With long queues of two-and-a-half-hours at Heathrow recently, we thought the passengers might welcome something to read to help while away their time as they wait to get into jolly old Blighty.
Nutsville has learnt through an FOI request (download here) that the UK Border Agency chiefs, (which were described as not fit for purpose by the Commons home affairs committee), have pocketed over £11M in bonuses in just the last three years.
We asked the UK Border Agency for the total amount of payments of bonuses paid to staff for the years 2008/09, 2009/10 and 2010/11.
They eventually came back with the following figures:
Financial year
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
Total bonus payments
£3,469,268.52
£4,098,026.55
£3,538,324.21
Benefits in kind
We also asked the UK Border Agency for the amounts of ‘benefits in kind’ they had given out over the same years. Benefits in kind are often tax free and include such things as company cars, meals, cash gifts, private medical insurance, relocation fees etc.
The agency were even more reluctant to tell us that information, claiming it was too expensive to provide. An often used excuse when a Government department, or as in this case ‘executive agency’ really doesn’t want to be open and transparent. We have found during the course of a still ongoing much wider investigation, that benefits in kind or perks as we know them, can often be equal or greater than the bonus payments paid out by these quasi government departments.
It seems that although the UK Border Agency may not be able to get the IRIS recognition machines to work, the bonus one arm bandit never fails to payout for them.
A man who it’s believed to have failed an HGV training course is holding a number of people hostage in an office block on Tottenham Court Road.
Police were alerted to the scene as office equipment and documents were thrown from an upper floor window on to the street below.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the man walked in to the office block at around midday with gas canisters strapped to his body, claiming he had nothing to live for. People at the scene suggest that the man is known to have a history of mental illness.
Two hostages were reported to have been released, but around 4 hostages remained,it’s said now that all the hostages have been released.
Office workers behind police corden in Howland Street looking towards Tottenham Court Road
Police expanding the corden around Tottenham Court Road
Customers taking refuge in local pub The Carpenters Arms
Police taking cover in entrance of office building with office equipment thrown onto the pavement from above.
Police snipers leaving from an office block opposite the hostage building after a 49 year old man had been arrested.
The press
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Hertfordshire County Council finally succumbed to the inevitable and agreed at last Monday’s Tory led cabinet meeting to refund around 36,000 drivers an estimated £1.3 million. The money had been taken from motorists in a sting operation the County Council had set up last year, using spy cameras to photograph motorists entering a Hemel Hempstead bus lane.
Growing complaints from motorist who had been stung by the trap at Moor End Road and had begun receiving fixed penalty notices through the post demanding £30, with the threat of doubling the charge to £60 if motorists dared to try to take their complaints to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.
Motorists at the time condemned poor signage which they said was only visible after it was too late to avoid entering the bus lane. Hertfordshire County Council ignored requests from Under-secretary of State Mike Penning to suspend the spy camera enforcement after he pleaded “The thing to do surely is suspend any enforcement against people while they sort this out.”.
Local Liberal Democrat County Councillor Nick Hollinghurst said “I went down with a camera and took a lot of pictures and I sent them to Hertfordshire Highways. There were pictures of signs pointing in the wrong direction, sign with a signpost in front so you couldn’t read it properly and one with a lamppost right in front of the sign telling you not to go down the bus lane. It’s no wonder people got confused.”
Then in September 2011 the story was picked up by the Daily Mail and The Sun which told their readers of a massive £16,000 per day being made from the bus lane spy cameras. Both articles (download here and here) featured quotes from Tory Councillor Stuart Pile, who is the Executive Member for Highways and Transport at Hertfordshire County Council. Just like Margret Thatcher, Cllr Pile’s mind was made up, he was not for changing anything at the junctions despite the incredible numbers of motorists confused by the bus lane signs.
Cllr Stuart Pile warning taxpayers of thieves
Nutsville interviewed Stuart Pile in September 2011 to try to understand why he seemed so intractable. He first gave us a potted history of the Moor End Road bus lane telling us there has been prohibition on that road since 1992, which up until 2006 was only in one direction. He explained that as the road is the entrance to the bus station and because originally they had motorists parking in the bus lane it caused huge disruption to the bus time tables. He recalled that because the buses were unable to sustain a time table, routes further up the line towards Aylesbury were being withdrawn.
