Trial by Jeory

Oh dear, it looks like Tower Hamlets council’s First Class director of schools and children has been at it again. Just a couple of months after I revealed she had spent £427.50 of our money travelling first class on a train to Manchester in July, we now discover more of her reluctance to mix it with the great unwashed who pay her £116,000 a year salary.

Another answer to a Freedom of Information request here reveals she was given a £216.50 first class ticket to Nottingham on September 7 to speak at a “London Leaders” conference for something called the Virtual Reference Group. I’ve no idea what that is.

There are many reasons why people like to travel first class. One of them is because they need somewhere quiet to work. That was the reason offered by George Osborne after he was caught out travelling in style last month. The Chancellor, of course, is the man being blamed by the likes of Isobel Cattermole and her council colleagues for cuts to children’s services.

Isn’t it a bit worrying that someone at her level seems happy to spend budgets on herself while cutting it for others?

After my Manchester revelations, councillors forced Ms Cattermole to repay the difference between the standard fare she was entitled to and the first class she took. During their searches, they also spotted this Nottingham train trip because she’s had to repay that too. For the record, a standard class fare (including a seat in the Quiet Coach where it’s also easy to work in peace) would have cost about £74.

Meanwhile, the trust FoI tool has also shed some light on other intriguing transactions.

For example, this invoice:

That’s £1,260 each for three little silver pin badges awarded as a memento to those who have been the Speaker/ceremonial mayor for a year. Apparently, some then sell these gifts on eBay.

And then there’s this invoice:

That’s £600 to the world famous acting college RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) on behalf of the last Speaker, Labour’s minicab king Cllr Mizan Chaudhury. Yes, that’s right £300 an hour. The council tells me he requested the training so he could improve his public speaking.

Well, it sure didn’t make him act better…

Of the many joys of living in Tower Hamlets, one of the greatest is discovering and appreciating its historic gems. Take the ancient Church of St Dunstan and All Saints in Stepney, for example.

Anyone who hasn’t taken a look inside or strolled in its grounds is missing a treat. Its guidebook is fascinating, detailing how Dunstan, who was a Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury and later canonised, dedicated the site as a church in about 952. It adds:

The church building took its present shape a little before Columbus sailed for the Americas. It is the mother church of the East End and with the ancient Port of London nearby became known as the Church of the High Seas. For this reason, the red ensign is still flown from the tower, which also houses the famous ten bells of Stepney, mentioned in the nursery rhyme, Oranges and Lemons – ‘when will that be, say the bells of Stepney?‘

Today, after somehow surviving the Blitz – the large stained glass window on the east wall shows Christ on the cross above a bomb-ravaged East End – not only is it famous among family researchers across the world, but it is also a lively parish church which engages with all walks of life in its community (next event, the Christmas Fair at Stepney City Farm on December 15, by way of free advertising!)

In short, the East End and its elected councillors should be proud of St Dunstan’s and be doing everything possible to preserve its place in our borough. After all, history is vital to our shared identity.

Which is why it’s a little surprising that amid all the fuss being made about the proposed dropping of two relatively artificial ward names (‘Lansbury’ from the East India and Lansbury ward and ‘Banglatown’ from Spitalfields and Banglatown), hardly a word has been said about the potential loss of ‘St Dunstan’s’ in the new Stepney wards.

If the recommendations from the Local Government Boundary Commission for England are accepted after the current consultation period ends on January 7, possibly the most famous parish name in the country will be removed from the electoral map.

Instead, the current St Dunstan’s and Stepney Green ward will, with the additions of various parts of Mile End and Globe Town and Whitechapel, become Stepney West and Stepney East.

This is Labour’s fault and I’m hoping it was an unintended consequence of trying to resolve a fairly complicated problem about changing population numbers. Whereas Mayor Lutfur Rahman, very much to his credit, and the Tories both recommended keeping St Dunstan’s, Labour wanted to create new wards to accommodate the vast Ocean Estate.

Here’s what the Labour Group wrote in its submission to the Boundary Commission:

Stepney West

77. A new Stepney West ward takes in part of the existing Whitechapel ward east of Sidney Street and an area from south of the A13, currently in Shadwell ward. Its southern boundary is Cable Street. The eastern boundary follows Butcher Row to the Commercial Road and then turns up Bromley Street and a short section of Stepney High Street to Ben Johnson Road. The northern boundary to the ward follows Stepney Green and then goes along Redman’s Road and north to Mile End Road.

