Titbits – Swipes, stripes and reputational gripes

◆ Hackney Council was recently the target of some gentle ribbing at the hands of popular local Instagram account @socks_house_meeting.

Under a picture of a sultry-looking woman, captioned ‘Hackney Council seeing their crush in the street’, one person commented: “Lusting after a 1/16-acre plot of land to sell off. Too flirty flirty.”

@socks_house_meeting had their own take: “Putting a seven-tonne block of ‘rustic greenery’ in a box at both ends of a 600-metre street and calling it ‘groovy’.”

What a legacy outgoing transport chief Mete Coban leaves behind.

◆ Coban, who has quit Hackney Council to become Sadiq Khan’s deputy mayor for the environment at City Hall, is facing renewed criticism for racking up thousands of air miles while in charge of making Hackney a greener borough. He says the flights were a necessary part of his work for youth charity My Life My Say.

Coban has always harboured aspirations for higher office. Alas, attempts to become a parliamentary candidate and a rumoured push to be Hackney’s mayor were thwarted. It remains to be seen how long his new role at City Hall can satiate his lofty ambitions.

The sky’s no limit for Mete!

◆ Hackney Council was none too pleased about being reprimanded by the UK’s data watchdog over the 2020 cyber attack that had a huge and lengthy impact on services for local residents.

Rather than striking an apologetic tone, the council blasted the Information Commissioner’s Office for “misunderstanding the facts” and “exaggerating the risk to residents’ data”.

Turns out the Town Hall, despite being a public body whose duty is to serve the people of Hackney, was very worried about the bad publicity that a reprimand would bring.

This was given short shrift by the ICO, which said reputational harm is “not something in this case the Commissioner gives considerable weight to”, given Hackney Council is “responsible for a serious data breach”.

“It follows that there should be public accountability for such a failure,” the watchdog said.

◆ Something a bit smaller to chew on now. Labour councillors were very much enjoying the Haribo Maoam bars being handed out at a recent full council meeting.

Titbits wonders what the health and wellbeing committee would make of that!