In March 2017, when Sajid Javid was communities secretary, he said the Government’s intervention to resolve the financial mismanagement at Tower Hamlets council had succeeded.

A few months later he was forwarded critical information concerning a major financial transaction by the council leader on the Government’s watch. But instead of investigating the matter, Mr Javid’s department said it was not their responsibility.

The information forwarded to Sajid Javid was about a legal settlement between the council and local charity Rich Mix in 2015. As per an executive mayoral decision, the council gave Rich Mix £1.5m which in return repaid the council a £850,000 loan. Mayor Biggs was then portrayed – Evening Standard , East London Advertiser  – as a skilled negotiator. He had settled a years-long dispute between the council and charity and released money to Rich Mix which he suggested the council had unfairly kept for years. 

But the reality was very different. This investigation shows that mayor Biggs, re-elected in May 2018, awarded the £1.5m:

• In spite of Rich Mix’s claim to the money being dismissed by the High Court and his own officers
• In spite of council officers’ advice that, in one assessment, the transaction failed to comply with the council’s best value duty
• Without setting performance targets to hold Rich Mix accountable for its use of the money
• Without at first consulting a business plan, and only after being compelled to by the council’s scrutiny committee