Let’s Dance Again CIO: Current Status of the Governance Record

A comprehensive Master Foundation Document (“MFD”) has now been consolidated in relation to Let’s Dance Again CIO.

This document is not a social media argument, not a personality clash, and not a campaign against community activity. It is a structured governance record bringing together correspondence, witness material, public posts, regulatory issues, data protection concerns, exclusion evidence, and Freedom of Information disclosures concerning the charity’s operation and oversight.

At its core, the issue remains simple: trustees of a registered charity have been asked clear and repeated questions about governance, financial oversight, safeguarding, conflicts of interest, data handling, and procedural fairness. Those questions have not been substantively answered.

The Trustees

The Charity Commission record shows the trustees as:

• Elaine Costigan
• Debora Dawn Price
• Janet Clarke

These individuals carry the legal responsibility for the governance and conduct of the charity.

That responsibility cannot be delegated away. It cannot be answered by supporters. It cannot be replaced by slogans, public outrage, or moral grandstanding on social media.

What the MFD Now Contains

The current MFD brings together, in one working record:

• Charity Commission status and trustee details
• Published financial summaries and comparator concerns
• Formal governance questions sent to trustees
• A formal data protection complaint
• A Subject Access Request and subsequent non-response
• Exclusion material affecting older beneficiaries
• Witness statements and contemporaneous accounts
• Public posts and comments by non-trustees acting in defence of the charity
• Evidence of trustee acquiescence in that conduct
• FOI disclosures from Sandwell Council concerning Wednesbury Town Hall
• An internal review request challenging the adequacy of that FOI response
• A chronology of escalation and unanswered issues

The purpose of the MFD is not theatrical. It is evidential.

The Core Governance Issues

The present record raises serious questions in the following areas.

1. Trustee Non-Response

Formal written questions have been sent to trustees on multiple occasions covering governance, safeguarding, data handling, exclusions, financial oversight, conflicts of interest, and public statements made on behalf of or in defence of the charity.

No substantive written response has been provided addressing the totality of those issues.

Silence, in these circumstances, is not neutral. It becomes part of the governance record.

2. Exclusion and Procedural Fairness

The record includes evidence of an exclusion letter issued to an older beneficiary, stating that the decision was final and not subject to appeal.

That raises obvious concerns about:

• natural justice,
• proportionality,
• consistency,
• and whether proper procedures were followed.

Where a charity serving older people excludes individuals without transparent process or review, scrutiny is not optional. It is necessary.

3. Data Protection and Special Category Data

Serious questions were raised regarding the collection and handling of personal data, including health-related information and emergency contact details.

Those questions included:

• who is the data controller,
• what lawful basis is relied upon,
• how forms are stored,
• who has access,
• and what safeguards exist where vulnerable people are involved.

Those concerns were not trivial and were put formally.

A later Subject Access Request was also submitted. As matters stand, the apparent failure to respond within time materially aggravates the data-protection picture.

4. Financial Transparency

The published income and expenditure figures do not obviously sit comfortably with the visible scale of activity carried on by the charity.

That is not an accusation of proven wrongdoing. It is a legitimate transparency concern.

Where there are:

• weekly activities,
• regular events,
• frequent use of public venues,
• and multiple streams of visible community operation,

it is reasonable to ask whether the published financial record fully reflects the operational reality, and whether trustees have exercised adequate financial oversight.

5. Conflict of Interest and USP Steels

A further unresolved issue concerns the public association between the charity and USP Steels, a company connected to the Chair’s son.

Questions were asked about:

• the nature and value of any support,
• what the company receives in return,
• whether any conflict was formally declared,
• whether trustee meetings approved the arrangement,
• and whether any branding or public association with Wednesbury Town Hall was known to or accepted by the council.

These are standard conflict-of-interest questions. They remain unanswered.

The Role of Non-Trustees

One of the clearest patterns in the record is that a non-trustee has repeatedly acted as the public voice of attack and retaliation while trustees themselves have remained substantively silent.

That conduct has included:

• personal attacks,
• legal-threat rhetoric,
• repeated public escalation,
• attempts to drag in third-party venues and organisations,
• and efforts to reframe governance scrutiny as harassment or hate.

That is not a proper substitute for trustee accountability.

A charity’s governance cannot lawfully be outsourced to an unofficial attack dog.

What the FOI Has Added

The FOI response from Sandwell Council materially strengthened the record.

It confirmed:

• extensive and repeated use of Wednesbury Town Hall,
• a period of free-use arrangements for community groups,
• a real funding relationship between council and charity,
• council awareness of complaints,
• and, strikingly, the apparent absence of written policy, criteria or guidance governing free use or preferential access during the relevant period.

That matters.

Where a charity is making repeated use of a public building, supported by public grant funding, and concerns are later raised about exclusion, fairness and safety, the expectation of proper governance is stronger, not weaker.

An internal review has now been requested because parts of the FOI response appear incomplete or overly reliant on applicant-supplied documents rather than independent council due diligence.

What This Is Not

This is not an attempt to shut down community activity.

It is not an attack on older people attending events.

It is not an attack on volunteers acting lawfully and properly.

It is not a hate campaign.

It is a documented effort to ensure that a registered charity serving older and potentially vulnerable beneficiaries is run:

• lawfully,
• transparently,
• fairly,
• and in accordance with trustee duties.

The Current Status

As matters stand, the position is this:

• The MFD has been consolidated into a structured evidential record.
• Trustees remain the central decision-makers and legal officeholders.
• Formal governance questions remain unanswered.
• Exclusion and fairness concerns remain live.
• Data protection concerns remain unresolved.
• The SAR issue remains serious.
• FOI disclosures have strengthened the public-interest case for scrutiny.
• The internal review process is now engaged.
• The conflict-of-interest strand remains unanswered.
• Public attacks by non-trustees have not displaced trustee responsibility.

Final Position

This matter is not becoming more trivial with time. It is becoming more defined.

The longer trustees do not answer clear governance questions, the more the absence of answers becomes evidential in itself.

The issue is no longer whether scrutiny was justified.

It plainly was.

The issue is whether the trustees of Let’s Dance Again CIO intend to discharge their duties properly, transparently, and on the record.

Until then, the MFD stands as the clearest available account of the present governance position.

#LetsDanceAgain #CharityGovernance #TrusteeAccountability #Wednesbury #Safeguarding #GDPR #FinancialTransparency #FOI #SandwellCouncil #WednesburyTownHall #CharityCommission #PublicInterest

Three Friar Park Approvals. Three Warning Signs. One Planning Culture Problem.- DC/25/70154, DC/24/69650 and DC/23/68742.

Three Friar Park Approvals. Three Warning Signs. One Planning Culture Problem.

Let’s get one thing straight from the start.

Friar Park Urban Village (FPUV) has not yet had its main planning application submitted.

So this article is not about attacking an application that does not yet formally exist.

It is about something arguably more important:

👉 the pattern already visible in three separate approved applications in the same Friar Park area:

• DC/25/70154
• DC/24/69650
• DC/23/68742

Taken together, these approvals raise serious questions about:

• planning standards
• evidence gaps
• governance
• policy compliance
• transparency
• and whether the council is drifting into habits that bear the hallmarks of maladministration

Not proven maladministration, no.
But enough red flags to justify asking the question loudly.

And repeatedly.

This is not one bad application. It is a pattern.

Any one planning application can be messy.
Any one officer report can be debatable.
Any one set of conditions can be argued over.

