It’s been more than 18 months since I had the regular pleasure of looking in detail at the press section of Tower Hamlets Council’s website. It retains its comedy value, I’m happy to report.
A section I’d not seen before is here, Setting the record straight. The introductory blurb explains that it exists because “in spite of our best efforts, media reports are not always completely accurate”. It goes on to say that all information provided by the council is subject to a statutory code of conduct and that “this means we are bound by the highest standards of propriety and accuracy in providing information”.
The section was developed under the regime of former assistant chief executive Lutfur Rahman Ali. Remember him? I first wrote about him in the East London Advertiser here. This was a man who back in 2002 had to resign as a councillor just a few days after he was elected because he failed to realise he held a politically restricted job at the London Fire Authority. Doh! This was a man who conveniently forgot to mention that fact from his error-riddled CV when he applied for the £125,000 a year town hall post in 2008. And this was a man who was effectively sacked when, following Andrew Gilligan’s Dispatches documentary in March (declaration: I was involved with that), the council realised he had been moonlighting at another organisation. See Andrew’s report here.
Yes, this was a man with “propriety and accuracy” at his core.
So let’s look at some of the things that Mr Ali and his communications/press department “set straight” during his tenure.
Golly, what’s this on October 3, 2008? A demand to the Evening Standard that it apologise to Mr Ali for reporting the doubts over his CV and appointment. “We want to make it absolutely clear that Lutfur Ali is not facing any investigation concerning his recent appointment as Assistant Chief Executive,” the council wrote. If only they had, they may have saved us Tower Hamlets taxpayers (Lutfur Ali isn’t one, of course) the best part of £200,000.
The latest entry on March 2 this year (two weeks before Ali’s departure) was a rather hastily cobbled together statement about the Dispatches documentary. The statement said the programme “presented a picture of Tower Hamlets which many who live and work in the borough fail to recognise” and that “supposition and innuendo replaced the facts”. What’s striking about this statement is that no name is attached to it. As it’s not attributed to a councillor, it was likely written by Mr Ali or someone senior in his team, none of whom actually live in Tower Hamlets. Instead, they work in a marble decorated office on a private estate in the middle of Docklands and as far removed from the streets of Tower Hamlets as is possible. Perhaps if they spent more time away from their palace asking searching questions like the journalists they try to discredit, their dubious attempts at rebuttal might be more credible.
There’s another entry in the council’s comedy vault of “accuracy” here on September 17, 2009. “Despite recent reports to the contrary, the cost of East End Life has not gone up and remains at 2.3p per copy.” That’s a lie. And a senior accountant at the council has admitted as much to me. Not only does the council include ghost advertising revenues to make the cost appear lower, but it also excludes the cost of its team of press officers who spend much of their week writing for the rag.
Those press officers include £55,000-a-year “acting communications manager” Kelly Powell, who is named as the contact point for anyone wanting to “set the record straight”. With massive public spending cuts on the way, if I were Kelly I’d be wanting very much to set the record straight and tell anyone who’d listen how much East End Life really costs. Because if it is really so cheap, they won’t cut there will they….
Trial by Jeory 
Well Ted You know what i think of the East End LIES!!!
and as you know you just cannot make it up
Our wonderful (pass the sick bucket) Tower Hamlets Council sells 8 pieces of land to RSL for £8 !!!!!!!!!! pound | September 11, 2009
Housing Association lays out £8 for council land and recieves investment of nearly £8 million………………..not a bad deal really!…
Recently the council had 8 pieces of land valued in E1 including the Sidney Street Library (see minutes of Cabinet Meeting 1st July 2009 Article 6.4, and also the councils report – ‘Local Homes Initiative -CAB 010/090‘).
This valuation came back at over £2.7 million pounds. They did this because they are apparently in desparate need of socially rented homes for the massive overcrowding problem we again aparently have in this borough.
They would only sell this land to developers or Housing Associations who would promise to provide 35 family sized homes and the allocation of tenants in these properties over to the council. These tenants would be taken off the council waiting list but would not become council tenants and would in fact become Housing Association Tenants.
So the only benefit to the council apart from the £2.7 million added to the councils Housing Revenue Account, would be the right to house 35 families in these homes, but again, they would lose all income related to rents because these would obviously become Housing Association Tenants.
