Category Archives: Helen Bailey
Council chief execs reject their £6,000+ pay offer as ‘pettiness’
Town Hall reporter KEN LEE on an outbreak of militancy among local authority workers who are paid upwards of £180,000 per year Could cash-strapped Croydon Council be about to be hit by a strike over pay and conditions by its … Continue reading
Bailey holds urgent talks seeking Viridor bail-out for SDEN
Our environment correspondent, PAUL LUSHION, on the backroom deals that have been going on to try to salvage Sutton Council’s struggling heat network business Helen Bailey, the chief exec at Liberal Democrat-controlled Sutton, has been holding emergency talks with incinerator … Continue reading
Covid outbreak forces LibDems to postpone council meeting
CARL SHILTON on the latest accusations of stunts and mistrust on Sutton Council, where the ruling group fears losing key votes Sutton’s Liberal Democrats last night postponed a scheduled meeting of the full council, in a move suspected to have … Continue reading
Dombey’s dodgy LibDems’ handbrake turn over dirty diesel
Viridor and Ruth Dombey’s dodgy Liberal Democrats are so worried about the latest attempts to increase the volume of rubbish burned at the Beddington Lane incinerator, and the use of vast amounts of dirty diesel to do so, that they … Continue reading
Opposition renews call for full-scale fraud probe into SDEN
Independent review finds that the loss-making, council-owned district heating network has less of a business case, and is more of a basket case, reports CARL SHILTON Richard Simpson, the senior council official who helped unleash the £200million disaster that is … Continue reading
Heat network’s plan depends on 75 homes that don’t exist
THE SUTTON COVER-UP: While opposition councillors ask the LibDem-controlled council ‘What have you got to hide?’ over the suppressed findings of a fraud investigation, we can reveal that the business ‘plan’ for the misfiring heating network included 75 homes that … Continue reading
Sutton chiefs block opposition from seeing fraud report
Our Sutton investigations editor, CARL SHILTON, on the latest strokes being pulled by the LibDem-controlled council Tonight, there is a meeting of the Sutton Shareholdings Board, the committee that exercises the corporate shareholder and governance responsibilities of Sutton Council’s privately-held … Continue reading
MP Colburn in ‘angry’ row with Sutton over faulty heat network
The hot water supplied to Hackbridge’s New Mill Quarter might be lukewarm, but the political row over the council’s faulty heating network is close to boiling point, as our Sutton correspondent, CARL SHILTON, reports The MP who represents thousands of … Continue reading
Calls for Sutton’s CEO to resign over secret letter to Morrison’s
Our investigations editor, CARL SHILTON, on an attempted land grab by a council chief executive that has caused anger among councillors in two boroughs – and which has favoured the work of a senior Croydon councillor’s firm of architects There … Continue reading
Crowe flies from Sutton leaving £30,000 legal bill behind her
Our Sutton reporter, BELLE MONT, on the latest high-profile departure from the Civic Offices So, farewell then, Jessica Crowe. Sutton Council’s £100,000 per year “assistant director of customers, commissioning and governance” (whatever that is supposed to mean) is off to … Continue reading
Council issues false information as they cover their FoI tracks
Following our exclusive report last week on how Sutton was cynically trying to frustrate public questions submitted through a widely accepted online platform, the council quickly issued a statement. But what they claimed was not entirely true. CARL SHILTON picks … Continue reading
Sutton’s efforts to block public FoIs back-fires for Bailey
CARL SHILTON on the latest blunder in efforts to block public accountability at the LibDem-controlled council A blatant attempt by a south London council to shut down transparency and close off a well-respected and well-used online tool for putting Freedom … Continue reading
Sutton’s Bailey moves over Cognus as SEND pressure mounts
A crisis over provision of SEND services has forced the council’s chief exec to take urgent action, appointing a director to the company in charge Sutton stages a full council meeting tonight at which the borough’s provision of services for … Continue reading
Council goes to court to fight Info Commissioner ruling
A business report into Sutton’s heat network scheme is being kept secret by the LibDem-controlled council. And now they’re spending more public cash on an appeal to keep the report under wraps, as CARL SHILTON reports Ruth Dombey, the leader … Continue reading
LibDem at centre of cronyism row is handed £150,000 top job
BELLE MONT, our Sutton reporter, on how history appears to be repeating itself over the appointment of a chief exec for a Liberal Democrat council Ruth Dombey, the Liberal Democrat council leader in Sutton, yesterday helpfully confirmed Inside Sutton’s report … Continue reading
