A complaint that I had breached the councillor's code of conduct was made recently. The complaint was about my use of councillor's 'headed paper' for allegedly political purposes. The complaint was made in the last fortnight by the Chairwoman of the IW Conservative Association..........
Under the Council's procedures for standards complaints I was NOT told about this complaint until last Wednesday, AFTER the Standards Committee had considered the complaint and found me guilty. At any minute I half expect the Stasi to break down my front door and hurl me from a ferry into the Solent.
The punishment actually meted out though was to have a Council officer I do not know contact me last Wednesday out of the blue to tell me that they wished to discuss a complaint with me. When I made contact I was advised of the committee's formal decision (no paper copy until Friday) and reminded that I must not use headed paper inappropriately. I thanked the officer for the reminder.
My heinous crime was to introduce myself early last December (by letter on headed paper) to people who will live in the new 'Newport East' ward after June this year. This new ward largely constitutes the ward I currently represent. I guess the offending sentence was, "As a consequence of this Boundary Review, I want to introduce myself to you as the current (Labour) IW Councillor for Pan, who is planning to seek election for Newport East in June 2009. "
I probably am guilty of the breach of code in its strictest sense. However, I object to not having the right to defend myself, to the complaint being formally discussed by people without my knowledge, and to the way the verdict was communicated to me.
I believe that I am a scrupulous councillor in the things that really matter to people. I also believe that I understand what natural justice is and had cause to express my sympathy to a leading Tory councillor 3 years ago after a particularly badly-handled complaint against them.
This has left a very bad taste and I have asked the Labour Group leader to make a formal complaint. I could have kept quiet about it, but I rarely keep silent when anyone has been mistreated - even myself.
13 comments:
Sounds like you were guilty thou Geoff? Soliciting a vote way in advance. Is that how it works?
Did you use the council postal system, our paper, our envelope. Did we pay ofr the stamp too?
With the Labour governemt now accused of dodgy expense claims I think all elected officials should be very careful. I also think you are right! They should not have had a trail without you. That is indeed wrong. As wrong as much of what your party is doing at Westminster in terms of spying on individuals in the name of security.
All good points, which I will attempt to reply to:
1. campaigning and informing all year round from one election to the next is what I do. So should all accountable politicians;
2. the letter was compiled on my own pc, printed on my own printer, on paper that I purchased, and delivered by hand by me. That is what I do for each of my quarterly newsletters; though I get help with deliveries from other party members when needed.
One last point I should have made - the only time the official headed paper was used was when I scanned a copy onto my pc 4 years ago ! And its the old style paper, from before the Tories re-vamped it at massive public expense - from green to BLUE !
Geoff you'r not alone this Conservative Council is the worst in living memory and they will do anything to stay in power .
There are several issues here. You are technically guilty of using council headed paper for party political purposes, and probably if I were still a party agent, I'd have tried to drop a councillor of another party in it by reporting such a breach. It's, rather sadly, what politicos do; but it's an extremely minor offence. This was not however a misdemeanour which cost the Council money, ie not a matter of expenses claims, so Anonymous can rest in peace on that front. What seems to me much more serious is the Star Chamber nature of this sort of investigation - the first the accused knows of the charge is when the result of a complaint is made known to them. That is just wrong - this whole procedure is excessive, expensive, and mind-meltingly bureaucratic; I knew that already. What I didn't know was that it was also secretive. Keep us informed on the progress of any complaint, because I can't believe these procedures would be upheld if challenged in court.
In the old days, a complaint like this would have gone to the council's Chief Exec, who would have had a (very) quiet word with the councillor concerned, and that would be that. Who needs a committee full of worthies to conduct an investigation into trivia of this sort?
Thank you for your candid answers Geoff. I'm the questioner. If only all politicians were as honest and straightforward. I really appreciate your honesty. Well done, you'd get my vote for that and I'm inclined to vote Tory. Integrity is what matters more to me, you have it, they seem to lack it.
I do agree you made a very minor mistake. A quiet word about it from the CX would've been the way to go not a silly trial without telling you.
Robert. I think you must be a nastier person than me ! In over 10 years as Labour's (unpaid) agent on the IW I have never made a complaint about any politician. And I only ever recall the Liberal agents doing so; never the Tories - until now. I really must worry them - probably with good cause !
Geoff, I totally agree that to be accused, tried and found guilty without you even knowing about it is unbelievable!! This is not justice and certainly not fair. When you consider that MPs seem to lie blatantly and rip us all off by the misclaiming of expenses etc etc. As for the Tory Chairwomen making the complaint; it shows that they are losing the ladies and gentlemen who used to be in the Party, Sadly, very few of the current lot are proper Tories.
Geoffrey, you don't know the half of it.
Mind you, I always had more trouble from people inside my own party than I ever had from those outside it. And as it happens, I can't remember complaining about any politician either: you realize that if you have to go sneaking to teacher, it says more about you than it does about anyone else (it also shows you're short of either weaponry or courage to take them on directly).
But in this case, tension is growing. Fewer seats on the council next time, Tories floundering in a mess of their own making (which seems oddly familiar) and there's you, putting leaflets out in areas which they covet. Small wonder Madam Chairman felt a shivery sensation behind her pearls and twin-set. No: what I'd really have done in their place was pick up the phone and talk to you, if it was a tiny thing like this. But create a ramshackle bureaucracy, and you can be sure that petty-minded whingers will give it work to do.
My heart bleeds for you. Your whole blog is about whinging on about how others are bending the rules and not doing things properly. You get caught making a mistake you should just hold your hands up say honest mistake and put it behind you.
Ah, the milk of human kindness. Compassion reaching out across the political divide. Brings a tear to the eye.
But his whole blog isn't actually about others bending the rules, is it? It's generally a bit wider than that. This is trivial stuff by comparison to the issues GL generally raises, and if on this occasion he has been caught in his own man-trap, he is not the first and won't be the last. Welcome to the real world of politics; which can actually get a great deal nastier than this and, for some of us, did.
Of course he made a mistake, but the procedure for investigating it is a bureacratic shambles and needs reform. Ever since the idiot and privileged Lord Nolan, now toasting his tootsies in a corner of Hell, imposed his damn-fool standards in public life on the world, we've been lumbered by an utterly foolish system of fail-safe rules and regulations which don't actually achieve anything at all, but have created an absolutely cretinous apparatus, of which the Scrutiny Committee of IW Council is just one ludicrous example.
It doesn't ACHIEVE anything; if a councillor is determined to be corrupt, he/she can still be, given a following wind and rubbish auditors (see those that were supposed to regulate the banks..).
But GL isn't corrupt; he just fell foul of an archaic procedure, silly rules, and a rotten investigatory process designed, if that's the word (and it isn't) to catch the genuinely bent.
The approach they used on him is so over the top, I'm surprised the council officers responsible aren't wearing space-suits.
When WILL people see through this self-serving twaddle?
I got a bit carried away in that post, because the previous one annoyed me, in two respects. One, if you are going to go for someone with all guns blazing, do at least have the courage to put your own name to it. And two, why the personal abuse? Anonymous posters having a personal go at each other is one thing; personal comment about the man who puts up the blog in the first place is another, it seems to me. Going for the ball, not the player, isn't a bad principle.
Kind words again in this weeks County Press from Hofton. Are you and she related Geoff? (joke!)
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