But when you start seeing the same defects across multiple applications in the same area, the issue stops being “an error” and starts becoming a culture.

That is where Friar Park now sits.

Across these three applications, the same themes keep appearing:

• incomplete evidence at determination stage
• major issues kicked into planning conditions
• weak or missing cumulative assessment
• strange absence of recorded internal debate
• “NIL” FOI responses that do not sit comfortably with the documents actually disclosed
• and repeated signs that difficult matters are being parked for later rather than resolved before permission is granted

In other words:

approve first, sort it later, and record as little as possible.

DC/25/70154 — approved with gaps still live

This application is one of the clearest examples of the problem.

The council’s own disclosed material shows that noise concerns were still being actively queried before determination.

Calculations were challenged.
Clarification was requested.
Further information was sought.
An extension of time was needed to resolve outstanding issues.

That is not a clean, settled evidence base. That is an application with live technical uncertainty.

The biodiversity position was no better.

The ecology side effectively accepted that proper Biodiversity Net Gain detail was not in place at the point it should have been, and that key matters could simply be dealt with later through standard post-permission conditions.

So let’s be honest about what that means.

It means permission was being advanced while important ecological detail was still incomplete.

And yet when asked through FOI for records about:

• unresolved issues,
• concerns,
• risk,
• or the appropriateness of relying on conditions,

the council’s answer was largely:

NIL.

Apparently nobody was worried.
Nobody debated anything.
Nobody recorded any reservations.

Except the disclosed emails show that they clearly did.

That is not a minor inconsistency.
That is a governance problem.

DC/24/69650 — where the documents start telling a very different story

If 70154 is troubling, 69650 is positively instructive.

Because here the disclosed material begins to show how the sausage is made.

There were active discussions with the developer.
There were highways concerns.
There were layout issues.
There were SuDS constraints.
There were clear tensions between technical acceptability and maximising housing numbers.

In one strand, drainage choices were plainly being influenced by the desire not to lose plots.

In another, highways raised concerns over access standards, layout and future connectivity.

There were even internal comments suggesting that what was being counted toward biodiversity gain looked less like a thoughtful ecological solution and more like a left-over bit of land likely to become scrub and ASB territory.

That is not a model of robust planning.
That is a model of squeezing a scheme through.

And once again, when FOI requests asked for the internal risk thinking, balancing exercises, and recorded reasoning behind accepting these compromises?

The answer came back neat, sanitised and suspiciously empty.

NIL. NIL. NIL.

Only this time, the disclosed documents themselves show that is at best incomplete and at worst deeply misleading.

DC/23/68742 — the incredible vanishing paper trail

Then we come to 68742, the application where the council’s response was so devoid of internal record that it almost made the case on its own.

Planning? Nil.
Public Health? Nil.
Highways? Nil.
Environmental Protection? Nil.
Flood Risk? Nil.
Balancing exercise? Nil.
Why conditions instead of refusal? Nil.

For a development in this location, with this context, those responses are simply not credible.

And yet, in the same breath, the council still pointed to technical assessments and consultation responses that had evidently been received and considered.

So which is it?

Were there no internal records of any kind?

Or were the searches inadequate, the interpretation narrow, or the disclosure incomplete?

Because both positions cannot be true at once.

You cannot claim there was effectively no internal decision trail while also relying on technical consultation responses to justify the decision.

That is the kind of contradiction that should make every councillor, auditor and monitoring officer sit bolt upright.

The real issue: planning by condition, not by evidence

The most consistent theme across all three applications is not contamination alone, or noise alone, or BNG alone.

It is this:

key issues are not being fully resolved before approval.

Instead, there is repeated reliance on conditions to:

• investigate later,
• mitigate later,
• clarify later,
• submit proper detail later,
• and somehow clean up the evidential mess later.

Conditions are not unlawful. Of course they are not.

But they are not supposed to become a substitute for proper front-loaded planning judgment.

A planning authority should be able to explain:

• why the issue was safe to defer,
• why refusal was not justified,
• why the remaining uncertainty was acceptable,
• and how the decision still complied with policy despite those gaps.

That is exactly the kind of reasoning your FOIs have gone looking for.

And again and again, the answer has been a bureaucratic shrug.

No logs.
No drafts.
No concerns.
No debate.
No rationale.

For three separate applications.

At some point the absence of records becomes a record in itself.

Where are the cumulative assessments?

Another huge red flag is the lack of meaningful cumulative thinking.

These applications sit in the same broad Friar Park area.
They are not isolated islands.
They interact with the same strained transport corridors, the same air quality pressures, the same broader growth context, the same school-place problem, and the same nearby communities.

Yet the evidence trail for cumulative assessment appears painfully weak.

That matters because planning is not just about asking:

“Can this one scheme scrape through on paper?”

It is also about asking:

“What happens when these schemes are layered on top of each other in the real world?”

That question seems to have gone missing far too often.

Why this starts to look like maladministration

Let’s use careful language.

I am not saying maladministration has been formally proven.
That is for the appropriate body to determine.

But I am saying this:

These applications display traits consistent with possible maladministration, including:

• inadequate record-keeping
• inconsistent FOI responses
• failure to disclose obvious internal reasoning
• repeated reliance on conditions without visible justification
• fragmented rather than integrated assessment
• weak evidence of cumulative consideration
• and a planning culture that appears more focused on getting to “yes” than on evidencing why “yes” was safe, lawful and rational

That is not a throwaway criticism.

That is a serious governance warning.

And this matters before the FPUV application arrives

This is why these three applications matter so much.

Because the main FPUV application has not yet been submitted.

These applications are, in effect, the warning lights on the dashboard before the main engine failure.

If this is how smaller or linked applications in the same area are being handled now, what confidence should anyone have that the big one will suddenly be treated with immaculate rigour, pristine transparency and saintly caution?

Exactly.

Final word

The lesson from DC/25/70154, DC/24/69650 and DC/23/68742 is not simply that residents disagree with development.

It is that there is now a serious, evidence-backed basis for questioning how Sandwell is making planning decisions in the Friar Park area at all.

Three approvals.
Three sets of red flags.
Three signs of the same deeper problem.

And if nobody addresses that problem before the main FPUV application lands, then whatever comes next will not just be a planning application.

It will be the next chapter in a governance failure that everybody could already see coming.

#FriarPark #Sandwell #Planning #FOI #Governance #DC2570154 #DC2469650 #DC2368742 #ContaminatedLand #BNG #Noise #Highways #Wednesbury #LocalGovernment #Transparency

Friar Park: No Records. No Answers. No Accountability. And 600 Homes Anyway.

Friar Park: No Records. No Answers. No Accountability. And 600 Homes Anyway.

Let’s strip this right back.

Sandwell Council is pushing forward a development of 600+ homes on a former sewage works, next to the M6 motorway, inside a borough-wide Air Quality Management Area, with known risks around:

• contamination
• flooding
• air quality
• infrastructure
• school capacity

Fine. Development happens.

But here’s the problem.

👉 There is no recorded evidence showing how these risks were actually assessed internally.

None.

📂 I asked for the evidence. Here’s what came back:

Through multiple Freedom of Information requests, I asked a very simple thing:

Show me the internal thinking.

Emails. Risk logs. Officer discussions. Draft reports. Concerns raised. Decisions justified.

What did Sandwell Council say?

👉 “NIL”
👉 “No records held”
👉 “Nothing recorded”

Let that sink in.

