Archive | Issues

This series of articles brings together recent, documented failures at Hillingdon Council.  Individually, each might be dismissed as an error or an oversight.  Taken together, and set alongside formal audit warnings and resident complaints, they raise a more serious question about whether the Council’s systems of governance, financial control and accountability are functioning as they […]

Finally, we must ask whether the administration is listening to its own auditors.  Last summer, Ernst & Young (EY) issued a rare Section 24 Recommendation, warning of “systemic weaknesses” in financial governance and “unreliable forecasts.” Crucially, this warning came after the Council had already launched its £1.8 million Finance Modernisation Programme and Governance Review in […]

To make sound decisions – whether on multi-million pound budgets or local planning applications – a Council must rely on accurate, up-to-date evidence.  Yet, we are seeing a recurring pattern where significant decisions in Hillingdon are being driven by data that is demonstrably wrong, cherry-picked, or simply does not exist. This is not just a […]

Just last month, the Cabinet approved a massive spend to replace the Council’s Planning IT system.  Despite assurances over recent years that our feedback would be taken into consideration and that we would be involved in working on the new system to avoid the bugs of the current one, the decision to purchase a new […]

Most residents know when their home insurance is due; they shop around in good time. Yet for the second year running, the Council has used “Special Urgency” powers to renew the Council’s insurance policy at the last minute in November, automatically waiving the usual scrutiny period. In the case of the insurance renewal, the decision […]