly lists her part-time positions in some detail, presumably hoping to impress, Cllr. Siggers merely tells us he is ‘self-employed’.

What then do the forms indicate? As regards Conservative councillors, there are few surprises. Almost all are homeowners, and if they work, tend to be in comparatively well-paid jobs. The impression is of solidity and relative affluence

By contrast, what emerges about Labour is somewhat unexpected. The party was founded to represent the manual working classes. It still makes great play of its concern for the poor. But in Waltham Forest Town Hall, right now, Labour seems  to be, if anything, the embodiment of the comfortable middle. On the ‘land’ ownership question, five Labour councillors have withheld information. But of the 39 who have answered, 28 or just over two thirds, are homeowners, compared to the local average in the wider population of 50 per cent; while more surprisingly still, nine, no less than a fifth, own at least one further property in the borough.

The data on employment tell a similar story. Seventeen of Labour’s 44 councillors do not have a paid job, that is, they are either retired or subsisting on some other source of income. But of those that do earn, there is not a manual or unskilled worker in sight. Seven are employed in statutory or voluntary care of one kind or another; the same number do white collar work for the Labour Party, the trade unions, or neighbouring councils; five are in business; four are in the professions; and three rent out property.

Does any of this matter? We live at a time when there is constant talk about the importance of diversity. Yet here we have a situation where no employed councillor is working in a blue collar occupation. That surely must give pause for thought.

Under the leadership of first Cllr. Loakes, and then Cllr. Robbins, LBWF’s prime concern seems to have been holding down council tax, and efficiently dealing with bread and butter issues like emptying the bins.

In comparison, though social justice has been mentioned from time to time in Town Hall debates, it rarely seems to have been given operational priority. Indeed, as postings on this blog have shown, programmes which could have transformed lives in poorer wards – the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, the Better Neighbourhood Initiative, and Worknet, to name but three – have largely failed precisely because lack of council commitment and input.

Is it too fanciful to suppose that if there had been greater representation amongst councillors of those at the sharp end, this imbalance in priorities might have been considerably less pronounced?

I leave the reader to decide.

In previous posts, I have discussed North London Ltd. (NLL), and pointed out some of the mysteries that surround it.

To recap briefly, NLL was a private company that (a) was handed hundreds of thousand of pounds by public authorities (including LBWF, both directly, and through the Waltham Forest Business Board); (b) according to its accounts, paid generous ‘director’s remuneration and other benefits’ (a whacking £314,897 in the three year period 2004-07 alone); (c) left an unexpectedly faint footprint in terms of recorded outputs and accomplishments; and (d) was put into liquidation in 2013.

What I think is particularly interesting is one of the two programmes that NLL was involved in during its brief lifetime, the 2009-13 European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) financed Exporting Success.

The object of Exporting Success was to encourage small- and medium-sized companies in North London to seek new markets overseas, and it involved a consortium of six or seven delivery partners (essentially other private companies and quangos) with NLL at the helm.

So far, so straightforward, and to begin with, the delivery phase of the programme, too, continued on the same untroubled pathway. However, the calm did not last.

The managing agent for ERDF in the capital was the Greater London Authority (GLA), and it was charged with monitoring and actually handing over the funding.

In the years to mid-2012, City Hall officials made one or two visits to NLL’s headquarters to assess progress, and settled 12 invoices worth £591,500. But then a more systematic review persuaded them that NLL’s outputs were so meagre that it was necessary to impose a penalty for ‘significant’ underachievement, in effect a claw back of no less than c.£100,000.

As of today, it is unclear what happened next, mainly because NLL’s liquidation occurred at broadly the same time, prompting arguments between the various parties involved as to whether the penalty was a ‘true debt’.

That is the essential background, but in recent weeks, I have made a series of further discoveries which are even more intriguing (and perturbing).

One thing that has been never been very clear is how NLL came into existence in the first place. Sources within the company have repeatedly insisted it was set up by the London Development Agency, a quango responsible to the GLA.