78. This area is recognised as Stepney by local residents. It includes Stepney Green Park and the Sir John Cass’s Foundation and Red Coat School. It incorporates major housing estates including the Sidney estate and Clichy estate.

79. With two councillors, the ward would have three per cent more than the average electors per councillor in 2018.

Stepney East

80. A new Stepney East ward’s eastern edge is clearly defined by the strong border provided by the Regents Canal and Mile End Park. The northern boundary is the Mile End Road. The southern boundary follows that described above for the northern boundary for Stepney West ward. It then goes south down Bromley Street as far as southern edge of the park around St Dunstan and All Saints church and down White Horse Road as far as Salmon Lane. The boundary then follows Salmon Lane to the Regents Canal.

81. The new ward incorporates the Ocean estate in its entirety, an estate which is currently divided between Mile End and Globe Town ward – polling district MGT4 – and St Dunstan’s and Stepney Green ward. The estate has a very strong identity which was reflected in it being selected as a New Deal for Communities area under the last government. The estate has a strong residents association. It has a doctor’s surgery which is being refurbished and a children’s centre. The estate as a whole represents a catchment area for both of these facilities. Stepney Green secondary school is used by children from the estate and the shopping parades on White Horse Road and Ben Johnson Road, currently in different wards, are also used by residents from across the estate. The ward also includes the Limehouse Fields estate which is south of Ben Johnson Road.

82. With two councillors, the ward would have one per cent less than the average electors per councillor in 2018.

Here’s Lutfur’s submission:

6.8 St Dunstan’s and Stepney Green

The area covered by the current St Dunstan’s and Stepney Green ward constitutes a real community, bounded by Mile End Road to the north, Commercial Road to the south, and the Regents Canal to the east. Notable local landmarks that form part of the contemporary community identity include the Stepney Green conservation area, St Dunstan’s Church (founded in 923) and the Stepney City Farm.

However, the southernmost part of the current Mile End & Globe Town ward is also part of the St Dunstan’s/Stepney area. Just as nowhere north of Mile End Road or south of Commercial Road could be considered to be Stepney, this area in between these two unarguable boundaries is universally held to be part of Stepney. Indeed, prior to the last review, polling district MGT4 fell within the St Dunstan’s ward, and rightly so: residents in the area consider themselves to live in Stepney or St Dunstan’s, not Mile End. This polling district is dominated by the Ocean Estate, part of Stepney.

The two communities are divided by a major road, the A11, the integrity of which is preserved as a boundary between all other wards which fall on either side of this road. It seems nonsensical for Mile End & Globe Town ward alone to stretch over the A11 to include this part of Stepney.

Accordingly, I propose to include all of polling district MGT4 in the new St Dunstan’s and Stepney Green ward. When this polling district included, the numbers are ideal for a three-member ward.

And here is what the Boundary Commission concluded:

Stepney

77 The Labour Group proposed a two-member Stepney West ward and a two- member Stepney East ward. These wards were proposed to have an east–west orientation and were split along Bromley Street and Redman’s Road, uniting the properties along Stepney Green in the Stepney East ward. The Group argued that these arrangements maintained estates within the same ward and incorporated an area ‘recognised as Stepney by the local residents’. The Labour Group proposed that the southern boundary of its Stepney West ward should extend south of Commercial Road to Cable Street. However, the southern boundary of the Labour Group’s proposed Stepney East ward did not extend as far south as Commercial Road. Instead, the boundary proposed by the Group would follow the minor road of Salmon Lane.

1478 The Mayor and Conservative Group both proposed north–south arrangements which used Commercial Road as a southern boundary and split the Stepney area vertically. The Mayor proposed a boundary along Jubilee Street. The Conservative Group proposed that the boundary should use West Arbour Street. The Conservative Group argued that, although its boundary did ‘not follow any major road or dominant physical feature, this is the case at the moment also, and the proposed boundary does not divide any estates’. The Conservative Group argued that the current ward boundary along Jubilee Street – which was proposed by the Mayor – divided the Clichy estate. The Mayor did not provide any community evidence in support of his proposed boundary along Jubilee Street.

79 Having walked the area, we are of the view that the diverse estates and housing in Stepney are linked by Stepney Way, which runs east–west in the area. We are of the view that neither the Mayor nor the Conservative Group provided for strong boundaries in their submissions. We are further of the view that the Mayor’s proposal split a cohesive estate along Jubilee Street.

