As predicted, Mayor Lutfur Rahman has appointed ambitious regeneration director Aman Dalvi as the new interim chief executive of Tower Hamlets, while communities boss Stephen Halsey (the man who was asked to help Lutfur’s friend Shiraj Haque with May’s Baishakhi Mela) has been picked as his deputy.
Lutfur is absolutely delighted with the dynamic duo. As the position of permanent chief executive is not his gift to give but that of the 51 councillors, it could well be that he tries to keep these “interim” arrangements going for quite some time.
Here’s his statement:
Mayor Rahman has today (July 26) revealed a new interim management team along with a new management structure. This follows the announcement that Kevan Collins will be leaving to join the Education Endowment Foundation.
Aman Dalvi, OBE who is the current Corporate Director for Development and Renewal will be Interim Chief Executive. Given the challenging financial climate created by government cuts, the Mayor is proposing to strengthen the interim arrangements. Therefore, Stephen Halsey, the current Director of Communities, Localities and Culture has been asked to work alongside Mr Dalvi as the Deputy Chief Executive.
A report will be made to full council at its meeting in September. The Mayor has written to the group leaders to keep them updated about the interim arrangements.
The council announced on Friday that the proposals for the interim Chief Executive appointment would be announced this week and would be drawn from within the existing Corporate Management Team following consultation.
Mayor Rahman said: “Kevan Collins has done a fantastic job for the people of Tower Hamlets for which I will always be grateful. I wish him well in his new national role and I know that the children of England will greatly benefit from his expertise.
“I am fortunate to have a very strong Corporate Management Team and I am proposing that Aman Dalvi take the position of Interim Chief Executive supported by Stephen Halsey as his Deputy Chief Executive. They are both exceptional managers with a proven track record of delivery in this great borough. I have no doubt they will accelerate momentum towards the delivery of my objectives of more and better social housing, tackling crime and drugs on our streets, improving access to jobs for local people and a better quality environment.”
As I’ve noted before, Mr Dalvi was until 2002 the chief executive of Ujima Housing Association. Let’s hope there’s no repeat of what happened there if he ever quits Tower Hamlets.
Within five years of him leaving Ujima, it had collapsed amid a major corruption scandal. (Let’s be clear, there is no suggestion he was involved.)
Six people have so far been charged or convicted of fraud and money laundering in two separate cases, the most recent less than three weeks ago. According to Inside Housing:
A woman has been found guilty of laundering £42,000 stolen from Ujima Housing Association.
Rosalinda Avwunu, 55 of Purley in Surrey, was found guilty of money laundering and transfer of criminal property by a jury at Isleworth Crown Court today.
The trial concerned £42,000 stolen from Ujima Housing Association which was paid in to Mrs Avwunu’s bank account in 2007.
The prosecution alleged that Mrs Avwunu knew or suspected that money transferred into the account was the proceeds of alleged crime by her husband. She denied any knowledge of or involvement in the fraud.
Her Hon Judge Molyneaux told the court: ‘That money was stolen from a housing corporation [Ujima Housing Association] by which her husband Mr George Avwunu was then employed. The money left her account in fairly short order from when it was paid in and then used on various expenses.’
Mr Avwunu was the finance director of Ujima. He absconded from bail in 2009 and has not been seen since.
In February, a consultant received a jail term. Again, according to Inside Housing:
A consultant at the centre of a £208,000 alleged fraud at the failed Ujima Housing Association has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Paul Campagne, 47, of Coulsdon, Surrey, was found guilty at Isleworth Crown Court last Friday of seven counts of money laundering. He had received £208,000 from the association’s finance director George Avwunu, which it is alleged Mr Avwunu stole from the housing association.
Dr Campagne had transferred £160,000 of this money into bank accounts belonging to Mr Avwunu’s wife Rose Avwunu, and into an investment firm owned by Mr Avwunu. He denied knowing or suspecting that this money was the proceeds of crime.
Although the jury convicted Dr Campagne, it was discharged after it could not reach a verdict on Ms Avwunu, who is charged with two counts of money laundering. A date for re-trial has not yet been set.
Mr Avwunu absconded from bail in 2008 and has not been seen since.
And next January, one of Mr Dalvi’s successors and two others will stand trial as part of a separate £3.5million alleged fraud at Ujima. Inside Housing reports:
Three men accused in relation to a £3.5 million fraud against Ujima Housing Association denied the charges in court yesterday.
The housing association’s former chief executive Kenneth Keith Karl Kerr, 55 of Twyford, and Gregory Simon Causer, 40 of Chalfont St Peter, and Alan Boswell, 52 of Worthing, all pleaded not guilty to all charges at Southwark Crown Court.
They were accused of theft, fraud, conspiracy to defraud and making false instrument. The charges included stealing £350,000 from Ujima Maintenance Services and making representations to London & Quadrant – which took over Ujima Housing Association – that they knew could be untrue.
The case will be heard on 23 January 2012 at Southwark Crown Court and is expected to last for eight weeks.
A few months after Ujima’s collapse, consultants KPMG concluded the disaster was the result of “bad management and an ineffective board” at the association. It said problems should have been spotted as early as 2006.
So as the council struggles to adopt to a new system of governance in which the Mayor has so much power to place his own people in important positions, let’s hope Mr Dalvi can establish a corporate culture of strict checks and controls that last somewhat longer than four years.
Trial by Jeory 
LBTH appoints Bangladeshi Muslim as Chief Exec Shocker! Never saw that coming.
He’s not.