However, when I recently put this proposition to the GLA itself, using the Freedom of Information Act, I was told bluntly that it was not true.

Of course, I have no way of knowing who is right or wrong here, but the fact that such a basic question is disputed hardly inspires confidence.

Then there are two issues relating specifically to Exporting Success.

First, there is the matter of exactly which area the programme was aimed at. In the bid document that it submitted to the EU, NLL firmly focused on the boroughs of Enfield, Haringey, Tottenham and Waltham Forest, and made repeated references to North London as its sole target. Yet over time, as a 2013 list of outputs reveals, NLL mysteriously widened Exporting Success’ geographical reach, and offered assistance to firms in Chelsea and Harrow to the west, and Lewisham, Croydon, and Sutton to the south. So far, no explanation has been offered as to why this was allowed to happen.

Second, scrutiny of NLL’s delivery partners raises further significant issues. Of those named in the bid document, I have previously established that Delta Club went into liquidation in November 2011, and the E11 BID Co. was plagued by serious internal problems, and hardly contributed to the programme at all (see the links below). As to UK Trade and Investment or UKTI (part of the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills), the story is even more perplexing

In the bid document, NLL mentioned UKTI on 44 separate occasions, and suggested that it was a crucial delivery partner, which would generate ‘huge added value’.

Yet when I asked the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills earlier this year about UKTI’s involvement, it told me: ‘UKTI did not provide any support for an ERDF programme called Exporting Success’.

Moreover, when I then asked City Hall to comment, the relevant officer for European programmes admitted that, until my inquiry, ‘We were not aware that UKTI were not participating in this project’.

Had NLL erred, or was this a simple misunderstanding? Whichever is the case, it does not say much about the quality of GLA oversight and monitoring.

Finally, there is the matter of NLL’s liquidation. The Gazette entries are here:

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/L-60607-1889192/

They show that NLL was wound up because of the actions of Prevista Ltd.

What surprises is that Prevista Ltd. was also one of NLL’s partners in Exporting Success!

So NLL not only failed markedly to achieve its targets, but also apparently failed to pay a close ally what it was owed, which begs the question: where then did that portion of the money end up?

My inquiries continue.

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 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 Information Act, too, how can anyone hold it to account?

‘Dear Mr. Esom,

I have been seeking to obtain from LBWF the report it produced following an ‘extensive investigation’ into the allegations against Ms. Ludiya Besisira, headteacher of Mission Grove School.

My original request to see this document was made using the Freedom of Information Act on 7 December 2015 (ref. FOIX 119111).

Subsequently, in mid-January 2016, having heard nothing, I consulted LBWF’s new website for requests and complaints, and discovered that FOIX 119111 was listed as ‘Cancelled’, without any further explanation.

As a result, on 18 January 2016, I made a complaint about this cancellation (ref. CU 129736), and was advised that I would be contacted in three days.

On 29 January 2016, having heard nothing more on either count, I submitted a further complaint (ref. CU 132823), and also re-submitted my original inquiry (and was given the new ref. FOIX 132824).

On 4 February 2016, I received notification that my complaint CU 132823 was being considered under Stage One of the procedure, and LBWF would respond in writing within 20 days.

On 26 February, 29 February and 2 March 2016, I received exactly the same message.

As of today, having still heard nothing more on either count, I consulted the LBWF website again, and found that CU 132823 is listed as ‘Cancelled’, while FOIX 132824 is listed as ‘Approve’, whatever that may mean.

So, summarising, LBWF is in flagrant breach of the law over my Freedom of Information request, and has also disregarded its own guidelines for responding to complaints.

I would be grateful for you thoughts on this complete and utter shambles

Yours sincerely,

Nick Tiratsoo’

From yesterday’s Evening Standard:

‘A survivor of female genital mutilation today told how she had been attacked in public over her outspoken campaign to confront the barbaric practice in London’s schools.

Hibo Wardere, 46, who fled Somalia’s civil war at the age of 18 having suffered FGM aged six, has made it her life’s work to educate and speak frankly about the brutal surgery which affects 200 million women in 30 countries.

