Government officials will oversee the running of Tower Hamlets Council after a new report raised fresh alarms about Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s leadership of the local authority.
Mayor Rahman previously served a five-year ban from office due to his corrupt practices but was re-elected in 2022 under his Aspire party.
However, a new report by Government inspectors sent in by the previous Conservative Government and released yesterday said there was a lack of trust between the different political parties, and a subsequent churn of top officials.
The findings included a belief among staff that managers had left the organisation as a result of ‘speaking truth to power.’ The council suffered from a “weak and confused” culture of scrutiny, where “due process is often treated as an obstacle to priorities rather than as a necessary check and balance”.
There was also a “suspicious and defensive” internal culture, based around Rahman and a his group of allies, which the inspectors said was “toxic”.
The inspection team was sent in after the Local Government Association flagged numerous concerns with how the Council was being led. The LGA report revealed a lack of trust between the mayor’s office and senior officers, and a lack of permanent staff in various key positions. Officials warned about the danger of “replicating” the circumstances of Mayor Rahman’s past.
The new inspecting team will closely monitor the decisions made by Rahman and his leadership team. At this stage, officials are referring to this as a “support package” to help the authority make improvements.
Tower Hamlets Council told ELL they “are committed to working with the Government and look forward to working with the Ministerial envoy to build on the good Peer Review [they] received from the Local Government Association”.
Mayor Rahman was first accused of cronyism and potential corruption in November 2014. He was removed from office in 2015 after an election commissioner found him guilty of election fraud. Rahman and his supporters were found to be utilising religious intimidation, vote-rigging and falsely branding his Labour rival, John Biggs, as a racist in order to gain power. Ofcom reported a clear implication that “authority monies were spent inappropriately on political advertising benefitting the mayor”, breaching the Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity.
Rahman was also disqualified on the grounds of corrupt and illegal practices as the council’s grant system lacked rationale, clear objectives and transparency. It was found that around £400,000 was awarded to organisations ruled ineligible or not meeting required evaluation scores for grants. Some groups had even obtained cash without applying for it.
Then communities secretary Edward Pickles told the Commons at the time that Rahman dispensed public money like a “medieval monarch” and headed an administration that was “at best dysfunctional”.
Rahman was re-elected as mayor two years after returning to local politics through Aspire, a new independent party that included some of his old political allies. The party has come under criticism forexclusively consisting of British-Bangladeshi men.
Aspire recently lost majority on Tower Hamlets council after several councillors resigned from the party over policy disagreements. Labour could now seek to chair key committee meetings if they gain the support of the rising number of ungrouped councillors.
