Golden Goodbyes and Gag Orders: What Is Mayor Fiaz Hiding?

The lives of our contributors are clearly very sad; they need to get out more. Hours spent pouring over council agendas is not good for your health, but occasionally it means that we come across some interesting items.

Take the agendas for full council meetings. On Monday 14th July we see that there is a regular meeting of the council.

Nothing surprising about that. 

But then we find that there is a second full council meeting scheduled for Thursday 17th July. A bit like London buses. You go weeks without a meeting and then two come along together.

Even more interesting is the discovery that there is only one item on the agenda for the Thursday meeting. In the spirit of openness that has characterised the Fiaz administration, the only item for discussion is secret!

We can however, report that the single item is to discuss the remuneration package for the outgoing chief executive Abi Gbago. Our sources tell us that Gbago is set to receive a substantial pay off if she signs a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). What we don’t know is whether the resigning Director of Legal and Governance is also slated to exchange a cash payout in return for her silence.

We understand that the cash amount might be held in confidence, but the fact that the council is planning to pay off a senior officer (or two) should not be kept secret from the public.

It will strike some residents as strange that a chief exec who has overseen one of the most disastrous periods in the history of Newham Council; a chief exec who resigned of her own will, after less than two years in post, will get a pay off rumoured to be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

This is what the full council will have to agree on Thursday. And they will do this away from public scrutiny as the press and public will be excluded and the substantive matters will be on green paper.

It may be that some councillors baulk at the idea of giving, what is effectively a reward for failure. It is difficult to see what benefit will come to the citizens of Newham by doing this.

We can see the benefit to Ms Gbago. We can see the benefit to the mayor of gagging her most recent chief exec; how many secrets about the mayor’s behaviour and ability, or lack thereof will be hidden? But how any of this benefits the people of Newham is somewhat more difficult to identify.

This is time for councillors to assert that they are not simply puppets. It is time to put the residents before the embarrassment of their leader, a task which should be simpler given that her days look to be numbered.

Councillors wishing to stand again in 2026 will soon be interviewed. How will they answer the question, “how do you justify voting to spend X thousand pounds to a chief exec who resigned; what benefit was this to the council or your electorate?”

At a time when school catering staff have their wages frozen and their hours reduced; when teaching and support staff in Adult Learning are sacked; when youth service funds are slashed; when budgets of every department are under pressure and the mayor had to go cap in hand to Whitehall for a bail-out, can Newham afford this?

It’s not as if Ms Gbago needs the extra money. At £231k pa she is not living on the poverty line.

We would urge Labour councillors to vote against any additional payment. The only reason we can see to justify such an action is to save the embarrassment of a lame-duck mayor. Whilst the meeting will be held in secret, you can rest assured that the six figure payout will come out and when it does these very same Labour councillors will have to explain to their residents who elected them into their positions of power, why they will be cutting the services that these residents rely on when they gave roughly half a percentage point on council tax to the outgoing chief executive.

But this is the council who paid the mayor’s legal fees when she took her own council to court, so nothing is beyond them. Perhaps the prospect of an election in a year’s time will cause some councillors to ponder the gravity of their position.

No doubt the opposition councillors will make a stand against this payoff and will seek to take the high ground, they will undoubtedly call for a recorded vote to ensure that all residents know come polling day, who is on their side and who isn’t. 

Some Labour councillors may think they will be shielded by the exclusion of press and public however they should remember that Open Newham told you first about the Mayor suing her own council, we told you first about Rachel McKoy leaving and lastly we told you first about Abi Gbabgo departing the council. You can rest assured that we will keep you informed of the outcome of any vote next Thursday and leave you to cast your judgment on those we all elect. 

The prospect of a pay off for Ms Gbago caused us to wonder whether any other of Newham’s chief execs were recipients of such largesse. We suspect that an FOI will soon be winging its way to Newham Council, we will keep you informed.