A multi-million pound development on contaminated land…

…and apparently:

• no internal risk discussions
• no documented concerns
• no debate
• no justification for decisions

Either:

1. The records exist and aren’t being disclosed
or
2. The decisions were made without being properly recorded

Pick your poison — neither is acceptable.

🧱 Build first. Explain later.

The pattern is now obvious.

Instead of resolving risks upfront, the approach is:

👉 “Grant permission — deal with it later through conditions.”

But here’s the catch:

There is no recorded explanation for why that approach was considered acceptable.

No paper trail. No rationale. No accountability.

Just trust us.

🌫 Air quality? Apparently not discussed.

This site sits next to one of the busiest motorway corridors in the country.

Sandwell is already an Air Quality Management Area.

So naturally, you’d expect:

• internal discussions
• health impact considerations
• cumulative exposure analysis

Nope.

👉 FOI response: nothing held

Nothing.

☣️ Contamination and flood risk? Also “nothing”.

We’re talking about a former sewage works in a flood catchment.

So where are the internal discussions about:

• contaminant movement
• groundwater risk
• flood mobilisation
• long-term monitoring

Again:

👉 “NIL”

🚗 Transport, schools, SEND?

Same story.

Residents can already see:

• A4031 congestion
• Tame Bridge station overflowing
• school places stretched
• SEND provision already under pressure

So where is the modelling?

Where is the joined-up thinking?

Where is the cumulative impact assessment?

👉 Nowhere.

🧾 Consultation: box ticked, move on

Let’s talk about consultation.

Residents were consulted. Scrutiny raised concerns. Cabinet discussed it.

But here’s the key question:

👉 What actually changed as a result?

There is:

• no documented feedback loop
• no recorded influence
• no evidence decisions were altered

That’s not consultation.

That’s going through the motions.

🧵 Engagement: delay, deflect, disappear

When residents tried to engage directly?

• 6-week silence from officers
• no answers to detailed questions
• last-minute meeting offers
• then… silence again

Meanwhile, MPs?

• one response repeating the council line
• others not responding at all

👉 Everyone points somewhere else
👉 No one owns the answer

🏛 And the regulators?

Environment Agency?

👉 Refused to provide information — “manifestly unreasonable”

WMCA?

👉 Refused disclosure — no meaningful breakdown

Sandwell?

👉 “Nothing recorded”

🔁 Spot the pattern yet?

This is how it works:

1. Fragment the system
2. Limit what’s recorded
3. Delay what’s disclosed
4. Push everything into “conditions”
5. Keep moving forward

⚠️ And here’s the real risk

This isn’t just about Friar Park.

This is about a system where:

• decisions are made
• risks are known
• but no one formally records, owns or explains them

🧠 Final thought

If this development is safe, sustainable, and properly planned…

👉 Where is the evidence?

Because right now, the official position appears to be:

“Trust us — we’ve thought about it… we just didn’t write it down.”

🔥 Final line

A major housing scheme. On contaminated land. In an AQMA. With no recorded internal risk analysis, no cumulative assessment, and no meaningful engagement.

That’s not planning.

👉 That’s systemic failure.

#Sandwell #FriarPark #PlanningScandal #LocalGovernment #Accountability #FOI #Transparency #HousingCrisis #EnvironmentalRisk #AirQuality #GovernanceFailure #Wednesbury #BlackCountry

Imogen Walker Appointment, Morgan McSweeney, and Governance at Sandwell Council - an open letter to the Sandwell Council Leader

Dear Leader of Sandwell Council,

I am writing to you directly because the issues surrounding the appointment of Imogen Walker as Interim Head of the Leader’s Office at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council can no longer be dismissed as historic, speculative, or “local noise”.

The context has fundamentally changed.

Since concerns were first raised about that appointment, Morgan McSweeney — Ms Walker’s husband and a central figure in Labour’s national organisation — has now resigned as Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister following a series of serious national scandals involving political finance transparency, the targeting of journalists, failures of judgement over senior appointments, and a growing crisis of trust.

Against that backdrop, it is no longer acceptable for Sandwell Council to remain silent about how it governed itself during a period of instability and external scrutiny.

I therefore ask you, as Leader of Sandwell Council, to address the following matters clearly and on the public record.

First, who authorised the creation of the Interim Head of the Leader’s Office role, on what date, and under which specific constitutional or delegated power?

Second, what recruitment process was undertaken for this role? In particular, where are the job description, any advertisement, shortlist, interview notes, and scoring records that would normally accompany a senior appointment of this nature?

Third, why have Freedom of Information responses indicated that key records relating to this appointment are “not held or could not be located”? Was a proper decision-making and record-keeping process followed, yes or no?

Fourth, what consideration was given to conflicts of interest arising from Morgan McSweeney’s national role within the Labour Party at the time of the appointment? What steps were taken to identify, manage, or mitigate any such conflicts?

Fifth, what role, if any, did Mr McSweeney play — directly or indirectly — in discussions, recommendations, or decisions relating to this appointment?

Finally, in light of Mr McSweeney’s resignation and the wider national pattern that has since emerged, do you still maintain that the council’s handling of this appointment met acceptable standards of governance, transparency, and accountability? If so, on what documented basis?

These are not hostile questions. They are basic accountability questions that any local authority — particularly one with Sandwell’s recent governance history — should be able to answer without difficulty.

For several years, those raising concerns were told to stop asking questions. Recent national events demonstrate why those questions were not unreasonable.

Silence at this stage is no longer a neutral position. It is a political choice.

Sandwell residents deserve clarity on whether their council was vulnerable to external political influence, whether proper processes were followed, and whether lessons have been learned or ignored.

I would welcome a clear, substantive response.

Yours sincerely,

Darryl Magher

#Sandwell #SandwellCouncil #GovernanceFailure #TransparencyNow #Accountability #Cronyism #PoliticalAppointments #FollowThePaperTrail #FOI #PublicInterest #LocalGovernment #LabourParty #QuestionsRemain #OpenTheRecords

Sandwell Council, Imogen Walker, and the Curious Case of the Job That Just… Appeared

Sandwell Council, Imogen Walker, and the Curious Case of the Job That Just… Appeared

If you ever needed a case study in how not to inspire public confidence, allow me to introduce the saga of Imogen Walker, Sandwell Council, and the mysteriously self-assembling job role that apparently didn’t require paperwork, process, or—awkwardly—records.

Between August 2021 and shortly before the 2024 General Election, Walker held the rather grand title of Interim Head of the Leader’s Office at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council.

This was during that period at Sandwell. You know the one.
School transport chaos. Governance failures. LGA involvement. Government commissioners. Reputational freefall. A council so troubled it practically came with its own “under external supervision” sticker.

Naturally, this was the moment a politically sensitive, senior advisory role quietly materialised.

The role (not the bins, not safeguarding, but vibes)

To be clear, this wasn’t about fixing potholes or collecting bins. Walker was brought in to advise then council leader Rajbir Singh on communications, risk, and stakeholder relationships.

In other words: messaging, optics, and political damage control.

Nothing controversial there—except for the small detail that nobody seems able to produce the usual boring but important things like:

• a job advert
• a recruitment process
• interview notes
• a decision notice
• or even clarity on who actually authorised it

But we’ll come back to that.

Enter the Sandwell Skidder (and the awkward questions)

Much of the scrutiny comes from the Sandwell Skidder, which has been banging this drum for years and refusing to go away quietly. Rude of them, really.

The Skidder alleges the role was “rigged” and filled without any competitive process, describing it memorably as:

“a job quietly created and quietly filled, with the paperwork apparently nowhere to be found.”

