Sorry. We Just Lost £1million for Children and Schools. Oops!

Our gnomes have been at it again, delving through dry committee reports. 

Just occasionally they reveal a nugget of information; information that some in the Fiaz administration would prefer did not see the light of public scrutiny. 

One such nugget was hidden within the Newham Schools Forum papers for January 2026. Amidst all the formulas and figures was the information that the London Borough of Newham had given the Department of Education the wrong figures for number of pupils within the Newham school system. 

Yep, they supplied the wrong figures.

128 pupils had been missed off the submission. In a school population of over 53,000 pupils this might seem to be a small mistake and yet that mistake is likely to cost Newham schools around £977,000 in funding. 

Here at Open Newham we understand that mistakes are made, although this is a whopper. What we can’t understand is the lack of transparency around this mistake. 

Silence from the Mayor… 

Silence from the executive member for Children and Young People… 

Silence from Scrutiny functions of the Council…

It’s almost as if they were trying to hide it. 

But our gnomes continue their work.

We hope the new council, that will arrive in May, will do what Mayor Fiaz promised and failed to deliver in her eight years in power. We hope they will offer transparency when mistakes are made. 

Staff are human. This isn’t about the mistake, it is the lack of transparency.

If the wider public had known about the problem in November, when this mistake was known to the council. This would have allowed all who want fair funding for the schools in Newham to lobby the members of parliament and government to give an exceptional grant to make up for the mistake. Now we fear it is too late to lobby the government; budgets have been set and schools in Newham will have to take a million pound hit.