Mrs Wardere, a teaching assistant who visits schools to educate children about the procedure, has written a book about her one-woman fight to wipe out FGM in her lifetime.

The mother-of-seven from Walthamstow told the Standard how after speaking at one local school a child realised she had undergone FGM and confided in a teacher. “It broke my heart into a million pieces,” she said. “It takes real courage to stand up at such a young age and seek help, especially against the wishes of your family.”

But the Somalian’s outspoken approach and refusal to sugar-coat the topic with young children has made her the target of attacks.

She said: “I had a scary confrontation on the 257 bus in Walthamstow. A woman with a full niqab recognised me and ran at me screaming my name and snarling, ‘You came to my child’s school, you told her FGM was abuse.’

“I could only see her eyes but they were full of rage. She was so angry she had to be dragged off the bus, but I was jumping for joy inside because that meant a child had confronted their parent.”

A recent City University London and Equality Now study shows that FGM has been carried out on 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales but Mrs Wardere believes these figures will sky-rocket once a full NHS survey comes out next year’.

An interesting and very concerning report on the Lea Bridge Rd. Mosque has been published at the blog Harry’s Place:

http://hurryupharry.org/2016/04/06/the-waltham-forest-islamic-association-conspiracy-theories-antisemitism-and-rejection-of-the-west/

I have written to Martin Esom, LBWF Chief Executive, as follows:

‘Dear Mr. Esom,

You no doubt will have seen the recent report on the Lea Bridge Rd. Mosque published at the blog Harry’s Place…

I understand that LBWF claims some sort of expertise in relation to the Prevent strategy; and also that a number of local councillors have strong connections with Lea Bridge Rd. Mosque.

In the light of these facts, please will you explain what steps you have taken – or are taking – to persuade these councillors that hosting groups such as Road 2 Reality is not helpful to local community relations, and indeed should be actively discouraged?

Yours sincerely,

Nick Tiratsoo’.

I will post his reply.

A local Labour Party mole writes in as follows:

‘When Labour was re-elected at the 2014 council elections, it was assumed by many insiders that this would be Chris Robbins’ last term as Leader. Speculation turned to the succession, with Clare Coghill and Mark Rusling generally believed to be the leading contenders.

However, those who knew Robbins well were always sceptical, because he previously had made a habit of hinting at his imminent retirement, using it as a tactic to keep members in line. Several aspiring successors were assured ‘keep your nose clean and you’ll be alright’, but each time absolutely nothing happened. One close associate asked: ‘What would he do if he retired, sit at home watching daytime TV? Would that give him the ego boosting buzz he clearly gets from the functions and ceremonies he is so assiduous at arranging?’.

As it turns out, the sceptics were right. For two years into the new term of office, the latest word from the Town Hall is that the Leader, far from retiring, is likely to ‘see the group through the next election’ – a not so subtle way of saying ‘I’m going nowhere’. What is he playing at?

Clearly, Robbins still enjoys the trappings of power. And he has successfully re-organised the responsibilities of office so that they do not impose too much on his lifestyle, with Cabinet meetings held during the day, and little public campaigning (not that he ever seemed too keen on the latter anyway).

But are there other factors involved, too?

Currently, Waltham Forest sits sandwiched between two boroughs where the elected mayors have both been honoured – Jules Pipe in Hackney has a CBE while Robin Wales in Newham is a Knight. Robbins believes he has led Waltham Forest heroically, and perhaps yearns for the same treatment – something more prestigious, in other words, than the commemorative stones and plaques now placed on every development in the borough, whether Council inspired or not.

However, all may not be plain sailing. One factor beyond Robbins’ control is the politics of the current leadership of the Labour Party – the polar opposite of his own. Indeed, his courting of David Miliband and Tessa Jowell will not have gone unnoticed. Perhaps he hopes that if he clings to office long enough, a less extreme national leader will emerge, one who will be more sympathetic to his cause. But there is still the little matter of his brush with the Labour party disciplinary process, and more generally the numerous council fiascos of the past few years, with their attendant coverage in the local press and the widely read Private Eye. Might this chequered history create a degree of hesitancy in those who compile the lists of names for recognition?