Now, councils usually respond to this sort of thing by dumping a lever-arch file on the table and saying “here you go, end of story.”

Sandwell’s approach was… different.

FOI responses: the dog ate the paperwork

Freedom of Information requests asked some fairly basic questions. You’d think these would be easy:

• Who authorised the role?
• When was it created?
• What was the job description?
• Was there a recruitment process?
• Where are the records?

The responses, in essence, boiled down to:
“We don’t appear to hold that.”

No decision record.
No job description.
No interview notes.
No evidence of delegated authority.

At a council already under external scrutiny for governance failings, this was… not ideal.

But don’t worry — the council said it was part of a “restructure” and that similar roles exist elsewhere. Which is comforting, in the same way being told “other councils also lose paperwork” is comforting.

Contractor? Employee? Schrödinger’s adviser

Walker was reportedly engaged as an independent contractor, invoicing the council, with costs estimated around £50,000 a year.

Critics have noted that this arrangement conveniently sidesteps certain transparency thresholds, particularly around expenses and reporting. No accusation of illegality has been proven — but it does add another layer of “why this way?” to a story already thick with them.

Again: legality isn’t the only test. Credibility matters too.

And then there’s the London meeting…

The Sandwell Skidder also alleges that Walker’s appointment followed a meeting in London involving Singh and senior Labour figures, including Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney — who just happens to be Walker’s husband.

No minutes.
No diaries.
No emails.
No paper trail.

So at present this remains an allegation — albeit one that stubbornly refuses to die, largely because nobody has conclusively knocked it on the head with evidence.

Transparency has a habit of doing that. When it’s missing, rumours thrive.

From Sandwell to Westminster (promotion season)

Fast-forward to 2024 and Walker is selected as Labour’s candidate for Hamilton and Clyde Valley via the party’s Anonyvoter system — another black box critics say centralises control and sidelines local members.

Since becoming an MP, she’s been appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rachel Reeves and allocated additional Westminster office space. Entirely legitimate, we’re told. Just one of those coincidences that keep happening.

Local party members in Scotland, meanwhile, have expressed frustration about visibility and engagement — but that’s a story for another day.

The McSweeney pattern

None of this exists in a vacuum. Morgan McSweeney has spent years centralising control within Labour: deselections, imposed candidates, rule tweaks, and a style of politics best described as “discipline first, democracy later.”

Supporters credit him with professionalising Labour and winning elections. Critics call it a factional takeover with clipboards.

Then came the Mandelson episode — McSweeney backing Peter Mandelson for a senior role, only for it to implode spectacularly amid revelations about Epstein links, leading to outrage, apologies, and MPs sharpening knives.

At some point, patterns stop being coincidences.

So where does that leave Sandwell?

No court has ruled against Imogen Walker.
No regulator has made findings of misconduct.

But public trust isn’t built on “nothing technically illegal was proven.” It’s built on clarity, records, and transparency — especially in councils with a history like Sandwell’s.

Until the council can produce a clean, auditable trail explaining:

• how the role was created
• who authorised it
• how it was filled
• and why the records are missing

this story isn’t going anywhere.

Not because of bloggers.
Not because of politics.
But because opacity invites suspicion — and Sandwell has already spent too long earning it.

#Sandwell #GovernanceFailure #ImogenWalker #Transparency #FOI #LocalGovernment #LabourParty #Cronyism #PoliticalAppointments #PublicTrust #ReceiptsPending

Follow the Money. Follow the Power. Then Follow the Silence.

(A Master Update on Bangladeshi Women’s Association, Sandwell Consortium, and the accountability gap)

If you’ve been following this series, you’ll know we started with two simple questions:

1. Where is the money going?
2. Who actually holds the power?

We now need to add a third:

3. Why has nobody answered?

Because after weeks of formal correspondence, published accounts, FOI requests, chasers, and escalation to regulators, the most consistent response from those responsible has been… silence.

And when silence follows public money, it stops being neutral.

Part 1 – Follow the Money (Still No Answers)

Let’s start with the numbers, because numbers don’t have feelings.

Recent accounts for Bangladeshi Women’s Association show:

• Total reserves: £318,788
• Unrestricted reserves: £177,021
• Cash at bank: £344,179
• Staffing costs: £276,092 (up by ~£63,000)
• Income vs spend: £475,924 vs £479,601
• Result: £3,677 deficit

That’s a charity:

• holding substantial unrestricted reserves
• sitting on significant cash
• while continuing to rely heavily on public subsidy
• and increasing staffing costs sharply.

Reasonable people might ask:

• What is the reserves policy?
• Why aren’t unrestricted funds being used to reduce reliance on council and grant funding?
• What governance scrutiny approved this trajectory?

Those questions were asked.
They remain unanswered.

Part 2 – Follow the Power (Networks, Not Just One Charity)

This was never just about one organisation.

What emerged instead was a dense web of delivery bodies, advisory roles, and funding flows, repeatedly crossing paths with Sandwell Consortium and linked groups.

Across BWA, associated projects, and parallel bodies, the same issues recur:

• overlapping roles
• blurred lines between funder, delivery partner, and advisor
• weak separation between governance and operations
• no clear, published explanation of how conflicts are managed in practice

This is especially concerning where:

• public funding is involved
• intermediary organisations influence allocation
• individuals appear across multiple structures

Again, trustees were asked to explain.
Again, no response.

Part 3 – Assets, Centres, and the Missing Paper Trail

BWA manages publicly owned community assets, including:

• Tipton Muslim Community Centre
• Jubilee Park Community Centre

Yet there are:

• no published centre-level accounts
• no asset registers
• no disposal records

This matters, because public and grant funding has historically been used for:

• IT suites
• containers and marquees
• sports facilities and equipment
• CCTV and capital items

Perfectly reasonable questions were raised:

• What assets exist?
• What condition are they in?
• Has anything been replaced early?
• Has anything been disposed of?
• Were funders informed where required?

One persistent rumour concerned a perfectly serviceable IT suite potentially being replaced using reserves.

Clarification was requested.
Nothing was clarified.

Part 4 – Trustees: The Silence That Became the Story

At this point, matters were formally escalated to the Board of Trustees.

Dates matter, so here they are:

• 24 Nov 2025 – CEO contacted
• 2 Dec 2025 – Follow-up after non-substantive reply
• 7 Dec 2025 – Formal trustee escalation (14-day deadline)
• 15 Dec 2025 – Polite chaser
• 21 Dec 2025 – Deadline expired
• 28 Dec 2025 – Final notice issued

Result?

👉 No trustee acknowledged or replied.
👉 Not one.

At that point, silence stopped being a communications issue and became a governance issue.

Trustees don’t get to opt out. They don’t get to wait for someone to return from abroad. They don’t get to ignore documented concerns raised in good faith.

That’s not activism.
That’s charity law.

Part 5 – The Councillor Response (Or Lack Of One)

Parallel questions were raised with Cllr Syeda Khatun in her role as an elected member.

The response received:

• asserted compliance
• deflected substance
• declared issues “not applicable”
• and avoided clarification entirely

No explanation was provided for:

• financial governance concerns
• conflicts of interest questions
• or the relationship with Sandwell Consortium

Worse, concerns were raised that questions themselves were being reframed as something “scary”.

Let’s be clear: Asking evidence-based questions about public money is not intimidation.
It’s accountability.

Part 6 – Regulators Notified (Because There Was No Other Option)

With internal routes exhausted, matters were escalated to the Charity Commission, which has now formally acknowledged receipt and confirmed assessment is underway.