80 We therefore consider that the arrangement proposed by the Labour Group provides for strong east and west boundaries and keeps communities together within the Stepney area. However, we were concerned that the Group’s proposed southern boundary of Stepney West crossed the busy Commercial Road. To provide for both clear boundaries and reflect local communities, we therefore propose that the southern boundary for the Stepney West ward should run along Commercial Road. As a result of the recommendations for Limehouse (paragraph 57), we also recommend that the southern boundary for Stepney East should be Commercial Road.

81 As a result of these modifications, an electoral imbalance of -22% would result in the Stepney West ward. We therefore propose two further modifications to ensure improved levels of electoral equality in the ward.

82 Firstly, we propose that the north-east boundary of the Stepney West ward be extended to run along the backs of the properties on the east side of Stepney Green. This ensures that the houses along Stepney Green are not divided between wards. To the east, we propose to extend the ward’s eastern boundary to Belgrave Street, a road with housing consistent with much of the housing in Stepney West. For the remainder of Stepney West and Stepney East, we have decided to adopt the Labour Group submission without modification. As a result of our recommendation, the wards of Stepney East and Stepney West would have 5% fewer and 7% fewer electors than the borough average by 2018, respectively.

I’m hoping that the likes of Mayor Lutfur and the three current ward councillors, Independent Oli Rahman, and Labour’s Abdal Ullah and Judith Gardner (who spoke passionately about the need to preserve the borough’s heritage during a debate on the sale of Henry Moore’s Old Flo at last Wednesday’s council meeting), will now voice their concerns about this apparent oversight.

Of course, the work of St Dunstan’s and All Saints’ Church will continue regardless, but if we’re quite rightly (in my view) campaigning to preserve Banglatown on the political map for  heritage reasons, then surely we need to be consistent with a name that has a much longer history.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but what about the wards being called Stepney West, and Stepney East & St Dunstan’s?

Perhaps we need to start a petition for this. In the meantime, people can also protest to the Boundary Commission via this address: reviews@lgbce.org.uk .

UPDATE – Monday, 12pm.

Oliur Rahman, an Independent ward councillor for the area and a member of Mayor Lutfur’s cabinet, is backing the retention of the St Dunstan’s name. He told me on Twitter earlier that he would support a Stepney East & St Dunstan’s name.

I’ve posed the same question to the mayor and will be doing likewise with Labour councillors.

UPDATE – Monday, 9pm

Labour’s Abdal Ullah, another ward councillor for the area, has also been in touch to say he supports the retention of St Dunstan’s. He said: “As chair of the Labour Faith Network, I strongly support keeping the church name on the ward.”

Just a couple of months after I highlighted some quite worrying discrepancies on the invoices submitted by Gulam Robbani during his time as an adviser to Lutfur Rahman, it looks like there are questions surrounding another of his colleagues.

The invoices emanate from the weird and wonderful world of Lutfur’s rapidly expanding mayoral office. This is where that merry band of male-dominated mayoral advisers lives under the watchful gaze of Murziline Parchment, the chief of staff with an impeccable eye for detail.

One of those little foresters is Mohammed Jubair. He’s been mentioned before on this blog because when he’s not imparting his great wisdom onto the lesser qualified press officers (and Takki Sulaiman) at the Town Hall, he acts as chief reporter for Channel S television station which is run by a convicted fraudster.

But what actually is his job? On January 31 this year, John Williams, the council’s head of democratic services, emailed Tory leader Peter Golds with a list of mayoral advisers. I reported that list on this blog here a fortnight later. Here’s what John wrote in January about Jubair’s role:

Mohammed Jubair – Advisor on community media matters for one day per week at a cost of £175 per day

Remember that: one day a week. That’s £9,100 a year for 52 weeks.

Let’s have a look at the invoices Jubair has been submitting. They’ve been released under a Freedom of Information request to the Tories and relate to the period from June 2011 until February 3, 2012.

The total of these invoices is £18,550. That’s 106 days at £175 per day over an eight month period. That’s a little more than “one day per week”.

There are a couple of points to make about this.

