![\"Liverpool](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_image.jpg\")
Liverpool City Councillor Colette Goulding<\/p>\nParty removes whip as ongoing probes continue into troubled charity and business group<\/p>\n
14:52, 03 Dec 2025Updated 20:51, 03 Dec 2025<\/p>\n
Liverpool City Councillor Colette Goulding<\/p>\n
A Liverpool Labour councillor has been suspended by the party, it is understood. Cllr Colette Goulding, who was elected to Liverpool City Council in 2023 to represent the West Derby<\/a> Muirhead ward, has had the whip removed by Labour amid an ongoing investigation, the ECHO understands.<\/p>\n Despite losing the Labour whip, Cllr Goulding will continue to sit as a Labour member while she is suspended\u2019<\/p>\n The Big Help Group is understood to be a parent group containing a number of companies and organisations, designed to help communities and support charitable aims.<\/p>\n Among them are the Big Help Project, an anti-poverty charity which has been the subject of an investigation by the Charity Commission, launched in 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n News of the councillor’s suspension from Labour comes after further reporting from The Liverpool Post<\/a> related to the Big Help Group. Cllr Goulding was previously a trustee and assistant CEO at the Big Help Project.<\/p>\n The Charity Commission said in February 2024 that it had opened a statutory inquiry into the Big Help Project on December 7, 2023<\/a>. The regulator said it first engaged with the Liverpool-based charity after “identifying a significant increase in its reported income.”<\/p>\n It added it then identified concerns around trustee decision making, potential unauthorised trustee benefit and unmanaged conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n At the time, a spokesperson for Big Help Project said: “We are very disappointed to note the decision of the Charity Commission.<\/p>\n “We have cooperated fully and will continue to cooperate fully with the Charity Commission. None of our service delivery will be affected in any way and we will continue to provide the same lifechanging support that we have for the past 12 years.”<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Cllr Goulding was urged to resign as a councillor after she was declared bankrupt at Liverpool’s County Court on May 13, according to the government’s Individual Insolvency Register.<\/p>\n Following her bankruptcy and the reporting from The Liverpool Post,<\/a> which has published a number of articles about The Big Help Group, the city’s opposition leader, Cllr Cashman<\/a> wrote to council leader Liam Robinson to call for Cllr Goulding’s resignation.<\/p>\n The ECHO<\/a> has previously attempted to reach Cllr Goulding via email, phone and by knocking at her registered addresses.<\/p>\n We have reached out for comment once again following news of her having the Labour Party<\/a> whip suspended.<\/p>\n Earlier this year the office of the Big Help Group in Kensington was put up for sale for \u00a31.7m.<\/p>\n