That escalation was not rushed. It was not theatrical. It was the inevitable consequence of repeated non-engagement.

When trustees refuse to engage, scrutiny doesn’t disappear.
It escalates.

What We Still Don’t Know

Despite months of opportunity, we still don’t know:

• the charity’s reserves policy
• how unrestricted funds are justified at current levels
• how conflicts with Sandwell Consortium are actively managed
• where centre-level financial accountability sits
• what assets exist, where they are, or their condition
• how trustees oversee staffing growth
• why no trustee has responded to any correspondence

And yes… some people are getting “Haqued Off.”

Final Thought

This was never about personalities. It was never about politics. It was about public money, public assets, and public trust.

Silence was a choice. Escalation was a consequence.

The door to transparency remains open. So far, nobody inside has walked through it.

#FollowTheMoney #FollowThePower #FollowTheSilence #BangladeshiWomensAssociation #BWA #SandwellConsortium #CharityGovernance #PublicMoney #TrusteeDuties #Accountability #Transparency #FOI #Sandwell #Tipton #CommunityCentres #CharityCommission #GovernanceFailure #UnansweredQuestions

Sandwell Consortium, the Funding Fog & the Art of Not Replying

If transparency were an Olympic sport, Sandwell’s voluntary-sector funding ecosystem would be the one event nobody ever turns up to explain.

Over recent months, a growing number of reasonable, evidence-based questions have been asked about Sandwell Consortium CIC — its governance, its funding, its role as an intermediary, and its position at the centre of Sandwell’s voluntary and community sector.

What followed was… silence.

Not the dignified silence of careful consideration.
More the radio-off, lights-out, hope-they-go-away variety.

A Quick Recap for Those Who’ve Lost the Plot

Sandwell Consortium CIC sits above delivery level. It isn’t just another community group running sessions and services. It’s an infrastructure and coordinating body, positioned as a hub between Sandwell Council and a network of voluntary organisations.

Between 2022 and 2024, it received around £1.66 million in public funding.

That alone should trigger:

• clear governance
• clear accountability
• clear performance reporting

Instead, what we see is:

• generic funding descriptions
• no publicly available KPIs
• no published outcomes
• and a governance structure featuring one individual director alongside corporate directors

Which is… unusual, to put it politely.

The Wider Ecosystem (or “Same Names, Different Meetings”)

Sandwell Consortium doesn’t exist in isolation. It sits within a tight ecosystem that includes delivery organisations such as BWA, CBO, and others who repeatedly appear across:

• funding discussions
• partnership boards
• consultation exercises
• community engagement spaces

That doesn’t mean wrongdoing.
But it does mean concentration of influence — and concentration always deserves scrutiny.

Particularly when:

• some organisations hold significant reserves
• others operate as intermediaries
• councillors and public office holders appear across the same landscape

At that point, asking questions isn’t “being difficult”.
It’s doing the bare minimum.

So We Asked. And Asked Again.

In December 2025, a detailed written request was sent to Sandwell Consortium CIC.
It asked for clarification — not accusations — on matters including:

• funding routes
• intermediary activity
• governance safeguards
• financial resilience
• and accountability mechanisms

No response.

In January 2026, the matter was escalated politely but firmly.
Still no response.
Not even an acknowledgement.

At which point, the options narrow considerably.

When Engagement Fails, Escalation Follows

This is the bit some people don’t like, but it’s how accountability works.

When:

• public money is involved
• reasonable questions are asked
• engagement is attempted
• and silence is the only reply

…then escalation is not optional. It’s inevitable.

Accordingly:

• matters have now been referred to relevant regulatory and authority bodies
• a formal record of engagement (and non-engagement) exists
• and FOI requests are outstanding to obtain further clarity on commissioning, oversight and monitoring arrangements

This wasn’t rushed.
It wasn’t done lightly.
And it certainly wasn’t done for fun.

What This Is — and What It Isn’t

Let’s be absolutely clear.

This is:

• about governance
• about transparency
• about accountability
• about confidence in public systems

It is not:

• an allegation of fraud
• an accusation of illegality
• a personal attack
• or a political stunt

If anything, it’s the dull, grown-up work that should be happening inside the system already.

The Uncomfortable Bit

The most uncomfortable part of all this isn’t the questions.
It’s how hard it seems to be to get answers.

Because when organisations receiving significant public funding won’t explain:

• how decisions are made
• how risks are managed
• how accountability works

…people will inevitably ask who benefits from the fog.

And once that question is in the air, silence is not your friend.

What Happens Next

For now, everything is documented, parked, and properly recorded.

We await:

• FOI responses
• regulatory consideration
• and any belated engagement that may yet appear

If and when new information emerges, it will be assessed, added, and published in the same way this has been handled so far: carefully, factually, and in the public interest.

Transparency is always easier before people start asking questions.

But once they are — ignoring them rarely ends well.

#Sandwell #SandwellConsortium #PublicMoney #Governance #Transparency #Accountability #VoluntarySector #CommunityFunding #Scrutiny #FOI #Regulation

Legal Note & Disclaimer

This article is based entirely on publicly available information, correspondence records, and regulatory guidance.
No allegations of wrongdoing are made.
All commentary represents opinion and analysis in the public interest.
Matters referenced have been escalated to appropriate bodies following non-response to reasonable engagement attempts.

🏛️ The Public, West Bromwich: The “White Elephant” That Somehow Managed to Be Packed

🏛️ The Public, West Bromwich

The “White Elephant” That Somehow Managed to Be Packed

Ah yes.

The Public, West Bromwich.

That legendary civic disaster.

That infamous waste of money.

That building “nobody ever used”.

Except… they did.

In rather large numbers.

Repeatedly.

Right up until it was shut.

But let’s not let facts spoil a good myth.

🐘 The Great White Elephant Fairy Tale

If you’ve lived in Sandwell long enough, you’ll have heard it:

> “The Public was a white elephant. Nobody went. It failed.”

This statement is usually delivered confidently, with no evidence, and often by people who hadn’t been inside since the ribbon-cutting — if at all.

It’s one of those magical phrases that absolves everyone of responsibility while sounding terribly grown-up.

The problem is… it’s nonsense.

📊 Annoying Facts (Feel Free to Skip)

By the time politicians decided The Public had to go:

Around 451,000 people visited it in a single year

Over a million people used it across its lifetime

Visitor numbers were going up, not down

Galleries were programmed

Events calendars were full

Offices were occupied

The café was busy

People were actually… enjoying it

In other words, it was doing exactly what it was built to do — which, in Sandwell, is often a dangerous position to be in.

🎭 “Nobody Used It” (Apart From Everyone)

Let’s pause on this idea that nobody used it.

Apparently:

10,000 people a week don’t count

Tens of thousands at exhibitions don’t count

Families, students, shoppers, artists, and town-centre users don’t count

But one bloke down the pub saying “I never went” does.

Fascinating methodology.

🛍️ Shock Horror: It Worked With New Square

Another popular line:

> “It didn’t fit with the town centre.”

Which is odd, because once New Square opened, footfall at The Public jumped.

Turns out:

Shoppers like culture

Culture likes shoppers

People quite enjoy wandering into a gallery after Primark

Who knew?

Certainly not the people who later pretended this was all unforeseeable.

🔌 So Why Was It Really Closed?

Here’s the awkward bit.

The Public didn’t fail. It was closed.

That’s not semantics — it’s reality.