1. What contract was Jubair on during this period? In January 2012, the following advert appeared on the Londontenders website seeking two mayoral advisers:

Description: Advisory Service to the Mayor in the following areas broken into two lots:

Lot 1 – Communities’ Communication and Media

Lot 2 – Communities and Public Policy

The anticipated contract start date is 6^th February 2012. The contracts will be for a maximum period of up to 30^th April 2014 but may be renewed on a periodical basis.

The Council is looking for one provider per lot and anticipates a maximum annual budget of £30,000 per lot.

The anticipated contract start date is: 6^th February 2012

The estimated value of the contract is:

£60,000 per annum for both lots.

Deadline for expression of interest and return of quotation is:

Friday  20^th January 2012

And thanks to Jubair’s invoices, we now have a much clearer idea of what Lutfur and Parchment meant by the word “communities” in their job advert.

Silly old me thought that because “communities” was in the plural, he’d be working for more than one community. But every single item on his invoices relates to the Bengali media only. No favours have been done for the Somali or Chinese communities, nor for the various east European communities in Tower Hamlets.

And he has arranged nothing for the mainstream media, such as the national press or the East London Advertiser, or The Wharf.

Unless I’ve missed it, I can’t see any other “mayoral adviser” hired to deal with other media at such a detailed level.

Which shows us exactly where Lutfur’s priorities lie in his supposed desire to create this One Tower Hamlets.

He’s using public money to direct it at one section of our community only. I’d have thought that divisive — and discriminatory. Perhaps that needs investigating as well.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission may have something to say about this. After all, its predecessor, the Commission for Racial Equality, criticised the council a few years ago for holding special press briefings exclusively for the Bengali press.

Oh, and one last thing. When you’re a £30,000 a year “communications adviser”, you should really be able to spell the word ‘English’ correctly….

Robin de Peyer of the East London Advertiser reports:

Plans to remove the electoral ward of Banglatown from Tower Hamlets have been slammed as “an attack on Bangladeshis” by Mayor Lutfur Rahman, who has threatened legal action to block them.

The Boundary Commission unveiled its draft proposals for a reduction in the number of councillors sitting in the Town Hall last week, adopting recommendations from Tower Hamlets council’s Conservative group to remove “Banglatown” from the title of the Spitalfields and Banglatown ward.

The proposals have been met with fierce opposition, from councillors from the independent mayor’s cabinet and Tower Hamlets Labour group.

Ward councillor for Spitalfields and Banglatown Gulam Robbani said: “Generations of the Bangladeshi community have historically settled and started businesses in the Brick Lane and Banglatown area.

“This Tory proposal is a smack in the face for thousands of Bangladeshis and non-Bangladeshis who have struggled and sacrificed to have Banglatown recognised in the map of Tower Hamlets.”

Mayor Rahman added that the council would consider a legal challenge to ensure the name is retained.

“Let me be absolutely clear; this decision to adopt a Conservative proposal is a disgrace,” he said.

“This is an attack on Bangladeshis, not only in this country but across the world, and I will do everything I can to retain the name Banglatown.”

Labour has also urged the Commission to drop the plans, insisting the name is an important symbol for the East End’s Bangladeshi community.

However, Conservative group leader cllr Peter Golds accused Mayor Rahman of “playing the race card”, and said that the Bangladeshi community is spread across the borough.

He added: “There will always be Banglatown on a map, but why should it be included in a local government ward name?

“There is no government ward in country that specifies a community. This is an abolsutely typical attempt to paint opponents as racist.”

Sigh.

How utterly depressing. The Tories suggestion to drop the Banglatown name is one of the poorest political moves I’ve seen in Tower Hamlets for quite some time.

To allow the egregious Gulam Robbani the chance to whip up more division and fuel the “great white plot” conspiracy theories that Lutfur Rahman used successfully in his 2010 election campaign is nothing less than stupid.

Here’s the somewhat hysterical press release the “One Tower Hamlets” mayor put out this week:

Mayor considers all options to save Banglatown

 

Lutfur Rahman, Mayor of Tower Hamlets reassured the Bangladeshi community across the country that all options are being considered including a legal challenge, if necessary, of the Boundary Commission’s proposed decision to drop Banglatown from the ward name Spitalfields and Banglatown.

 

A national outcry has ensued in the Bangladeshi community since the Commission’s proposal came to light last week.

 

Speaking to the waiting media on Brick Lane, in the heart of Banglatown, Mayor Rahman said:

 

“I have written to the Director of Boundary Commission with my objections; protesting in the strongest possible way and asking them to reverse their decision.