Robbins may have glimpsed this. Labour group members have recently been amused that he is insisting on appointing a Conservative Mayor at the next annual Council meeting in May. His claim that he needs to do this ‘to keep them quiet’ is laughable in a borough with such a clear Labour majority. Perhaps he believes that his Tory nominee – Councillor Peter Herrington – has some as yet unrevealed influence, for instance the ear of Ian Duncan-Smith, and that this may help him achieve his goal. Is Robbins obsession with putting the Union flag on every Council building (with the latest batch just being installed) another effort to prove his loyalty to Her Majesty?

Whatever the reasoning, Councillors Rusling and Coghill may have many more years to wait before a vacancy appears’.

Word reaches me that earlier in the week Labour councillors were circulated with an e-mail which announced that Cllr. Ahsan Khan, Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing, had stepped down from the Cabinet, pending an independent investigation by the LBWF Monitoring Officer.

What appears to have happened is that Cllr. Khan organised an event in the Town Hall, attended by the Mayor, which was then the subject of a video posted online, the latter put together by one Qari Mahmood and propagated by Khalid Iqbal Malik.

It is this video that is the source of the problem, because it is said to display a degree of intolerance that is of reasonable and significant concern in a multicultural borough like Waltham Forest.

Apparently, Cllr. Khan has disassociated himself from sentiments expressed, as has the Mayor.

But the episode is certainly being taken very seriously, and that explains Khan’s actions.

Clearly, it will be interesting to see who precisely the alleged intolerance was directed at.

A well placed source tells me that, at meetings on Prevent, mainstream Muslim councillors have expressed strong views about the Alhmadi sect.

The Almadis previously have been the subject of prejudice in the borough, see for instance the unsavoury episode described in this Waltham Forest Guardian story:

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/10611616.Man__denied__Mosque_funeral/

It will be interesting to see whether anti-Almadi bigotry is involved here.

What won’t be acceptable in any shape or form is if the truth is hushed up. There have been far too many such scandals already.

Harry’s Place has further revelations about the Cllr. Khan affair:

http://hurryupharry.org/2016/04/18/meet-the-friends-of-corbynista-vicar-steven-saxby/

It certainly does seem strange that a person who apparently feels the imagery pasted below is acceptable now finds himself honoured with a ‘community award’ by councillors, including Madam Mayor, on LBWF property.

I’ve pointed LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom to this specific detail, and again will post his reply.

UPDATE

I e-mailed Mr. Esom about this at 07.31 on 19th April.

As of now – 08.06 on the 28th April – he has not even sent me an acknowledgement.

I reprint below some correspondence that I have had with Cllr. Chris Robins, Leader of LBWF, concerning allegations involving his close colleague Cllr. Liaquat Ali and the latter’s family.

Most of Cllr. Robbins’ response to me, it hardly needs saying, is irrelevant, but I am struck by the line about ‘as a matter of routine’ not responding to ‘either publication’.

The allegations made are serious ones. Both Guido and Private Eye have substantial readerships, including many influential decision-makers (MPs, civil servants, etc.). In addition, the issue at stake clearly hits a popular nerve.

In general, no-one half decent likes the idea of rich individuals exploiting the local housing crisis. Moreover, Corbynistas, in particular, are likely to be impatient if they find that senior Labour elected representatives are simply replicating the supposed behavior of the dreaded one per cent.

Cllr. Robbins should have answered my question. That he did not seems to be as good an example of ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’ as is possible to find, and again underlines his faltering grasp.

21 March 2016

Dear Cllr. Robbins,

You no doubt will have seen the recent allegations about your close colleague Cllr. Liaquat Ali in Private Eye and on the Guido Fawkes blog.

These are mediums that are read by hundreds of thousands of people, many highly influential.