Closure was:

A political decision

A strategic choice

A risk-management call

It was not:

Because the building was empty

Because nobody cared

Because it “didn’t work”

You don’t euthanise something because it’s thriving.

You do it because it’s inconvenient.

🎓 And Then Came the College (Cue Fog Machine)

After closure, the building was handed over for sixth-form use.

We were told:

“This is sensible”

“This solves the problem”

“This secures the future”

What we were not given:

The full lease

The valuation

The schedules

The mysterious “Concordat”

Clear answers on who pays for what

A neat, end-to-end public account

FOIs have been submitted.

Answers have been… creative.

Transparency has remained in short supply.

But don’t worry — it’s probably all fine.

(It always is, until it isn’t.)

🚨 A Fun Detour: Peterborough

Just in case anyone thinks this is all ancient history and harmless fun, let’s pop over to Peterborough.

There, a council disposed of a public building occupied by a college for nominal consideration.

Years later, officers decided:

> “Hmm… this might actually be unlawful.”

Police got involved.

People got nervous.

Paperwork suddenly mattered again.

Different town.

Same legal duties.

Which proves a vital lesson:

👉 Public asset deals don’t become lawful just because everyone stops asking questions.

🧠 Myth vs Fact (Because Apparently We Still Need This)

Myth: The Public was a waste of money.

Fact: Hundreds of thousands used it every year.

Myth: It failed.

Fact: It was politically closed while busy.

Myth: It didn’t fit West Bromwich.

Fact: It complemented New Square exactly as designed.

Myth: The council walked away.

Fact: The building still lives quietly on balance sheets and risk registers.

Myth: “Move on.”

Fact: Governance doesn’t have a sell-by date.

🧾 So What’s the Actual Issue?

This isn’t about nostalgia.

It isn’t about art snobbery.

It isn’t about being anti-college.

It’s about this:

A multi-million-pound public asset

Closed while operationally successful

Transferred under opaque terms

With unclear liabilities

Questionable upkeep

And no clean public account

That’s not moaning — that’s basic accountability.

🏁 Final Thought

The Public wasn’t a white elephant.

It was a busy, functioning civic asset that became politically awkward, financially uncomfortable, and administratively inconvenient — so it was quietly rebranded as a failure to make the paperwork easier.

Until the documents are on the table, the myths will keep doing the heavy lifting.

And in Sandwell, myths are cheaper than transparency.

Funny that.

#ThePublic #WestBromwich #Sandwell #WhiteElephantMyth #PublicMoney #CouncilWatch #FollowThePaperwork #Transparency #FOI #Governance #LocalPolitics #Regeneration

BWA – Follow the Silence (Part 3)

BWA – Follow the Silence (Part 3)

If Part 1 followed the money
and Part 2 followed the power,

then Part 3 follows something much harder to pin down.

Silence.

Not a technical silence.
Not an “out of office” silence.
A very deliberate, very prolonged silence.

📧 The Emails That Went Nowhere

Following Part 2, formal written questions were sent:

• to the Chief Executive of the Bangladeshi Women’s Association, and
• directly to the Board of Trustees, by name and by role.

The emails were detailed.
They were polite.
They were evidence-based.
They set clear deadlines.

What came back?

Nothing.

No acknowledgement.
No holding response.
No “we’ll come back to you”.
No trustee engagement at all.

For an organisation receiving substantial public funding, that silence speaks volumes.

🧱 Trustees: The Dog That Didn’t Bark

At this point it’s important to be clear about roles.

Trustees are not decorative.
They are not optional.
They are not there “when convenient”.

Under charity law, trustees are legally responsible for:

• governance
• finances
• assets
• conflicts of interest
• transparency

When trustees don’t respond to serious, well-evidenced questions raised in good faith, that is no longer a communications issue — it is a governance issue.

And yet, the silence continues.

🧾 FOI: When Transparency Becomes Theoretical

Alongside the emails, Freedom of Information requests were submitted to Sandwell Council seeking clarity on:

• funding agreements
• monitoring reports
• assets and disposals
• conflicts of interest

The Council confirmed it does hold relevant information.

But the information was not released.

Instead, the response relied on technical limits and process warnings — effectively saying “yes, the information exists, but no, you can’t see it.”

An Internal Review is now underway.

Transparency, it seems, is available in principle.

🤐 When Silence Starts to Feel Like Strategy

Silence can mean many things.

Sometimes it means confusion.
Sometimes it means delay.
Sometimes it means poor administration.

But prolonged silence — from both trustees and senior figures — after multiple polite requests?
That begins to feel like a choice.

And choices have consequences.

🗣️ A Chilling Side-Effect

There is also an uncomfortable side-effect to silence.

When questions about governance and public money go unanswered, the focus subtly shifts — from the questions themselves to the person asking them.

That is not healthy.
It is not democratic.
And it does not serve the communities these organisations exist to support.

Scrutiny is not hostility.
Questions are not threats.
Accountability is not harassment.

❓ What We Still Don’t Know (Because No One Will Say)

At the end of Part 3, we are left with the same unanswered questions:

• why trustees will not engage
• who is accountable for responding
• when transparency will resume
• whether silence is now the default position

People notice these things.

Some are, to use the local phrase, getting a little Haqued Off.

⚖️ Legal & Accuracy Notice

This blog is based on published records, correspondence, and publicly available information.
No allegation of wrongdoing is made.
Any factual inaccuracies will be corrected upon receipt of evidence.

🎄 Closing Thought

After money.
After power.
After questions.

There is silence.

And silence, in public life, is rarely neutral.

To be continued.

#BWA #BangladeshiWomensAssociation #Sandwell #Tipton #FollowTheMoney #FollowThePower #TheSilence #Governance #Transparency #Accountability #FOI 

Sandwell’s Improvement Journey™: £1.5 Million, Zero Answers, and a Lot of Shredded Paper

Sandwell’s Improvement Journey™: £1.5 Million, Zero Answers, and a Lot of Shredded Paper

Sandwell Council loves a journey.
Customer journeys.
Improvement journeys.
Governance journeys.

Oddly, none of them ever seem to arrive anywhere.

Let’s recap the actual journey residents have been taken on over the last decade:

• A flawed external investigation
• A solicitor later reprimanded for racist remarks
• A corrective review exposing bias and misconduct
• A senior King’s Counsel opinion
• Promised apologies
• Approved actions
• And then… silence

All quietly swept under the civic carpet.

We had the Wragge investigation, led by a lawyer later disciplined by his own regulator.
We then had the Cox Review, commissioned by the Council itself, which reportedly found bias, governance failures and improper political interference.
Then came the Jenni Richards KC opinion, advising on what should happen next.

What happened next?

Nothing.

No publication.
No apologies.
No Maxwellisation.
No accountability.
Just a lot of Freedom of Information refusals and a leader telling Full Council she “didn’t know what the Cox Review was” — despite emails proving otherwise.

Meanwhile:

• Councillors asking awkward questions were deselected
• Scrutiny was softened, chaired, reshaped and neutralised
• Officers who refused to change reports were shown the door
• Senior figures left with enhanced settlements and confidentiality clauses
• External auditors nodded along
• Commissioners focused on process, not truth

And the public picked up the bill.

By conservative estimates, £1.4–£1.8 million of public money has been spent on this saga — for a conclusion that amounts to:

“Let’s all agree never to talk about this again.”

Grant Thornton signed off governance improvements.
Commissioners declared progress.
Leadership declared the matter closed.

But here’s the problem:

You don’t fix governance by burying evidence.
You don’t restore trust by suppressing reports.
And you don’t demonstrate Best Value by refusing to explain why £1.5 million bought no outcome.