 

“Let me be absolutely clear. This decision to adopt a Conservative proposal is a disgrace. Banglatown is the spiritual home of Bangladeshis outside of Bangladesh.

 

“This is an attack on Bangladeshis, not only in this country but across the world, and I will do everything I can to retain the name Banglatown.”

 

Ward Cllr. Gulam Robbani, leading the Save Banglatown Campaign on behalf of the Mayor said:

 

“I urge everyone to sign the Save Banglatown petition, email or write to the Boundary Commission to show your disgust at this proposal, together we can reverse this decision.”

Tower Hamlets has a history of controversial stickers appearing in various public places.

I saw this one on a Boris Bike docking station in Southern Grove, Mile End, last week.

Discuss.

A lot has been written about the forthcoming sale of the Henry Moore sculpture, the Draped Seated Woman, or Old Flo as it is better known, but a crucial element has also been missed.

At tonight’s Tower Hamlets council cabinet, Mayor Lutfur Rahman overruled the concerns of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and confirmed his decision to sell the bronze.

Of course, he made the oh-so-sincere noises about it wrenching his heart – but that the Coalition cuts gave him no choice.

There are two aspects to this.

During his mayoral election campaign of 2010, Lutfur produced leaflets saying he was the Great Saviour of East End Heritage. In reality, these leaflets, detailing his apparent one man campaign to save Bancroft History Library in 2008, were aimed at the white working class voters (as they are termed in the divisive world of Tower Hamlets politics); they were a direct counter to the accusations that he cared only about the Bengali community or the East London Mosque influenced vote. (I wrote about the history revisionism here.)

So his love of heritage stretches only so far, it seems. Those who applauded his boasts about Bancroft might now want to engage in their own revisionism.

However, that’s not really the main point. Lutfur’s love of heritage is nothing compared with his love of power. In May 2014, he will be seeking four more years.

As an independent, that’s a tricky proposition, especially as financial backers such as the millionaire housing association tenant Shiraj Haque are apparently now unhappy with their man.

However, when you’re in power you have access to far larger funds than those offered by the likes of Haque: our tax money.

You see, away from most prying eyes, Lutfur has recently embarked on a massive vote-buying programme with hundreds of small community groups and mosques as his targets. At October’s cabinet some £6million was set aside for the mainstream grants programme, which he almost alone controls, until 2015. I warned about his takeover of this grants programme last June, here.

At the October meeting, the cabinet tried to discuss the final grant allocations. However, because so many of the councillors were personally linked to the winning groups, half of the cabinet was ordered to leave the room.

I and a few others are going through the allocations and quite frankly it stinks. More will be published on this in due course (feel free to email or leave comments on the blog if you have further information by the way).

And one other important issue was discussed at that October meeting: Lutfur proposed to set aside another £2million for a three-year “Community Faith Building Support Scheme”. What this, you may ask? Well, it’s a lot of money that he wants to spend refurbishing the borough’s “faith buildings”.

Every faith building will be eligible to apply, but the big heritage churches needn’t bother; they have access to funds from elsewhere. No, the bulk of it is for the small mosques and community centres that occupy former shops all over the borough.

I’m extremely wary of state money being used for these purposes, but I can also see the potential for good if the funds are used to broaden the appeal of these community centres. Far too often they are inward looking and male dominated.

However, that’s for a separate discussion.

The point is that these two grants programmes are designed politically to secure support for Lutfur. If he generates 500 votes from from say 50 community centres/groups, that’s 25,000 votes in total. That will deliver him Mulberry Place once more.

So, it’s easy to understand why he is so keen to sell off Old Flo. He needs the money.

[By the way, for what it’s worth, here are my thoughts on Old Flo. I’ve never seen it, I have no emotional attachment to it at all. It’s been up in Yorkshire since 1997 and as long as some people actually do see it, then fine.

Personally, if some solution could be found to bring it to Tower Hamlets, I think that would be great. I know that Morpeth School in Bethnal Green offered it a home. I think that would have been wonderful.

However, I have little sympathy with the demands of Danny Boyle and others to place it for free in the Olympic Park. If the Olympic Park wants it, let them pay us for it. They took the Olympic marathon away from us, remember… .

If there are no covenants attached to the sculpture, then I don’t see why the council should not sell and raise some money. I just hope the money is spent wisely.]

