Newham Is Failing
Newham has received a shocking letter from Angela Rayner’s team.
In it, Deputy Director James Blythe notes that “ministers remain concerned as to Newham’s capacity to comply with its best value duty under the Local Government Act 1989”.
This is not just a polite reminder. The mayor and the chief executive are on notice that government ministers are alarmed by the financial state that Newham is in and this was done by way of a ‘best value notice’. “(This) notice may be withdrawn or escalated at any point based upon the available evidence”.
“(A) failure to demonstrate continuous improvement may be judged to contribute to best value failure and the Secretary of State will consider using these powers as appropriate.”
Either they fix the problem, or the next step is to bring in the commissioners.
The ‘best value notice’ requires that Newham co-operate with the department which will take a much more active role in the oversight of Newham’s financial management.
To readers of these pages it will come as no surprise that Newham is seen to be failing in three areas: managing their finances, bullying and a toxic environment and a failure in housing management which led to a disastrous report from the Regulator of Social Housing. All of these are matters that have been regularly covered on these pages and these are the matters that both Fiaz and the Labour Party wished to keep covered up. But now they are in the open, and it is not just concerned local councillors who are raising their concerns, but senior politicians and the mandarins in Angela Rayner’s department.
Blythe continues, “Given the seriousness of the issues identified, failure to deliver the level of change required at sufficient pace would be very concerning”. British civil servants are masters of understatement. He informs Newham that the department will need to be much more closely involved in Newham’s financial decision making.
He notes the exceptional financial support that Newham was given, but his tone makes it clear that this cannot be relied upon in future years. Newham has got to sort out the financial mees that Fiaz has got us into, or the government will.
The letter is confirmation of the disastrous situation that Mayor Fiaz has created. In any rational system, we would expect her to resign. It would not be unreasonable for the chief exec to do the same. They have managed the council into the ground.
In the days when honour meant something, that is what we would expect. That is not what we expect today.
One way in which Fiaz might begin to regain some credibility is to sack her cabinet and reduce its size. They are clearly incapable of either delivering or challenging her. She is clearly on the way out, so she has nothing to lose by getting rid of some dead wood.
She might start to replace them by looking at the Finance Scrutiny team for replacements. This would mean that she has to start healing some of the relationships that have been broken, but that might be too much of an ask.
On the plus side it would indicate to the government that she is serious, but again, we’re not holding our collective breaths.
One last thought. There was formerly a Labour Mayor who both cut costs and delivered quality services; one who froze council tax for a decade without cuts in services; one who led a Labour Group with a diversity of opinion but who was so unafraid of free speech that Labour members were given a free vote on the budget; one under who Labour became increasingly popular with the local electorate. We forget his name, but you never know, if she can recall it, she might consult him for some ideas about how he did it.
We attach the letter from James Blythe below and here is the link to the government website .GOV