This isn’t ancient history.
The reports are still suppressed.
The recommendations were never delivered.
The lies were never corrected.
The costs were never fully disclosed.

So yes — questions are still being asked.
And they will keep being asked.

Because improvement journeys that end in a paper shredder aren’t improvement at all.

They’re just cover-ups with better branding.

#SandwellCouncil #GovernanceFailure #Transparency #PublicMoney #Accountability #FOI #SuppressedReports #CoxReview #GrantThornton #Commissioners #ImprovementJourney

A Christmas Message - It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like… an Unanswered FOI 🎄

🎄 It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like… an Unanswered FOI 🎄

Ah, Christmas.
The season of goodwill, mince pies, and public bodies announcing that nothing further can be dealt with until the New Year — despite having had all year.

2025 has been a festive spectacular.

A year where:

• Meetings popped up like advent calendars
• Minutes vanished like the last Quality Street
• Consultations were held somewhere between Halloween and Narnia
• Transparency was placed in storage “pending review”
• And accountability went out for mulled wine and never came back

We’ve all enjoyed the Christmas classics: 🎅 “We do not hold that information”
🎄 “No notes were taken”
🎁 “Commercial sensitivity” (now available on page 43 of another document)
❄️ “We’ll respond shortly” — first aired in spring, now a festive tradition

This year’s standout performance must go to governance — boldly reimagined as:

“A loose collection of emails, good intentions, and people who’ve moved on.”

Spare a festive thought for the Freedom of Information Act, currently propping up the wonky leg of the transparency table while being told it’s very demanding and should try asking again in 20 working days.

To residents, volunteers and community groups who dared ask awkward questions this year:

• Who signed this off?
• Where’s the money gone?
• Why does this organisation exist twice?

Congratulations. You are now on Santa’s Naughty List (Appendix B).

As we head into 2026, councils everywhere are preparing their New Year’s resolutions: 

✔ “Lessons will be learned”
✔ “Processes will be reviewed”
✔ “Engagement will be improved”
✔ “Minutes will be taken next time (probably)”

I, meanwhile, will be leaving out: 

🥛 a glass of milk
🍪 a mince pie
📄 and a neatly drafted FOI request

Just in case.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, a peaceful break, and a New Year filled with:

• fewer working groups
• more actual answers
• complete accounts on first publication
• and governance that doesn’t require festive divination

Goodwill to all — and transparency, at least between Christmas and New Year.

🎄🧾🎅

Darryl

#FOIOnIce #MerryFOIChristmas #MissingMinutes #FestiveTransparency #FollowThePaperTrail #GovernanceGrinch #Sandwell #Accountability 

BWA: Follow the Money (Again) — Accounts Filed, FOIs Blocked, Trustees Silent

BWA: Follow the Money (Again) — Accounts Filed, FOIs Blocked, Trustees Silent

It’s that festive moment where organisations usually publish goodwill messages, thank volunteers, and wrap the year up neatly.

Instead, with the Bangladeshi Women’s Association (BWA), we’re unwrapping something else entirely:

📂 newly filed accounts
📧 unanswered emails
🧾 blocked FOIs
🖥️ unanswered questions about capital spending
🤐 trustees saying nothing
🎄 and yes… people getting Haqued Off

Let’s go through it — calmly, factually, and with a little seasonal cheer.

📊 The New Accounts: What’s Changed (and What Hasn’t)

BWA’s latest accounts (year ending 31 March 2025) are now filed.

Headline figures:

• Income: £475,924 (down from £512,645)
• Expenditure: £479,601 (up from £415,023)
• Result: £3,677 deficit (after a £97k surplus the year before)
• Total reserves: £318,788
• Unrestricted reserves: £177,021
• Cash at bank: £344,179
• Staff costs: £276,092 (↑ ~£63k in one year)

So despite income falling, spending — especially staffing — rose sharply, wiping out last year’s surplus.
Yet cash at bank increased, and unrestricted reserves remain substantial.

That combination alone warrants explanation.

🎁 The Reserves Question (Still Not Answered)

This is now year two of asking:

Why is a publicly funded community organisation holding £177k in unrestricted reserves while continuing to draw council and grant funding?

Reserves are legitimate.
Large unrestricted reserves plus continued public subsidy plus rising staffing costs require explanation.

No explanation has been provided.

🖥️ The IT Suite, Capital Spend & Asset Transparency

Well before the accounts were filed, concerns were raised in writing about potential capital spending, including the possibility of replacing a fully functional IT suite.

To date, there is still:

• ❌ no published asset register
• ❌ no disposal log
• ❌ no centre-level capital breakdown
• ❌ no clarity on historic capital grants
• ❌ no explanation of what assets exist, were replaced, or written off

For an organisation operating two community centres with years of public funding behind it, this is not a trivial omission.

It’s precisely why asset registers and disposal policies exist.

📧 Emails Sent. Silence Returned.

Since the last blog:

• Detailed governance questions were emailed to the CEO
• Trustees were copied directly
• Clear deadlines were set
• Polite chasers were sent

The response?

• One generic paragraph from the CEO
• No substantive answers
• No response at all from trustees

Trustees are legally responsible. Silence is not neutrality — it’s a governance choice.

✈️ The CEO Was Away. She’s Now Back.

For a time, the lack of response was attributed to the CEO being out of the country.

That explanation no longer applies.

The CEO is now back in the UK.
The accounts are filed.
The emails remain unanswered.

Which raises a simple question:
When does accountability begin?

🧾 FOI Update: Transparency, But Make It Impossible

A Freedom of Information request was submitted to Sandwell Council seeking:

• funding agreements
• monitoring reports
• asset records
• disposals
• conflicts of interest
• safeguarding and compliance incidents

The Council confirmed it does hold relevant information — but refused to provide any of it, citing Section 12 (cost limits).

Notably, the response also warned against breaking the request into smaller parts — a curious approach to a law designed to promote transparency.

An Internal Review is now underway, alongside narrower replacement FOIs.

What’s particularly striking is the Council’s admission that it does not have a single system linking grants, monitoring, underspends and assets.

That’s not an FOI issue.
That’s a governance issue.

🍞 Food Donations & Fairness

Concerns have also been raised locally about how donated food is collected and distributed.

No allegations are made here — but at a time of rising hardship, fairness, transparency and need matter.

These are exactly the kinds of questions trustees should welcome clarifying.

🗞️ What the Sandwell Skidder Has Said

This isn’t happening in a vacuum.

Local political blog The Sandwell Skidder has, over several years, raised questions about transparency, overlapping roles, and accountability involving BWA and Syeda Khatun.

Those posts form part of the public record and reflect long-standing community commentary — not proof of wrongdoing, but evidence that concerns about openness are not new.

❓ What We Still Don’t Know

Despite months of polite, documented correspondence:

• Why unrestricted reserves remain so high
• How staffing expansion is funded
• What assets exist at each centre
• What has been disposed of or replaced
• How capital grants were monitored
• Why trustees will not respond
• When — or if — transparency will improve

People notice these things.

And yes — some are getting Haqued Off...as Gregg might say! 

⚖️ Legal / Accuracy Notice

Legal / Accuracy Notice:
This blog contains commentary, observations and analysis based on publicly available records, correspondence and published material. Opinions are clearly identified as such. No allegation of wrongdoing is made beyond what is supported by public documents. If any party believes information is inaccurate, they are invited to provide evidence so corrections can be made.