And if anyone is wondering what the heck all this Old Flo business is, I recommend reading this piece in last Sunday’s Observer by Stepney’s brilliant architecture critic Rowan Moore.

Here’s a sample:

The work is Henry Moore‘s Draped Seated Woman, and the proposal is to sell it to the highest bidder, to fill some of the gap, they say, made by government spending cuts. Councillor Shahed Ali, one of Rahman’s cabinet members, told the BBC that “we’d love to keep it in the borough”, but it is “uninsurable”, at a time when large bronzes like this are sometimes stolen for their scrap value.

The proposal has aroused the fury of, among others, Henry Moore’s daughter Mary, the local MP Rushanara Ali, and Danny Boyle, hero of the Olympic opening ceremony. In a letter to the Observer today, they write that it “goes against the spirit” of Henry Moore, who sold it to London County Council at a price – £6,000 – far below its then market value. It demonstrated the “belief that everyone, whatever their background, should have access to works of art of the highest quality”.

Moore, they say, was “delighted” that it was installed as the centrepiece of the Stifford estate, a group of tower blocks in Stepney. Boyle says that “it represents everything I believe in”. He and his fellow objectors are right: Draped Seated Woman fulfils an ideal that nothing was too good for ordinary people, an ideal that modern local politicians are in danger of losing. To sell the sculpture as if it were a piece of real estate would be, according to Rushanara Ali, “a betrayal of working class heritage”. It would also betray Moore’s generosity. It would raise the question why anyone should ever want to offer anything to a local authority again.

The piece itself, which acquired the nickname Old Flo, is noble and touching. It is 3 metres high and weighs 1.6 tonnes, but there is still a lightness with which the figure of the woman sits on a low plinth, delicacy in the fall of drapery on her body, and a springy alertness in her pose. It is beautifully made. Placed amid tower blocks, it was a rare moment of quality, a sign that someone cared. It was also accessible – children could play on and around it, and residents could see it from their kitchens. No doubt it was inscrutable to some, and uninteresting to others, but as long as it was there it created the possibility that some might be inspired, intrigued, or provoked into seeing the world in a different way.

It sat on the Stifford until 1997, when the estate was demolished and the sculpture was moved to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, allegedly temporarily. It has remained there ever since, while plans have come and gone to, for example, relocate it to Canary Wharf. Lutfur Rahman has tried to sell it once before, when he was leader of the council, but was stopped. Now, with the greater powers of an elected mayor, he is trying again.

My last post about Murziline Parchment’s failed application to become Tower Hamlets chief executive has caused a bit of a fuss at the town hall, I’m told.

What Murziline herself thinks, I don’t know.

Prior to publication, I wrote to her to say I intended to publish details of her application. I invited her to discuss them with me but she simply passed on my email to the press office, which, surprisingly, made no attempt to talk about the story or find out what details I had. Instead, communications head Takki Sulaiman emailed me to say employment details were “private and confidential” so there would be no comment.

This “private and confidential” line is interesting. The council owes a duty of confidentiality to Ms Parchment and it has now ordered an investigation into how her details were leaked to me. Apparently, only a handful of senior officers and five councillors had access to the application, but I’m also told there had recently been a clear-out of some files during an office move, when someone else might have spotted the report lying around.

I’d been told that the council was trying to fine a way of “getting me” but for nine days after I published the documents, no one from town hall made any contact. But then, last Friday, the council’s legal department sent me an email.

The department, which is headed by the fine Isabella Freeman, usually marks all correspondence (and even responses to members’ enquiries) as “private and confidential”. But the letter to me contains so such marking and as such I’m going to publish it.

Frankly, the letter a bit weak. It accuses me of “poor journalistic standards” and of breaching the Editor’s Code of Conduct, citing paragraph 3.1 which states “everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications”.

It also cites item 10, which states that “the press must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by…the unauthorised removal of documents or photographs; or digitally-held private information without consent”.

On item 10, I didn’t seek anything. As I said in the original post, the documents were posted to me and they arrived as a complete surprise.

I then removed all Ms Parchment’s personal contact details from the report and published only professional matters. Remember, she was handed her current (powerful) role as head of the mayor’s office without any formal and usual recruitment process. Remember, too, that her work now forms part of a fraud investigation examining the invoices she signed off for Gulam Robbani.