Tower Hamlets Community Homes has now been given £5,078,571 ………………………………………….in the form of a non-repayable grant from the Homes & Communities Agency to build these homes. This would mean that the 35 homes would cost around £145,000 each to build, way above all other estimates to build social rented home, almost 3 times as much. The council in their wisdom dont think that this money is enough to provide these 35 homes, so added to the already large donation by selling the £2.7 million pounds of land for a sum total of…………..£8 pounds…………………………… This increases the average total to build each home to £222,388, almost a quarter of a million for each home. Thats almost £8 million to house 35 families, and never ever earn any rents from these families.
Seeing that in Tower Hamlets over 60% of residents recieve some form of Housing Benefit, the odds probably show that not only will we never have the benefit of recieving rents, we will also be paying the rents through the housing benefit system. Last year (2008/2009) an FOI request revealed that the council received £53.9 million from council tenant rents that went straight into the ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account, this money is freely available to be again spent back into the system, possibly 60% could be from housing benefits, but this comes from central government, and not from council accounts. The FOI request goes on further to reveal that we lose revenue in the form of housing benefit to the private sector to the tune of £121 million and to the Housing Associations another £91.4 million.
Thats almost 4 times as much money being payed in rents to the private sector in this borough, compared to what this council recieves in rents.
Yet no councillor has petitioned central goverment asking why they dont have any real scheme to build more council homes Except from the Respect party!.
The Homes and Communites Agency in the first 4 months of its existence this year has given away £2.8 billion in non-repayable grants to developers and housing associations, and has only allocated £400 million for council homes.
This £400 million comes with strings attached. Councils have to bid for a slice of this £400 million, and whatever amount they ask for the council has to match that figure from their own Housing Revenue Account or through the private sector.
Tower Hamlets Community Housing has not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 of our illustrious labour councillors as directors on their boards; Sirajul Islam, Helal Uddin Abbas, Waiseul Islam
and finally Shafiqul Haque .
You would imagine that one of these expressed concern that nearly £8 million was being given away, for essentially private homes to be built. Maybe screaming something like “Why dont you give the council the money to build council homes instead”.
No, they then let their fellow colleagues vote to let the land be sold for £8 pounds. Did they protest at the £5.7 million no strings attached windfall from the HCA, no because as directors of Tower Hamlets Community Housing they would most probably have been party to all discussion with the Homes & Communities Agency, even instrumental in the decision making process.
To sum it all up nearly £8 million pounds of taxpayers money has been given away to provide 35 homes at a cost of nearly a quarter of a million each, these homes will not be owned by the taxpayer, the council will never recieve rents for these properties and theres a 60% chance that taxpayers money will pay these rents forever.
And 4 labour councillors who had the power to block this outrageous deal and make a case for the money to be spent on council homes didn’t utter a murmer of discontent.”
Oh my shame I am still banned!! because I would love to be there at full council to pass on some truths!
Thanks for pasting my blog post here carole. Heres the link to the original article;
http://towerhamletswatch.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/council-sells-8-pieces-of-land-to-rsl-for-8-pound/
Thank you for that
It was very interesting and I thought it would be better for Ted to put his efforts into things like that and not speculate to much about the ins and outs of the IFE mpac and the propaganda put out by the Council and the East End Lies
ah well I suppose its the job he has
I saw on your postings that The Respect party put over 51% of the motions into the council but noted that there were a few absent marks from our councillors at the Full council meetings
I do know that one of our councillors daughter suffered a massive brain hemmorage and missed a few meetings also Abjol was in Gaza for another but I am surprised that they did not clock up there surgery hours perhaps it wes because they told the full truth and did not say they were at surgery when in fact another person done the surgery for them?
But i know that there were dozens of times they done home visits to those who could not make the surgery and I am certain they did not clock these hours up
Also we were fortunate to have a MPs surgery where George’s staff had appointments nearly every weekday, that took a lot of the casework for some .I also know for a fact sometimes there were up to 50 people a Friday surgery and they all got there cases sorted
Carole, given that the council is putting it about that this is a new start and that bygones are bygones, why don’t you ask if you can attend town hall meetings again and promise not to throw water over Marc Francis and behave…
They want an apoligy and then they will consider if I can come back
emmm I will not apoligise and could never make a promise to be quiet!
and new start – bygones be bygones ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
come on now this is Tower hamlets