Tag: Code of Conduct

The letter Wirral Council wrote gagging Councillor Gilchrist

The letter Wirral Council wrote gagging Councillor Gilchrist

The letter Wirral Council wrote gagging Councillor Gilchrist

                         

Just before Christmas started I published a letter from Cllr Phil Davies to Cllr Jeff Green that was also published on Wirral Council’s website.

To recap it involves a male senior councillor in the Labour Group who made an “adverse comment” about an unnamed senior employee at Wirral Council. The councillor admitted he did make the comment and a report was written detailing that this Labour councillor had breached the Code of Conduct.

Previously if there’s been a report detailing a councillor has breached the Code of Conduct, even if officers recommended the report be exempt, the Standards Panel have decided to make the report public as you can see from that previous blog post detailing a seven page report and two page appendix into an allegation that former Councillor Denis Knowles breached the Councillor’s Code of Conduct in relation to a comment he made online.

Since then, in the Summer of 2012 the legislation regarding complaints made about councillors breaching the Code of Conduct has changed. This explanatory note on Wirral Council’s website explains some of the changes, but basically there are now two legal requirements on Wirral Council. The first on Wirral Council is that it “must promote and maintain high standards of conduct by Member and Co-opted Members” (Members in this context means councillors and Co-opted Members means people co-opted to Council committees). The second legal requirement is that they must have arrangements in place for investigating allegations and making decisions on allegations. The policy on this is here, the new Code of Conduct here and a an online form for people to use is here. Wirral Council has also appointed four independent persons that have a role in determining whether complaints made are worthy of investigation.

The letter to Cllr Phil Gilchirst basically asking him to sign a commitment gagging him from talking to anyone about what was in the investigator’s report can be read by following that link and to my knowledge is published for the first time in full on this blog (although there is a Wirral Globe story headlined “Wirral Council accused of ‘over the top’ secrecy” that quotes from it).

So do you think we should return to making investigator’s reports public if they have a finding that a councillor (and he acknowledges that he did in this case) breached the Code of Conduct? Surely if the “senior officer” wants their name kept out of it, the report could be released with their name redacted and does not naming the councillor involved make people think that Wirral Council takes its legal obligation that it “must promote and maintain high standards conduct by Member and Co-opted Members” seriously? Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts on these questions.

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EXCLUSIVE: Letter from Cllr Phil Davies to Cllr Jeff Green about “Wirralgate”

EXCLUSIVE: Letter from Cllr Phil Davies to Cllr Jeff Green about “Wirralgate”

EXCLUSIVE: Letter from Cllr Phil Davies to Cllr Jeff Green about “Wirralgate”

                         

Wirral Council logo

Please reply to:

Councillor Philip L Davies
Leader of Wirral Council

Town Hall, Brighton Street
Wallasey, Wirral
Merseyside, CH44 8ED
Telephone: 0151-691 8539
Fax: 0151-691-2887
Email: phildavies@wirral.gov.uk
Date: 17 December 2013

Councillor J Green
Leader of the Conservative Group
Wallasey Town Hall
Brighton Street
Wallasey
WIRRAL       CH44 8ED

my ref PD0012/DLK

Dear Jeff,

I write in response to your question at Council. I will also copy this response to all Members and ask for it to be published as an appendix to the Council minutes.

A group of individuals approached me about this matter. The individuals did not wish to make a formal complaint regarding the comments allegedly made by one of my Senior Members regarding a Senior Council Officer. However I am absolutely committed to ensuring that all matters of concern are properly investigated and so chose to immediately refer the matter to the Chief Executive.

The Chief Executive instructed the Strategic Director for Transformation and Resources, in his position as Deputy Monitoring Officer, to conduct an investigation and an Independent Investigator was appointed.

The Senior Officer concerned does not wish the investigation report to be made public, and I intend to respect their wishes. However if you would like to see a copy I will ask the Chief Executive to make it available to you. I intend to make the same offer to the Leader of the Liberal Democrats. I have been informed that you have been briefed previously regarding the outcome of that investigation however for clarity I will outline the conclusions.