Ouch! The truth *does* hurt. I still remember the days when we were told that Kevan wouldn’t be appointed because of his sexuality. Look how that turned out.
I’ve known Aman for a number of years now and he’s more than qualified to take on the role. In fact, I don’t think anyone on the current board of directors in Tower Hamlets is more suited to the role. With the possibly exception of Stephen Halsey. But the Mayor has obviously taken the view that Aman is the better candidate.
That aside, I think Kevan’s departure will be a terrible loss to Tower Hamlets. Irrespective of who replaces him. I only hope the Mayor did what he could to try to convince him to stay on.
oh ok I apologise – I understood he was. Apologies again.
Yes he’s not, as far as I know, a Muslim and certainly not a Bangladeshi. What he seems to be is the kind of person who is willing to carry out Lutfur’s instructions. What someone like Lutfur Rahman needs is a person or persons around him who are able to steer him away from the more extreme courses of action that he is increasingly taking.
By surrounding himself with lackies and yes people he is simply walking towards a disaster of one kind or another. [CONTENT REMOVED FOR LEGAL REASONS.]
You couldn’t help yourself could you Ted? You couldn’t help taking a swipe.
The man has been in post less less than a 24 hours and you’re already trying to link him against some irregularities at a previous work place which occured 5 years after his departure. You quite correctly say that there is no suggestion that he is involved, but then you go on to give detail of the going ons in the housing association.
All you could conclude was hoping it wouldn’t all fall apart 5 years after he leaves. Your contemptuous innuendo is quite laughable and you’ve already got a few of your resident bigots frothing.
Imran Khan – You say he seems to be the kind of person who is willing to carry out Lutfur’s instruction? What do you base this great insight of yours on? His receding hair line? I suspect it’s his brown skin complexion and his beard…
Who from the current directors would you rather have seen in the post Ted?
I would also like to add that your prediction is hardly a prediction.
You’ve got 5 directors, of which two are interims and one of which has already decided his future is not at Tower Hamlets having unsuccessfully applied for the Barking & Dagenham CEO job. That leaves you with Stephen Halsey and Aman Dalvi…
Well, applying for a CEO job should hardly disqualify someone from a CEO job: what’s wrong with ambition?
And in any case you forget Isabella Freeman from your list: she’s the best qualified of the lot.
As for your other comment, the point that I was trying to make – and one that most have grasped – is that strong CEOs build strong corporate cultures whose controls last long beyond the departure of an individual. And by long, I mean longer than five years. It all fell apart fairly quickly at Ujima didn’t it?
Absolutely nothing wrong with ambition Ted, and it shouldn’t disqualify someone from applying for a job. However, when you’re in the middle of seeing through the deepest sustained cuts in modern history you don’t jump ship, you stay and see it through. What is better than having “implemented and delivered savings of £70m+, whilst protecting services” when applying for a CEO job? I doubt it fills the Mayor with great confidence when the top finance man is looking to bail out on you.
Ms Freeman is a lawyer, she doesn’t have dealings in front line service delivery so that is why I left her out. Why do you feel she is the best qualified?
If your intentions were sincere as you like to make all believe, you could have been balanced and mentioned Mr Dalvi’s stint as CEO at Gateway to London, where he worked for 6 years post Ujima Housing. Perhaps you could have expended as many words to his achievements there?
Gateway to London didn’t fall to bits did it? Are you going to attribute the successes of Gateway to London, six years post Aman Dalvi’s departure to him? The same way you use philosophical sleight-of-hand to attribute the failures at Ujima to Mr Dalvi.
You went out looking for dirt, but you didn’t find any, so you had to resort to sophistry and insinuation.
I doubt Mr Dalvi will be blessed with the same lack of scrutiny, by yourself, as other Tower Hamlets CEOs. Infact, I predict everytime Mr Dalvi sneezes you’ll be twisting it and your band of bigots will be lapping it up.
Naylor will have his own reasons for applying for that job (if that is in fact what he did) and maybe Lutfur did see it as a vote of confidence in him. I understand that another of his directors is also leaving in September. He doesn’t seem to be very good at retaining staff, does he?
I’m not sure why being a lawyer is a bar to running a council, particularly one such as Tower Hamlets in such a time. It’s all about being straight and delegating. I’ve never been a huge fan of Isabella’s because sometimes I feel she sees her job is to prevent disclosure while mine is the opposite, but I do recognise she does it well. I know that previous senior directors rate her highly – and that says a lot. If I had a pick for a long term CEO, I’d go for Sara Williams: she was head and shoulders above her many of her peers. And she’s also a Liverpool fan, so she also has impeccable judgment and taste.
Re Gateway to London: it’s a quango I don’t know too much about it to be honest, but I am looking at it. It hasn’t been scrutinised in any detail, that’s for sure.
I’ve had personal dealings with Mr Dalvi and I’ve been extremely impressed with his courtesy and diligence. I’m also sure he’s extremely disappointed and frustrated how Ujima turned out. He wouldn’t be human if he hasn’t since asked himself, “Was there something I could have done better?”
I work for LBTH and have worked for/with four of the corporate directors. Aman Dalvi would have been my first choice and I’m glad the mayor went with him. I’m not surprised by your comments Ted, but I am disappointed in your rather weak attempts to connect the failings of a housing association with Aman five years after he left. A lot can happen in five years.
Imran, you should check your comments for basic grammar, spelling, etc before you correct others. You reminded of one of my friend’s father; he thinks he’s better that everyone else, but everyone laughs at him when he’s not there.