Self-evidently, it brings both the Labour Party and London Borough of Waltham Forest into some disrepute to be associated with any wrongdoing, particularly of the nature contended.

Please can you state what you are doing about this?

Yours sincerely,

Nick Tiratsoo

19 April 2016

Dear Mr Tiratsoo

RE: Private Eye Issue 1413 – 4 to 17 March 2016 and Guido Fawkes Blog

Thank you for your email of 21 March 2016 regarding the above Private Eye article and Guido Fawkes blog.  Firstly please accept my apology for the delay in replying.

Regarding the comments made in the article and blog, we do not, as a matter of routine, respond to allegations from either publication.

This Council is committed to tackling housing conditions in the private rented sector, and in this regard, I would highlight the fact that Waltham Forest is one of a very small number of London local authorities that has introduced the borough-wide licensing of all of its private rented stock. Through this licensing regime, the Council is committed to driving up the standard of all rental properties and combating ASB.

I would like to reassure you that the Council will continue to be open and transparent in its approach to the enforcement of property licensing and other regulatory powers. It will apply sanctions or take appropriate formal action on a consistent basis, irrespective of whether or not the landlord is also an elected councillor.

I hope that this information is useful to you.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Chris Robbins

Leader of Waltham Forest Council

Earlier this week, a reliable contact in the Town Hall rang me to say that some Labour councillors seemed spooked by the stance being taken by LBWF’s Interim Director of School Standards, Rosalind Turner, and more generally were nervous about what they perceived as the ‘academisation’ of Waltham Forest schools. Indeed, my contact told me, the rumour circulating was that Cabinet member Cllr. Mark Rusling had actually resigned over the issue, before temporarily rescinding his decision because of the scandal enveloping Cllr. Khan (for which see previous posts).

A couple of days later, the following rather dramatic statement appeared on the George Tomlinson Primary School website:

‘A note to parents from the GTPS Governing Body

In recent weeks the governing body has had some serious concerns about school leadership arrangements. We met on Monday with the local authority and had a full and frank discussion. 

In January 2016 Governors advertised the post of Headteacher and were not able to appoint. After some discussion, on 17th March 2016 Governors approached the local authority to ask them to identify a full-time Interim Headteacher. The local authority suggested Lynne Harrowell, and went to great lengths to assure us that while Lynne was with the Lime Academy Trust this in no way meant that George Tom would be affected or be in the frame for conversion to academy status.

On 23rd March 2016, two days before the Easter break, Lynne Harrowell took up post as interim Headteacher, appointed by the local authority. Three weeks later the local authority representative (Rosalind Turner, Interim Director of School Standards) told governors that the local authority had serious concerns about the management and leadership of the school, and asked governors to resign. 

Governors do not agree with the assessment of the school made by the local authority, and we have made our views clear to officers. We are being told by the local authority that we either have to resign or that they will issue the school with a formal warning notice. We do not believe that this would be in the best interests of the school, and have reluctantly decided to stand down. We will inform the local authority of this decision later today, but wanted to let you know first….

We cannot say how long this message will remain, as we are handing control of this page to the school and will not amend it, or any other part of the site going forward’.

Whether this is the episode which is troubling councillors is hard to know. But what intrigues is that Rosalind Turner’s name pops up again, and at the centre of events.

Who is she, and where has she come from? As it turns out, her story is more thought provoking – and perhaps controversial – than at first sight might be expected.

Ms. Turner started her working life in 1974, as a reporter on the Wolverhampton Evening Star, and then became a teacher, before turning to local authority management, and climbing quite rapidly through the ranks. In May 2005, she was appointed Director of Children’s Services at Suffolk County Council, and exactly fours years later moved to Kent County Council (KCC) in a similar role. It was here that things began to get interesting.

In February 2010, nine months after Ms. Turner had been in post, KCC announced that it was cutting 260 children’s service jobs, with 160 staff made redundant and 100 unfilled posts axed. Ms. Turner commented: ‘“The overriding purpose of the restructure is to organise the team in a way that can best meet our priorities and respond to the needs of children and young people in Kent. I firmly believe it will leave us best placed to manage the challenges we face”’.