As chief executive of Tower Hamlets, she would have been “head of paid service” and been responsible for signing off far more invoices. Perhaps the interview assessors in 2009 did us a good public service. I wonder what they would have written had she been before them for her current role, one which is new and evolving under her own direction.

The council makes three further points in its letter to me. It says that my publication of the headhunters’ report “may cause distress to Ms Parchment”. Note: “may”, not “has”. Again, Ms Parchment has made no attempt to contact me.

The council says the publication “may also affect the confidence of individuals who might apply for roles in the council”. If that’s the case, the council needs to demonstrate it can keep confidential information confidential. That means strengthening its processes, I suspect. I’m glad to have been of service.

And finally, the council “requires” I remove the documents because I do not own the “intellectual property rights in the report”. It says those rights remain with the council and the headhunters, Green Park.

In that paragraph, the council reveals its desperation. However, it’s an interesting argument and for that reason, I’d like to open it up for wider discussion before making a final decision.

Here’s the council’s legal letter.

A brown envelope dropped through my letter-box last week.

Its contents concerned the woman on the far right of this picture.

Her name is Murziline Parchment and she is the “Head of the Mayor’s Office” at Tower Hamlets council, a job she landed soon after Lutfur Rahman’s victory in October 2010 largely because of her connections to Ken Livingstone.

She used to be Ken’s director of “major projects and service delivery” during his time at City Hall. Andrew Gilligan has written extensively about her, for example here.

Since then she has gained a reputation at the town hall for being Lutfur’s political brains. She’s also the person who signed off those dodgy-looking invoices from her political friend Gulam Robbani.

I’ve heard mixed reviews about her. Some tell me she is very able and I’ve no doubt she’s very suited to her current politically appointed role. But I’m also told some senior council officers view her with deep suspicion, that she sees herself as the real boss of a borough that still has no formal chief executive.

So perhaps it’s a touch ironic that she once harboured ambitions of becoming Tower Hamlets’ chief executive (and maybe still does).

Well, when I say “harboured ambitions”, I underplay it slightly: she actually applied for the position after Lutfur, then the council leader, sacked Martin Smith in 2009.

Here’s the first page of the document that arrived last week.

Her CV makes for outstanding reading on paper: student union president, barrister, Ken crony at the GLA, career break, boss of Lutfur’s office…

But there’s also a rather damning assessment of interview with headhunters. It’s a comprehensive rejection, scoring 7 Cs and 3 Ds in her 10 assessment tests.

The recruitment consultants described her performance as “very unconvincing”. They said she demonstrated good administrative skills but her “responses lacked substance” and that “she tended to deal with the issues at a process level but said very little about the issues themselves”.

“The responses were all fairly basic,” the report’s summary continues. “There was little analysis and she offered no meaningful insights. She showed little awareness of the political, managerial or partnership context. There were several items where it was not clear whether she had understood what the issues were but her responses were so general that it was difficult to be certain. There were some items where she appeared to be on the right lines but she did not follow her approach through or there were aspects of the scenario that she did not address.

“In summary, this was a disappointing performance.”

The overall summary concludes: “Based on her performance at interview, Murziline showed little that convinced she was ready for this level of role. Her lack [of] operational leadership experience makes her unsuitable for the role at this stage.”

Oh dear. Maybe she’s now gained the “experience”.

I guess the question is: was Lutfur aware in 2009 she had applied for the job  (when Kevan Collins eventually secured the role)? And was he aware of the above assessment when he appointed her reportedly without any formal interview of application process to head his office in early 2011?

Are there lessons to be learned about how these pork-barrel roles are dished out in future?

Here are the links to the assessment, Murziline’s CV and her cover letter to the recruitment consultants.

(On page 4 you’ll also read that she “finds Tower Hamlets to be an exemplary borough”. I know we all say things in interviews, but… .)

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When I asked Tower Hamlets council’s press office last week to justify the £855 spent by children’s services director Isobel Cattermole and her deputy on two first class rial tickets to Manchester for a conference, the reply was: “We don’t comment on individual travel arrangements.”

The same officer then said that “open tickets are sometimes purchased to allow greater flexibility with travel times”. I then asked for the council’s staff travel policy, but was told I would need to request that under the Freedom of Information Act.

Of course, there’s more than one way to skin a cat and I got it via other means. As you’ll remember from the last post, it stated that standard class would only be reimbursed.