The Independent Investigator wrote on two occasions to the individuals who had brought this matter to my attention, however they refused to cooperate. All other concerned parties were interviewed, with external legal advisors present. No evidence was made available to the investigation to substantiate a serious allegation regarding inappropriate language.

The Senior Member concerned did make clear that he had made adverse comment regarding a Senior Officer, comments he regrets. The Investigation therefore found there had been a breach of the Council’s Code of Conduct. It concluded that an apology to the Officer concerned and a conciliation process was appropriate. At the request of the Senior Officer the matter has been dealt with in a confidential manner.

We have discussed the issue of improving the culture of this Council and I believe that both myself as Leader, and you as Leader of the Opposition have a crucial role to play in this. I have stated publicly, at Improvement Board and elsewhere, that the number one priority for this Council over the coming months must be to address this once and for all. I do not believe this is a matter for party politics, our staff and the residents of Wirral deserve and expect us to take a lead.

I would therefore again urge you that if you have any evidence of wrong doing, or can encourage others to supply any evidence that exists of wrongdoing, that you work with me to bring this to light. I promise that if this happens a further robust investigation will take place.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Phil Davies signature

Councillor Phil Davies

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Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board 4th September 2012 Part 1 Agenda Item 8 – Place Based Leadership Development Activity (Board Behaviours) Professor Laurie McMahon (Loop 2)

Yesterday’s Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board’s agenda and reports can be found on Wirral Council’s website.

The meeting started later than planned.

The Chair, Cllr Phil Davies said apologies had been received from Cllr Jeff Green, David Armstrong, Sheena and another. He also informed those present that unfortunately the Cabinet Member for Public Health, Cllr Anne McArdle couldn’t attend as she was unwell. Cllr Phil Davies also referred to Dr. Jennings and Pete Naylor.

Councillors on the Board were Cllr Phil Davies (Chair) and Cllr Tom Harney. Also on the Board was the new Interim Chief Executive of Wirral Council Graham Burgess, Emma Degg and others from the public sector.

Agenda Item 8 – Place Based Leadership Development Activity (Board Behaviours)

Professor Laurie McMahon of Loop 2 gave a confidential presentation (with Powerpoint slides) to the Board (and public present) on leadership following the telephone interviews.

He explained that Wirral Council had been successful in bidding for funds to improve its leadership and the training he was providing was part of that.

He told those present about the interpersonal rules of engagement and how they need to “stop seeing the Health and Wellbeing Board as an organisation”. The Professor continued by saying they need to recognise it is not a new committee, he mentioned his concern at its purpose not being clarified, especially its relationship to other bodies and suggested they create a map to map out its relationship with other bodies such as the Local Strategic Partnership (and others).

If they didn’t do this he had concerns that it would be swamped or delegated difficult decisions. Lobbying of Board members was also an issue he flagged up as well as the need for a Communications and Engagement Strategy. He asked the Board to imagine all the questions people ask you and said that the Health and Wellbeing Board was about “establishing direction” for Wirral.

There were various formal processes he wanted them to adopt, such as the Council’s Code of Conduct, although he admitted he didn’t know what it looks like. He suggested they use the Nolan principles and adopt the Council’s COI procedure. The professor though that overt lobbying should be discouraged and reported and that they needed to sort out the process of cooptees, although the law required certain people (or organisations) to be on the Board.

The Professor said they had told his that they don’t like voting or delegated decisions, but they were keen on subgroups who would make recommendations back to the Board. Cllr Phil Davies (Chair) asked a question. The Professor referred to the Act and how they hold each other to account. Cllr Phil Davies (Chair) asked if it had executive powers? The Professor answered No, Wirral Council’s Chief Executive Graham Burgess said it did have powers of revision, but these were a “dynamite option”.