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20 Jul, 4 tweets, 2 min read
TH Council made a £3.5 million surplus last year from COVID
Spent £41.7 million extra but received £45.2 million from government + £8.4 million to be moved to 2021/22
Last August TH Council said they need to spend £60 million more than expected on COVID, promised £30 million
1/
they said by government
So contrary to all of the claims government did step up & gave TH Council more money than they needed last year
+ extra money also for 2021/22 not detailed in this Cabinet report!
See 6.11
democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/ieListDocument…
2/
Overall summary (figures in brackets are positive / income i.e. good news )
+ moving £4 million to reserves i.e. building up reserves - like putting £ into a bank
This contradicts almost everything the Council said about its finances in 2020/21
There are still risks in 2021/22
3/
especially around business rates income so not out of the woods, we need workers back in their offices & in shops
But this shows how risk-averse Council is & that you cannot rely on Council press releases
I am still looking at detail as in Feb. they forecast a bigger surplus
4/

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More from @Andrewwood17

Andrew Wood Profile picture
21 Jul
NOX Update on enforcement
As you may know a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) was made in April to ban the use of Nitrous Oxide aka laughing gas aka NoX in Tower Hamlets, as their use not normally illegal
A key point is that while the Police can use these powers to issue
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fines for using NOX, they won't be using them as apparently it is not practical ⬇️to train Police officers on how to issue a Fixed Penalty Notice so only Tower Hamlets Enforcement Officers will issue them!
Approved on the 28th of April 2021 and legal as soon as signs put up
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Tower Hamlets Enforcement Officers started to enforce the PSPO on the 24th of May 2021, a month later, a PSPO only lasts 36 months
Hot Spot locations have been identified and offices tasked using the Safer Neighbourhood Operations tasking process.
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Read 6 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
21 Jul
A Labour motion tonight at the full Council meeting will say local government employment has fallen by 900,000 people, true but misleading
Central government employment went up!
When a local authority school converts to academy, staff move from local to central government
1/ ImageImage
So around 600,000 of the reduction is change in classification
But there will be other changes going on as well as Councils outsourced & TUPEd staff
So hard to tell what the true change in local government employment was but almost certainly still a reduction overall
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2,917k employed in local government 2010 down to 2,006k in 2020 = 911k decline
Academy numbers 30k in 2010 up to 606k in 2020
Note total government no. down though but there have been lots of other moves i.e. the banks, housing associations so hard to understand true pic
3/ ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
21 Jul
I sent this email at 11.40pm last night because I got frightened reading a presentation for a Cllr briefing session on Thursday about something called the Savills report on £ for homes
I always avoid sending emails after 9pm, when you are tired you make mistakes but after
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reading the presentation I had to say something before Thursday
The email was to Council officers & other members of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee who have been asking for a mysterious report written by @Savills about how we finance existing & new home
See background below
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Why the fear on my side?
Croydon Council went bankrupt in part because it did not manage the finances related to the subject of this report
How did opposition Cllrs at Croydon miss this or fail to stop it?
What am I missing & do not understand?
2/ Image
Read 8 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
20 Jul
Tower Hamlets has total useable reserves + working capital (projects underway) as at March = £615.5 million! less some borrowing
But £5 million has been lent to Slough Council at only 0.35% interest - they went 'bankrupt' in July, £5m due back 13th Aug
1/
 democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/documents/s188…
We will get the money back but it shows that lending money to other local authorities means generally poor rates of interest (well below inflation) & not as risk free as we thought
2/
 getreading.co.uk/news/reading-b…
£95.9 million is in cash or overnight deposits - minimal interest
Not sure why we need to borrow from banks £17.5 m at 4.34%
The internal borrowing £341 m there is no detail on
What happened to housing programme investments?
Still too much I do not understand
3/
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
14 Jul
Last year Tower Hamlets Councillors cost you taxpayers £904,552
Are we value for money?
Which Cllr’s work hard on your behalf?
Some analysis
The following is not a 100% accurate record but is indicative of who works & who does not
But you also need to consider other factors
1/
1st how many Members Enquiries have they submitted in the last 3 years?
Marc Francis 1,658 & Rabina Khan 1,492 top the list by some margin
Two Deputy Mayors come 2nd Sirajul Islam 895, Rachel Blake 653 (some lucky people in Bow East)
I am 8th out of 45 on 402
Top 15 below
2/
Bottom 15 - reminder these are over 3 years i.e. 6 in 3 years!
Some may claim they do by email to officers but we are not supposed to do that except in an emergency & how do they know which officers deal with issues?
Note Harun Miah & Rajib Ahmed elected Feb 2019
3/
Read 15 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
12 Jul
Trying to understand the governments poor response to fire safety has been difficult, why make such a mess of it?
I think there are a variety of reasons
This article suggests donations are a part of it but I also think perhaps even more importantly are
1/
 theguardian.com/society/2021/j…
conversations that go on behind the scenes from the people that donate money to Ministers etc
It was not the £12k cost of a table that helped decide Robert Jenrick to approve the Westferry Printworks but the conversations that happened at the dinner table between the minister,
2/
Richard Desmond & his snr mgmt team
We still do not know what was said but I suspect it was a bunch of reasons why Jenrick should encourage more housebuilding + difficulties developers operate under, Minister can you help us, not Minister here is £££ can you fix it for us
The
3/
Read 8 tweets

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