Cllr Ammar Naqvi said he had worked at UCL Medical School but the claims were not true, reports David Floyd

Barnet Council’s cabinet member for finance is facing calls for an investigation after claims that he worked as a professor at a top London university proved untrue.

Ammar Naqvi claimed on his council register of interests that he was employed as “Associate Professor, UCL Medical School”, however the university said that Cllr Naqvi never worked for them and Barnet Post now understands the claim to be a fabrication.

The Post began to investigate this issue last month after being told that Cllr Naqvi’s register of interests had been removed and updated in November after a query was raised with the council.

The current document – updated on 19th November – does not list any interests for Cllr Naqvi under the category of “employment, office, trade, profession or vocation” other than “Consultant, AstraZeneca”.

However, the Post was sent an image of the document before it was updated (see below) which included the entry stating he was an associate professor at University College London (UCL) Medical School.

Screenshot of Cllr Ammar Naqvi's register of interest before it was update in November 2024

The Post was unable to find any references to this employment through any basic online searches, so contacted both UCL and Barnet Labour group for further information.

On 18th December, a spokesperson for UCL told the Post: “After consulting our HR team, we’ve been unable to verify any association between this individual and UCL Medical School.”

On 20th December a council spokesperson responded to a query about the update of Cllr Naqvi’s register by telling the Post: “Cllr Ammar Naqvi worked for UCL from 2016-2019. This employment remained on his register and it is an oversight that it was not removed. Cllr Naqvi had to update his register for other reasons in November and he spotted the matter and removed the reference to UCL.”

This was followed by further clarification from the council of Cllr Naqvi’s claimed roles at UCL.

On 2nd January, after the Post approached UCL again with this additional information and to clarify whether a mistake had been made, a university spokesperson said: “We’ve checked again using the full name, but have been unable to find any records of a staff member with that name.”

The Post has since asked Barnet Labour group to clarify the situation and was this morning (Monday 6th) sent a letter from Professor Muhammad Amer Mian, principal of Central Medical College in Lahore, Pakistan, explaining the Cllr Naqvi had in fact worked there between 2016 and 2019.

There is no suggestion of any connection between Central Park Medical College and UCL Medical School.

The Post now understands that Cllr Naqvi’s claim that he worked at UCL was a fabrication and he is considering his position.

Barnet Council was given the opportunity to comment further following the receipt of the information from Central Medical College but has not yet done so.

Responding to the situation, Barnet Conservative group leader Peter Zinkin has called for an investigation. He told the Post: “It is difficult to understand how an error of this sort, duplicated across a number of public CVs, register of interests and organisations could be an oversight. As an accurate register of interest is a legal requirement, we assume that Barnet Council will have to investigate this.”

No news is bad news

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else. £84 annual supporters get a print copy by post and a digital copy of each month's before anyone else.