By Councillor Marc Francis (Bow East), Shadow Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources
This week marks a year since the Government announced an intervention in the running of Tower Hamlets Council under Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s leadership.
That intervention was decided upon after an independent ‘Best Value’ inspection during 2024 found serious failings in the authority’s governance and a “culture of patronage”. Understandably, Whitehall was concerned about how public money is being used and how jobs and contracts awarded. This intervention sent ‘Ministerial Envoys’ sent in to oversee the creation and implementation of an Improvement Plan to get Tower Hamlets Council back on track.
Following the latest report by these Envoys and further concerns raised by Tower Hamlets Council’s own external auditor, EY, Ministers have just announced that are significantly ramping up the Government’s intervention. The Written Ministerial Statement and letter to the Chief Executive make clear that Mayor Rahman and his team is failing to make any real progress towards a meaningful change in the way he runs our Borough. As the Secretary of State says, there are lots of plans, and plans for more plans, but no meaningful action. Basically, Mayor Rahman and those around him are faking it.
The Transformation & Assurance Board appointed by this authority itself following the inspection is not driving the fundamental change needed at the pace required. A new Improvement Board will be appointed by the Ministerial Envoys irrespective whether the Mayor wants them. That is a welcome move. As well as the requirement to deal with problems about culture, leadership, governance, scrutiny and partnership, Ministers have also decided the Enoys and the Improvement Board will oversee the authority’s use of public money too. The Envoys’ proposed new ‘reserve’ (i.e. backstop) power to insist that something is done or not done is also very welcome.
Interestingly, Ministers have also authorised a series of ‘deep dive’ investigations into specific issues that the Envoys have brought to their attention. These include the allocation of grants and social housing, planning and licensing applications, and allegations about the inappropriate appointment of staff to highly paid roles they appear to have little qualification for. Most notably, the Mayor’s Office itself is also going to be subject to some very welcome scrutiny. This is long-overdue as these advisors principally work in Mayor Rahman’s own interest, rather than for the wider authority’s let alone the Borough’s 350,000 residents.
That doesn’t come as any surprise to those of us who have been trying to hold Mayor Rahman and his ‘Aspire Party’ councillors to account for the quality of service being provided to residents. Time and again, we have been blocked from properly scrutinising the authority’s policies and performance. Instead, Mayor Rahman repeatedly uses his Executive power and majority in the Council Chamber to evade questions, frustrate legitimate challenge and silence critics. This authority also repeatedly misleads its own residents about the quality of services it provides and downplays any criticism of it. The Envoys call this “optimism bias”. George Orwell called it “doublespeak”.
This abuse of power is not acceptable in a 21st Century democracy. For example, in a Cabinet meeting before Christmas that followed media coverage of the external auditor’s findings of “significant weaknesses” in Tower Hamlets Council’s Value for Money’ objective, Mayor Rahman launched into an utterly deceitful monologue claiming the auditor had blamed Tower Hamlets Labour’s Mayoral candidate, Cllr Siraj Islam. That rant then prompted an online storm with Mayor Rahman’s supporters falsely accusing Siraj of covering up an alleged fraud he was never even told about. Only after this lie had done its work, did Aspire’s councillors delete their posts about it.
While we have to put up with this behaviour outside the Town Hall, a local authority’s resources should not be deployed to amplify such lies. One of the most depressing things about what happened in that Cabinet meeting is that none of the senior officers who have responsibility for upholding democratic standards stepped in to stop these lies being broadcast. Similarly, the press statement issued following news of the stricter intervention on Monday is evasive and misleading. This illustrates precisely why stricter Government intervention is now necessary. Tower Hamlets Council corporately cannot be trusted to deliver the level of fundamental change required.
Things would have been different if only all those councillors who are supposed to hold Mayor Rahman and his team to account had done so. Bravely, four of Aspire’s own councillors resigned from his Majority Group and have spoken out against his methods. Conservative Cllr Peter Golds has spoken out too. However, the Green Party Cllr Natalie Bienfait has repeatedly abstained or absented herself from key votes, conveniently leaving Aspire with a majority in the Council Chamber and at Overview & Scrutiny Committee meetings. She even voted with them to block a debate on this on Wednesday night. The Greens are complicit in these shameful failures continuing.
This then is the state of the Borough under Mayor Rahman and his Aspire councillors. A political leadership that wilfully refuses to serve the whole community and abide by the basic democratic norms. No doubt he is already sanctioning online attacks on this latest tightening of the Government’s intervention as another establishment stitch-up against him. The truth is that under his leadership, Tower Hamlets Council is in a state of disarray, leaving its many dedicated frontline staff and junior managers to pick up the pieces. Only once the Government’s proposed intervention package is fully in place can residents have any confidence things will improve.
