Vulnerable children in Waltham Forest have been put at risk due to council failures, a damning Ofsted report has found following an unannounced inspection of its children and young people’s services department in June.
A result of this failure is the department’s deputy director, Linda Cointepas, has
left the authority by “mutual agreement” and executive director, Chris Kiernan (allegedly a card carrying Labour supporter), is to ‘retire’ at the end of this month. Both, no doubt, with largess ‘golden handshakes’.
But what of the politicians responsible for this service?
The Labour Party have been responsible for this critical area of the councils services for well over a decade yet the current Portfolio Lead for Children and Young People, Cllr Saima Mahmud, has left commenting to a ‘spokesperson’.
We don’t expect the chair of the Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee, Cllr Ebony Vincent, to give this serious matter full and proper attention as we understand she is more interested in reporting to the Scrutiny Management Committee her activities with Walthamstow MP, Stella Creasy, and Cllr Mahmud!
Ironically, Leyton & Wanstead Labour MP, John Cryer, has an article on his website accusing Boris Johnson and the Government of “…shredding our services and putting our children’s futures at risk!”
Previous Councillors responsible for Children and Young People services are the councils ‘strong leader’, Chris Robbins (allegedly close friend of Chris Kiernan) and Liaquat Ali. Enough said!!!
You hit the nail firmly on the head.
No handy Liberals to finger this time.
Ministers are looking on with interest.
A year or two ago I first encountered Mr Kiernan at a Community Council, where people were raising concern about an issue new to me, a proposal to build a large school on the old Essex County Cricket Ground, which is charitable land held in trust for youth recreation. He stood before us to defend the proposal, and said among other things, ‘there is no need to inform the Charity Commission’. As a direct result of this sincere assurance, local people queued up to inform the Charity Commission, who were most interested to hear that LBWF planned to build – and had already extensively built – on land they did not own. In a long letter to me subsequently, he blamed the legal advice he had been given: how much would a five-minute telephone call have cost? (How much did the legal advice, for that matter?)
Apparently Mr Kiernan has been heard to describe himself as ‘an old-style socialist’. I’ve no objection to people bringing their ideals to work, but his resemblance to Kier Hardie has escaped me so far.
Liaquat Ali you say? Indeed, enough said!