A West London Council Leader’s claim that the authority doesn’t need to rely on external scrutiny because it can do a good enough job on its own has been branded “not acceptable”.
The comment was made at a Hillingdon Council Cabinet meeting on July 24, when Cabinet members discussed the ongoing financial difficulties facing the local authority. Conservative Council Leader Ian Edwards said “we are house keeping ourselves” in reference to having identified some of its financial challenges itself.
However opposition councillors as well as a former Labour councillor questioned how appropriate it is to suggest scrutiny is not needed.
Cllr Stuart Mathers, Leader of Hillingdon Labour, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that he was “extremely alarmed” by Cllr Edwards’ comments. He added: “The leader of the council is avoiding the transparency he crows about. By not enabling external scrutiny to examine the council it raises red flags.
“It is not acceptable for a council to mark its own homework. Hillingdon Council as a minimum should undertake a peer to peer review which it has evaded for a number of years.”
Earlier this year, the LDRS revealed that Hillingdon Council was at risk of bankruptcy, despite our reporter being told just months before by Cllr Edwards that there was no risk of bankruptcy.
This has most recently culminated in the revelation that Hillingdon Council is seeking Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) from the Government, and is due to run out of cash within months.
At the recent Cabinet meeting Cllr Edwards discussed work undertaken which has identified accounting errors dating back a decade, and reports by council officers which found that years of “overspending” and “undersaving” had contributed to the current financial predicament.
Cllr Edwards said: “Turning to the main matter here, which is the outturn and month two, you are absolutely right, Cllr Goddard, these are concerning. And residents will rightly have some concern. I do wish to again emphasise the issue of the asylum pressures that we have had, historic underfunding that you’ve mentioned…
“The issues have come to light through prudent activity, commissioned by ourselves and our officers, and although that doesn’t give us any great comfort having identified some issues, at least it does show that we are house keeping ourselves and are not dependent upon external review and scrutiny.”
The comments came just days after the council informed MyLondon and the LDRS that it would no longer engage with Local Democracy Reporter (LDR) Philip James Lynch, for what it described as “political bias” – a claim completely refuted by the publication.
Since then, Hillingdon Council continues to refuse to work with, or respond to, queries made by the reporter. The decision came after a series of stories about the council and local Conservative group.
In July, the LDRS exclusively revealed that Hillingdon Council had made almost £1 million in payments to a firm linked with its Cabinet Member for Finance, Cllr Martin Goddard, despite only making one £70,000 payment in the seven years before his appointment. Cllr Goddard had not registered or declared his past 20 years of employment at the firm, which although it had not breached any rules, caused concern for opposition councillors around financial transparency.
The LDRS also reported how the council’s rhetoric on asylum seekers – regularly blaming its financial predicament on the disproportionate number of asylum seekers it has to house – was putting its own councillors at risk of racism and hostility.
And in May the LDRS reported on a misleading Tory campaign leaflet that claimed Cowley Recreation Ground was under threat.
One former Labour councillor, now a resident, Tony Eginton, described the recent comments made by Cllr Edwards as “complacent”. He told the LDRS: “As the financial records were not reliable (no assurance from internal audit) and there was a £36.9m change to recorded expenditure reported during a four-month period (February 2025 to May 2025), I would have thought that they need as much help as possible. There is always a risk that a bunker mentality can otherwise develop.”
Hillingdon Council continues to refuse to engage with the LDRS.
Philip is a Local Democracy Reporter covering Ealing, Hillingdon and Hounslow, with a focus on council decisions, housing, planning, licensing and community stories across west London.
