Given the frequency over the years with which they have been discussed by this blog, it might be thought that councillors’ register of interests (RoI) forms now must be a non-issue – all present, up-to-date, and correct as to fact.
Yet, regretfully, this seems not to be the case.
Take that Town Hall veteran, Cllr. Anna Mbachu.
As readers of this blog will remember, her RoI has attracted reproval before.
Has she changed her approach?
Well, as of this morning, section 4 of her form reads as follows:
So far so good. But a quick check via the Companies House website reveals that Anna Mbachu Educate Orphans & Support Widows Ltd. was compulsorily struck off and dissolved nearly a year ago:
And then there is Cllr. Victoria te Velde.
Her RoI form’s sections 1 and 2 appear to be detailed and comprehensive:
Yet far from being ‘dormant’, as Cllr. te Velde claims, Smart Squash Ltd. is currently listed by Companies House as very much alive and kicking, with the good councillor still very much actively at the helm, if apparently unconcerned by her mandatory duty to report annual accounts:
It will be interesting to see what LBWF Director of Governance and Law, Mark Hynes, who is supposed to police RoI forms, makes of these inconsistencies. In November 2018, after the last contretemps of this kind (see links, below), Mr. Hynes briefed councillors in person about their responsibilities, and finished with a forthright summation of what failure to follow his advice could lead to:
That sets the overall agenda now, but Mr. Hynes also will have to consider why the two councillors appear to be so insouciant about respecting Companies House rules, which are not only clearly stated publicly, but also communicated to all directors.
Cllr. Mbachu created a company on her own, and then appears to have lost interest, leaving Companies House to close it down, a process that must have cost at least some public money.
Cllr. te Velde’s behaviour is equally puzzling, particularly because the requirement to supply annual accounts is an absolute fundamental, which all of those in business will be familiar with.
And it is also worth underlining that Companies House provides adequate written warning about due dates, so neither Cllr. Mbachu nor Cllr. te Velde can fall back on the excuse that they were blindsided.
There remains, however, as regards Mr. Hynes, an unfortunate problem. For though a solicitor by profession, he, too, does not have an unblemished record regarding the reporting responsibilities that come with running a business, as these screenshots from the Companies House website in early December 2019 demonstrate:
It is, as so often the case in Waltham Forest, all rather a mess.