Title

ROTHERHAM ABUSE

Councils must learn from interventions

Local authorities must learn from the imposition of commissioners in Tower Hamlets and Rotherham, a select committee has warned.

Local authorities must learn from the imposition of commissioners in Tower Hamlets and Rotherham, a select committee has warned.

The Communities and Local Government Committee said both councils had failed to take whistleblowers seriously.

It called for there to be proper checks and balances through scrutiny to ‘drive a culture of transparency and continuous improvement'.

Clive Betts MP, chair of the committee, said: ‘It is vital that the failings in Rotherham and Tower Hamlets, and the work done to address them are identified and shared so that similar issues can be addressed in other local authorities at an early stage to avoid them hitting rock bottom and having commissioners imposed upon them.

‘The DCLG [Department for Communities and Local Government] and LGA [Local Government Association] clearly have important role to play in this, but local authorities must also take responsibility themselves for seeking out and sharing this best practice.

‘The DCLG must carefully examine what worked and what could have been done better with these interventions so that the process can be improved for possible future cases.'

 

ROTHERHAM ABUSE

Cohesion rallying call as hate crime reaches record levels

By By Dan Peters | 16 October 2025

Cohesion is ‘core to what we do in local government’, the president of senior officers’ group Solace, Robin Tuddenham, has stressed as religious hate crime r...

ROTHERHAM ABUSE

How not to damage democracy

By Philip Whiteman | 16 October 2025

Jason Lowther, Paul Joyce and Philip Whiteman look at the lessons from previous models of local government support, and say that the intervention process mus...

ROTHERHAM ABUSE

Bringing Birmingham back from the brink

16 October 2025

Rishi Shori sets out Birmingham City Council’s history of intervention and the three ingredients that have proven essential for sustainable improvement and a...

ROTHERHAM ABUSE

Shining a light on mental health

By Jessica Mullinger | 16 October 2025

Wellbeing is not a luxury, it is core to a healthy organisation. Jessica Mullinger looks at some of the ways to protect mental health and wellbeing in the wo...

Popular articles by William Eichler