🎄 Season’s Closing Thought

Transparency shouldn’t require FOIs, blogs, or festive persistence.

Accounts are filed.
The CEO is back.
The trustees remain silent.

The questions remain.

Watch this space.

#BWA #BangladeshiWomensAssociation #Sandwell #Tipton #JubileePark #PublicMoney #FollowTheMoney #CharityAccounts #CharityGovernance #Transparency #Accountability #FOI #Audit #Trustees #CommunityCentres #LocalGovernment #SandwellCouncil #Governance #SeasonOfQuestions #HaquedOff

Sandwell’s Three MPs: London Living, Landlords, Lobbyists & The Skidder Files – A Foundation Document for Accountability

Sandwell’s Three MPs: London Living, Landlords, Lobbyists & The Skidder Files – A Foundation Document for Accountability

A deep dive into Antonia Bance, Sarah Coombes and Gurinder Singh Josan – their homes, donors, voting habits, and what the Sandwell Skidder has been shouting from the rooftops.

Sandwell Council, MPs, Antonia Bance, Sarah Coombes, Gurinder Singh Josan, Governance, Accountability, Labour Party, Sandwell Skidder, Political Analysis, FOI, Oversight 

SANDWELL’S THREE MPS: A FOUNDATION FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

Sandwell now has three shiny, well-packaged Labour MPs representing three of the most deprived areas in the country. What we don’t have is clarity about where they live, who funds them, and what they actually do for the people trapped between Tipton’s housing failures, West Bromwich’s broken systems, and Smethwick’s endless governance sagas.

This post brings every thread into one place: residency, money, voting records, transparency, and a special “Skidder Says” section for those who enjoy Sandwell’s longest-running political soap opera.

So let’s begin.

1. ANTONIA BANCE MP – TIPTON, WEDNESBURY & COSELEY

1.1 Where does she actually live?

Short answer: not here.

There is no public evidence that Antonia Bance lives in Sandwell, Dudley or anywhere inside the constituency.

Her only confirmed base is a constituency office in Wednesbury — an office, not a home.

Her only known “home” reference comes from a foreign-language bio placing her in Bexley, London.

No local property.

No local tenancy.

No trace.

A London-based MP parachuted into the Black Country? Absolutely.

1.2 Register of Interests

She owns no property in Sandwell or anywhere else in the Midlands.

She claims London accommodation expenses, as expected for an MP who actually lives in London.

No rental income, no land interests, nothing locally rooted.

1.3 Voting record

A perfect demonstration of Labour whip loyalty:

Voted for the Border Security Bill

Voted against an elected House of Lords (because who needs democracy?)

Voted for nationalising teacher pay for academies

Voted against assisted dying

Voted for tenants’ rights (though she’s said nothing about Sandwell’s housing failures)

Not a single sign of independence or Sandwell-first thinking.

1.4 Local accountability

She has never publicly challenged:

Sandwell Council governance failures

FOI culture

Safeguarding scandals

Housing failures

Commissioner interventions

Audit suppression

Planning controversies

She keeps her head down and her mouth shut.

Sandwell gets silence; Westminster gets obedience.

2. SARAH COOMBES MP – WEST BROMWICH

2.1 Where does she live?

Official line: “lives in West Bromwich.”

Evidence: none although heresay of rental in West Bromwich. 

What is verifiable:

She owns a London flat from which she earned rental income until late 2025.

She owns no property in West Bromwich or Sandwell.

So yes, another London landlord representing one of the poorest towns in Britain.

2.2 Donations, lobbyists and influence networks

Her campaign was showered with money:

Big-ticket individual donors

Union money

Arden Strategies-linked fundraising

Private healthcare-related donations flagged by EveryDoctor

Nothing illegal. Everything political.

A picture emerges: highly funded, highly influenced, newly installed.

2.3 Voting record – where it bites

Against the backdrop of West Bromwich’s poverty:

Voted to means-test winter fuel payments

Voted for bank surveillance of welfare claimants

Voted for cuts to disability payment structures

Voted for the Border Security Bill

Voted for assisted dying

Perfect score for Labour HQ; terrible for local pensioners, disabled residents and low-income families.

2.4 Hospitality & freebies

She has declared:

Wimbledon hospitality

BRIT Awards hospitality

An overseas trip to Jordan

Lovely treats.

Meanwhile, West Bromwich residents are lucky to afford the bus.

3. GURINDER SINGH JOSAN MP – SMETHWICK

3.1 Local roots – and local holdings

Unlike the others, Josan is from here — Smethwick born and raised.

But he also happens to be one of the largest landlords in Parliament, owning:

Multiple residential properties

Commercial holdings

His own property company (Josan Estates Ltd)

A fascinating combination when representing a borough with catastrophic housing issues.

3.2 Policing & governance background

Historically:

Member of the West Midlands Strategic Policing & Crime Board

Not on any local IAG although this is being disputed as is his influence on the independent nature of the group.

Extensive governance roles (NEC, academy trusts, HOPE not Hate)

Currently:

No public evidence he still holds any policing governance role.

3.3 Voting record

Predictably Loyalist:

Strong law-and-order rhetoric

No whip rebellions

Watch closely when the Renters Reform agenda arrives — landlord MPs often grow strangely quiet.

3.4 THE SKIDDER SAYS – Allegations, Claims & Colourful Commentary

This section summarises what The Sandwell Skidder has published over the years.

These are allegations, not established facts.

But they are widely read and politically influential around Sandwell.

A. Spellar & Watson’s “fixer”

Skidder routinely describes Josan as the long-serving fixer for John Spellar and Tom Watson — a loyal enforcer for the old Warley machine.

B. The 2017 ‘dossier politics’

According to Skidder:

Josan met him privately

Provided documents targeting Cllr Mahboob Hussain

Was part of a coordinated factional operation

The infamous 72-page dossier still hangs over local Labour history.

C. The ‘Sikh candidate bloc’ story

Skidder alleges Josan and others orchestrated a slate of Sikh Labour candidates, framing it as a “takeover.”

Highly contested, but it appears repeatedly on the blog.

D. The Rajbir Singh leadership saga

Skidder claims:

Starmer, Spellar and Josan helped install Rajbir Singh as council leader

Singh was a “puppet” for unelected figures behind the scenes

One of Sandwell’s shortest-lived leadership episodes, but Skidder insists Josan was integral to it.

E. Chance Glass & A1 Skip Hire

This is one of Skidder’s enduring themes:

He alleges “murky” connections between Josan and operators at the Chance Glass site

Claims personal involvement in skip-site disputes

Describes land deals and support as “deeply questionable”

No documentary evidence published — but this line has been consistent for years.

F. Defending Sandwell Labour

Skidder reports that Josan pushed the narrative that commissioners and interventions were “just Tory politics.”

A line inconsistent with official reports documenting catastrophic governance failings.

4. CROSS-MP ANALYSIS

Category Bance Coombes Josan

Lives locally? No evidence No evidence Yes (background)

Owns local property? No No Yes – lots

Donor/lobby links Limited Significant Moderate/unclear

Voting independence 0% 0% 0%

Governance interventions None None None

Major vulnerabilities Residency, silence London landlord, donors, votes Landlordism, Skidder allegations

5. WHAT SANDWELL DESERVES TO ASK

Where do our MPs actually live?

Whose interests do they represent?

Why are none of them publicly challenging Sandwell’s broken systems?

How have three MPs delivered no local governance accountability whatsoever?

Why do external blogs like Skidder do more investigative work on Sandwell than our elected representatives?