And then I broke the story. And then there was the outrage and embarrassment. Cllr Oliur Rahman, the council’s cabinet member for children’s services looked into what had happened, and today I received the following email from the council’s press office.

Hi Ted

Please see the below statement.

A council spokesperson said: “The council policy on travel expenses for its staff to attend work related events is set out clearly on page 50 of our employee handbook.  Such expenses are reimbursed at ‘the available cheap rate or ordinary return fare, whichever is the lower.’

In instances where officers incur expenses in excess of the lowest available fare, they are duty bound to reimburse the council the outstanding balance.  This is exactly what has happened in the instance of the two officers cited in the Sunday Express report.

Mayor Lutfur Rahman added: “If Brandon Lewis is really concerned about protecting council budgets in order to help poorer communities he could use his opportunity at the Tory conference to oppose its plans for a further £10 billion of welfare cuts.”

So the council is now commenting on an individual’s travel arrangements, and it seems Isobel Cattermole and her deputy have been told to reimburse the difference. But when? I’ve asked the council to state the date, but I’ve heard nothing.

You see, the thing is, these tickets were bought not by Ms Cattermole, but by an official in the chief executive’s office on a corporate credit card. That spending would have been signed off by either Ms Cattermole herself, or by someone under her, and then paid by the town hall’s finance team – a team headed up by the director of finance, Chris Naylor….who I’m told has just landed a job as the top officer at Barnet Council.

Through this one transaction, we see the incompetence throughout the council.

1. Officers think it’s OK to spend £855 of our money on two luxury rail tickets.

2. They think no one will notice.

3. The press office thinks it can bury its head in the sand by telling journalists it won’t comment, but then U-turning.

4. And then they think they can play with words to imply the money had always been reimbursed…(contrary to the original FoI answer).

They really do think we’re fools, these people who run our council.

Another Freedom of Information request to Tower Hamlets council hits the mark. Mind you, it’s not difficult.

In the Sunday Express today: (the FoI disclosures are here and here).

BRITAIN’S most impoverished council spent £855 on a pair of first class rail tickets for two officials to attend a conference a couple of hours away.

Tower Hamlets Council in east London bought the tickets for children’s services director, Isobel Cattermole, and her deputy Ann Canning to travel to Manchester last July.

They attended the annual conference of the Association of Directors for Children’s Services, a two-hour train journey from London’s Euston station that normally costs £72 for a standard off-peak return.

However, the directors, who both earn around £116,000 a year, were given first class open returns on Virgin Rail, the most expensive tickets available, costing £427.50 each.

The spending, described by a minister as “disgraceful”, would have bought two return airfares from London to New York, with change to spare.

Tower Hamlets is the poorest borough in Britain where more than half of all secondary pupils receive free school meals.

When asked to justify the spending, the council said: “Open tickets are sometimes purchased to allow officers greater flexibility with travel times, where conferences finish early/late, or officers need to leave early due to unforeseen circumstances.”

However, conference organisers told the Sunday Express the conference began at 1.45pm on a Thursday and finished mid-afternoon the next day, both times allowing standard off-peak travel.

The council’s press office refused to disclose its policies for staff travel, saying it needed a request under the Freedom of Information Act, but a leaked document confirms officers are required to travel by standard class.

“Travelling expenses will be reimbursed at the available cheap rate or ordinary return fare, whichever is the lower,” the policy states.

Last night, Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis waded into the row.

He said: “It is disgraceful that the poorest borough in the country has such a reckless attitude to spending taxpayers cash. This kind of wild spending is all too typical of left wing councils who have a casual attitude to the public purse”

Roberty Oxley, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, described the spending as “incredible”, adding: “The rest of us could have flown half way round the world for that much money.

“It certainly appears that taxpayer value for money has taken a back seat to the directors’ desire for extra convenience and comfort.”

The council insists Whitehall spending cuts are causing so much hardship that the town hall is being forced to sell off the family silver.

Last week, its executive mayor, Lutfur Rahman, who hires a chauffeured Mercedes at a rate of £70 a day, announced a sale of the borough’s famous Henry Moore sculpture, the Draped Seated Woman, which is worth about £20million to plug a claimed £100million funding gap.

I think if I were a councillor, I’d be asking who requested this ticket, who authorised it, how many more are there, what trains these two actually took and what on earth was going through Ms Cattermole’s mind as she sat down in first class.