Tamar Barrett, a company director who has been a Labour councillor for almost four years, has never submitted an accurate declaration of interest. Tonight, the councillor is seeking reselection in Thornton Heath.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Foregone conclusion?: Ben Taylor has never been a councillor. Thornton Heath Cllr Tamar Barrett has never completed a truthful declaration of interest form. Both are up for selection tonight
A councillor who is expected at a Labour selection meeting tonight has been breaking the law on disclosures of interest throughout her entire term at the Town Hall.
Tamar Barrett was one of three Labour councillors elected for Thornton Heath ward in May 2022.
According to official Companies House records, Barrett has been a director of Lioness Pride CIC since December 2016, originally under the name Tamar Nwafor.
But since filing her first declarations of interest more than three years ago, Barrett, 29, has never declared this directorship to Croydon Council. She’s managed during her time as a councillor to request the council changes her name on its website, but she’s never managed to update – or correct – her declarations of interest.
Under Section 30 of the Localism Act 2011, all councillors are required to keep their register of interests up to date. It is unlawful to submit a false declaration.
The council’s Code of Conduct also requires openness, transparency and honesty of all Croydon staff and its elected members.
According to council records, Barrett has attended almost 40 meetings since becoming a councillor. Elected members are asked, at the start of every piece of formal council business, to declare any interests that they might have. It does not seem that Barrett has ever made a peep about her company directorship at any of those meetings.
According to Croydon Council, it is the responsibility of councillors, “… to update their register of interests within 28 days of becoming aware of any new interest or of a change to a registered interest”.
In Barrett’s case, that one-month grace period has been extended to 36 months.
Because Barrett has never declared any interests at all.
Drawing a blank: Tamar Barrett’s one and only declaration of interest was done in 2022, and failed to include her company directorship
Although an enthusiastic deliverer of Labour leaflets and eager participant in campaign selfies, Barrett has hardly impressed as a councillor in her three years at the Town Hall.
Throughout all of 2024, Barrett (or Nwafor as was) managed to do just 10 pieces of casework on behalf of residents in Thornton Heath, one of the borough’s most deprived wards.
Barrett is paid almost £12,000 per year in councillor allowances, yet she was averaging less than one piece of casework for residents per month.
Lioness Pride CIC is hardly a major business concern. Barrett is probably making very little, if any, money from it. But that’s not the point.
Registered at a private address in Bury St Edmunds, Lioness Pride is listed as providing “other business support service activities”. The business, or the people running it, appear to have found it a bit of a struggle to file their accounts on time, as is required by the law.
According to its last set of accounts, Lioness Pride had an annual turnover of a little more than £9,000 in 2023. The accounts were signed off by Tamar Nwafor as a company director.
The size of any business is irrelevant as far as the requirements of the Localism Act are concerned. Whatever the size of a company, a directorship must be declared by elected councillors.
On her council declaration form, published by the council on July 25, 2022, Barrett has declared that she has no job, no company partnerships, and no directorships, and with no partner in work or involved in any companies. It is impossible to know if any of that is true, although other public records suggest that Barrett’s declaration about directorships is false.
As predicted: when is a selection meeting not a selection meeting? When it is a Labour selection meeting
Yet law-breaker Barrett will tonight be attending the Thornton Heath ward selection meeting having been “approved” as a potential local election candidate by Labour’s all-powerful NEC and the party’s London region officials. She may even have the endorsement of Rowenna Davis, the party’s candidate for Croydon Mayor, whose name, face and slogan is appearing across all Labour material being thrust through Croydon letter boxes.
That, though, will hardly be reassuring to Labour’s grassroots members who have already expressed serious concerns about the anti-democratic manner in which “selections” have been conducted so far.
Last night, Broad Green ward actually held a kind of selection meeting.
Given the failure of Croydon Council lawyers, as well as the Labour group’s chief whip and leadership, to ensure that councillors are respecting and following the law, is there any chance tonight that a Labour official might step in and reverse their decision that Tamar Barrett is an “approved” candidate?
Barrett is the sixth Croydon councillor that Inside Croydon investigations have discovered to have broken the law and the council’s Code of Conduct by failing to make proper declarations or submitting a false declaration.
In December 2024, we reported how Conservative council cabinet member Scott Roche had not updated his record for two years, instead providing false and misleading information.
No disciplinary action has been taken by the council or the party groups in any of the cases. Barrett’s case is the longest-running false declaration to have been discovered during this council term.
NEC approved: MP Ellie Reeves has rubber-stamped all Croydon Labour candidates
We approached Councillor Barrett to offer her the opportunity to explain why she has been so thoroughly useless at doing some basic personal admin. We received no response.
We approached Croydon Council to explain why its checks on councillors’ interests remain non-existent. A reply has been equally non-existent.
And we approached south London MP Ellie Reeves, the chair of Labour’s National Executive Committee, to ask why she has approved as a potential election candidate someone who has proved incapable of respecting and following the law. But the time has long passed when anyone expected Labour’s NEC to be held to account, and there had been no reply before publication.
Why is any of this important?
Declarations of interest are there to ensure that no one on the council – staff as well as councillors – are getting back-handers or that any company they are involved with is being handed lucrative contracts without proper procurement being observed.
Croydon Council is a basket-case local authority in large part because it has failed to get the basics right, like keeping accurate and up-to-date records.
There is a mechanism within the council for keeping a check on councillors’ (and council staff’s) register of interests, a responsibility that falls to the Monitoring Officer, the council’s most senior lawyer, Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense.
Approved: Tony Newman was deemed to be fit for public office by Labour, once
It was the failure to keep proper checks and balances in place that contributed to the council’s tailspin into bankruptcy in 2020. Nothing appears to have been learned from those mistakes.
It was the Labour Party who approved of Tony Newman as a council candidate and senior party official. It was Newman who allowed his mate, Paul Scott, to dodge making any declarations for six years, including when he chaired the council planning committee.
And it is the Labour Party who have allowed Barrett to put her name forward to stand again next May.
But the most worrying thing about all of this is that if £150,000 per year council lawyer Lawrence-Orumwense and his legal team are missing this kind of routine stuff, what else are they failing to keep a check on, too?
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
Read more: Local Labour members angry at ‘travesty’ of selection process
Read more: ‘No records’ after council hired Starmer ally to advise leader
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There is no surprise at the unlawful act by this councillor with low members enquiries and a supposedly over paid ineffective legal team for the council! Will Croydon Labour, London Labour or the NEC take any action in this wrong doing?
Stop asking rhetorical questions that you already know the answer to, Les…
Lioness CIC has net assets of -£11.49K, a huge debt ratio of 1782% and was under threat of compulsory strike-off. That was discontinued in April, presumably because somebody it owes money to wants it back.
‘Company Director’! Back in the day I remember magistrates courts stuffed with defendents described as ‘Company Directors’. N’er do wells – all of ’em