Next up, Ms. Turner faced criticism because of her expenses. In October 2010, the Kent and Sussex Courier revealed that, in the previous financial year, on top of ‘a staggering’ £180,000 per year salary, Ms. Turner had racked up  ‘a whopping £8,727’ on ‘everything from taxis to accommodation’, more than any other of the nine ‘senior department bosses’.   A week later, the paper returned to the chase, reporting that Ms. Turner had been part of a six strong KCC deputation to Solna, in order ‘to look at the Swedish education system’, which cost the taxpayer £5,700, adding the piquant detail that in the midst of its fact finding the visitors had found time ‘to enjoy a lavish dinner party hosted by Solna’s mayor at a French restaurant’.

But worse was to follow. For in November 2010, KCC received an Ofsted inspection report on safeguarding and looked after children services which was almost as bad as it could be. Both ‘the overall effectiveness of services…to ensure that children and young people are safeguarded and protected’, and the ‘leadership and management’ of those services, were rated as ‘inadequate’. And what made these failings even more regrettable was the fact that KCC had been given plenty of warnings. As the report pointedly observed: ‘The council and its partners have had access to a large amount of information that, over the last two years, has strongly and consistently indicated significant weaknesses and workload pressures in child protection and safeguarding services. Despite this information there is little evidence of sustainable change in practice’.

The subsequent chain of events was predictable. In December 2010, Ofsted’s annual assessment of KCC’s children’s services as a whole concluded that the minimum requirements were not being met. A few weeks later, KCC announced that it was reviewing all the 7,000 active child safeguarding cases on its books. And as for Ms. Turner, according to the press, her offer to take voluntary redundancy was accepted, and she walked away with a payment of £96,657.

Thereafter, little more was heard of Ms. Turner until she joined LBWF in May 2015.

What does all of this add up to? It is right to acknowledge that Ms. Turner worked in a context at KCC that was sometimes unpropitious, hindered by budget cuts and political interference. Additionally, Kent is a very large county, and hard to keep tabs on. Moreover, the Baby P effect meant that, year by year, potential safeguarding cases kept increasing, thereby imposing heavier and heavier workloads. On the other hand, Ms. Turner was very well paid (she allegedly earned more than any other director of children’s services in the UK); signed up to the economy measures of 2010; and if Ofsted is to be believed had plenty of warning that her department was headed in the wrong direction. The bottom line is that during her tenure, to quote Ofsted again, ‘too many children’ were ‘left without sufficient safeguards or adequate protection arrangements’ – an unhappy epitaph.

Against this background, it is not difficult to see why Labour councillors are said to be nervous. In a 2005 profile, Ms. Turner admitted that patience was not her strongest attribute, and reflected that the most painful lesson she had learnt at work was ‘“Culture eats process for breakfast”’. The pressure to create academies is the order of the day, both nationally and in Waltham Forest. Let us hope that she keeps a level head, evaluates issues on their merits, and does not get swept along by the tide of political exigency.

Addendum

The Waltham Forest Guardian is now covering the story:

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/14446862.School_s_entire_governing_body_steps_down_in__mysterious__circumstances/

Some of the comments indicate that events similar to the George Tomlinson governors’ experience recently have occurred in other local schools.

UPDATE

I hear that a meeting for parents this week at George Tomlinson to explain recent events was decidedly bumpy.

Cllr. Rusling took a rather combatative stance, which grated with many of those present.

And there was confusion about whether local MP John Cryer had been kept fully informed.

In an interview a few days previously, Mr. Cryer told the Waltham Forest Guardian that he was ‘surprised’ by the governors’ ‘resignation’.

However, when questioned closely, Cllr. Rusling insisted that he had e-mailed or rung Mr. Cryer about George Tomlinson on numerous occasions, as a search though his mobile records would confirm.

Is someone, somewhere, being economical with the truth?