Romford Recorder wins legal battle over Havering Council racism file

The council was given 42 days to turn over the 400-page document, whose contents resulted in an official finding that the Town Hall had a "disturbing” culture where prejudice had been “normalised”.

If it fails to give us the document on time, the council will be in contempt of court.

Officials have been fighting since 2021 to block Havering taxpayers from hearing the allegations made in the report.

Even elected councillors were banned from reading it – despite being asked to sign off on rolling training courses as a result of the claims made within it.

But the Recorder persuaded three First Tier Tribunal judges to order the “damning” report’s publication, due to overwhelming public interest.

What is this report?

In 2021, Havering committed to investigating allegations of racism at the Town Hall.

It gave a 400-page “internal self-assessment” dossier to the Local Government Association (LGA), which read it and concluded that discrimination had become “somewhat normalised” at the council.

There was evidence of “discrimination, poor behaviours and structural barriers”, including incidents of racism, sexism, homophobia and disability discrimination.

It found “widespread negative views” among staff, who reported “a culture of no consequences” for prejudice and “a lack of support” for victims.

“The much repeated allegations of ‘casual racism’ and ‘casual sexism’ being widespread were disturbing,” the LGA wrote.

The Local Government Association (LGA) found racism and sexism had become 'somewhat normalised' at Havering Council. But the 400-page dossier of evidence, on which this claim was made, was covered up (Image: Archant)

What happened next?

Councillors were asked to sign off an “action plan” to fix the problems – but were banned from first seeing the “warts and all” report which contained all the detailed allegations.

They were only allowed to see the LGA report, which contained conclusions but no evidence.

Councillor Ray Morgon – then leader of the opposition – complained that the LGA report was “very generic” and left elected members “not quite knowing where the issues lie”.

As a result, he said: “The solutions appear to be quite generic as well. I’m not overly optimistic that it will address the problems.”

Proposed solutions included “conscious inclusion training”, “cultural awareness training”, “lunch time listening sessions” and “shared lives experience sessions”.

Our fight for you

The Recorder demanded the report under the Freedom of Information Act in autumn 2021.

We said that if taxpayers had to pay for the report, then pay for the actions it provoked, they should be told exactly how serious the allegations were and how strong the evidence was.

The council refused to hand it over, so we went to government watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

But it ruled against us in autumn 2023, ruling that forcing Havering to come clean would lead other councils to either refuse to investigate institutional prejudice, or be dishonest about the results.

Cllr Morgon, now council leader, had changed his mind about the report and welcomed the decision to continue covering it up.

“I now have a better understanding of the nature of the unpublished evidence in the report and I accept that it would be wrong to make this public,” he explained.

The council’s press office said it was “pleased” the ICO had ruled against us.

The LGA said reports of 'widespread' racism and sexism at Havering Council were 'disturbing' - but the Romford Recorder had to fight for three years to win access to the actual evidence. Now Havering Council has been given 42 days to disclose it (Image: Archant)

Tribunal

We took the unusual step of taking the ICO to a tribunal, where we argued that there was overwhelming public interest in disclosing the report.

The ICO hired a specialist data and information barrister from Monckton Chambers – named Chambers of the Year at this year’s Lawyer Awards – to fight our reporter, who represented himself.

On Thursday, August 15, the three tribunal judges sided with us, saying Havering and the ICO’s arguments were “outweighed by the public interest in disclosure”.

“Within 42 days… London Borough of Havering shall send to [the Romford Recorder] the requested information redacted to remove only the personal data contained therein,” they ordered.

“Failure to comply with this substituted decision may result in the certification of an offence of contempt to the Upper Tribunal.”

We asked Havering Council whether it would apologise to taxpayers for the amount of time and money it had wasted trying to cover up the public interest document. 

It responded: “The council has received the FTT’s decision and has no further comment to make at this time.”