Pile told Nutsville “The Police asked us to intervene about 18 months ago, and install an ANPR camera” “There’s been a lot of controversy about the signage. The signage as installed not only has to meet the DfT guidelines but has to be approved by the DfT as does the camera. Of course that was all approved in December of last year (2010). So the fact that the Under Sectary of State who happens to be MP for Hemel has come out against it, he really should checking his facts because the DfT his own department has approved it all.” “We not only put in what the DfT approved, but about 100 meters further out we put in additional signs, huge yellow signs”
We asked Cllr Pile about the revenue being claimed in the newspapers, to which he explained “We don’t actually achieve all of the fine income, because of the cost of monitoring the system, approving the tickets and everything else for every £30 fine we only get £8. So the income so far (as of September 2011) has only been about £38,000 on a scheme costing about £150,000”
We asked Cllr Pile where had the newspapers got the figure of £600,000 from? He said “That’s the shear number of tickets that they expected us to issue. What they did was to look at the amount of contraventions that was happening and multiplied that assuming we were nicking everybody.”
The nitty gritty
Because the bus lanes in Moor End Road ran in both directions we wanted to draw Cllr Pile’s attention to the wording in the The Traffic Regulation Order (TRO).
Cllr Pile “The order was raised 15-Nov-2010, it says No person shall cause or permit any motor vehicle except a bus or taxi to enter and drive along that length of Moor End Road, Hemel Hempstead from its junction with Waterhouse Street westwards to its junction with New Bus Link a distance of approximately 50 metres”
Nutsville “Where does it say in there about the other direction?”
Pile “It doesn’t have to say the direction it says along the length of. So you mustn’t run a vehicle along that length of road, nothing about direction”
Nutsville “Well it sort of does give a direction then doesn’t it, in the current TRO? to its junction with New Bus Link, that can only be in one direction can’t it?”
Pile “No it says the length of the road from here to here it doesn’t say anything about direction, and it doesn’t have too. Because it prohibits that length of road, it doesn’t say what direction, it doesn’t have to say a direction, it’s the road length that’s prohibited not the direction”
Nutsville “I think that’s open to interpretation, the way it’s worded.”
Pile “That’s the standard wording as cited by the DfT.”
We came away from the interview with Cllr Pile sensing that there was a genuine traffic problem at Moor End Road. But developments over the following months were to show that he and the Tory council leader Robert Gordon were not going to listen to the public they were supposed to be serving, instead preferring to put their faith in one or more highly incompetent council officers.
A No To Mob member warning motorists of thieves
At the same time the newspaper articles were published a campaign group called the No To Mob became very interested in the Moor End Road honey pot. The No To Mob are a group of volunteers who at present focus on councils who target motorists as cash cows.
If the Hertfordshire County councillors had only Googled the No To Mob to begin with they may have learnt that this group had been featured on the BBC’s Watchdog and One Shows, with their most high profile success being involved in Richmond Council refunding £1M worth of parking charges and disposing of one stuffed shirt Head of Parking along with the councils fleet of CCTV spy cars.
The No To Mob made regular visits to the Moor End Road site adopting their now familiar warning signs at the side of the road to tell motorists how not to get caught by the councils spy cameras. They tell us that at a conservative estimate the No To Mob have saved approximately 10,500 motorists (an average of 350 per week for 30 weeks) from receiving tickets.
The campaign group were also joined at the Moor End Road site by a local man nick named ‘The Hemel Hero’, later to be revealed as Dennis. He spent the last six months regularly visiting the site on his mobility scooter warning motorists of the PCN trap. Many motorist took time to stop and wind down their windows to throw insults at him, but at the end of the day it was Dennis who had the last laugh as he conservatively estimates to have saved motorist 5000 PCN’s, which incidentally has also saved Hertfordshire County Council from paying back between £150,000 to £300,000 in illegally derived income.
Dennis the 'Hemel Hero' next to a No To Mob member
The No To Mob also wrote to, amongst others, councillors’ Robert Gordon and, Stuart Pile, telling them of their concerns regarding the enforcement of signs. They told the councillors that huge numbers of motorists were not able to see the signs in time. They also explained in great, and as it turned out expert detail that the Traffic Management Order was not enforceable on the eastbound carriageway. In addition the No To Mob made it very clear to both the councillors and their officers that the signs and road markings were also not legal. The group made numerous requests for the councillors ‘and their officers to come and meet them at Moor End Road for a site visit. These were always refused, it seems the councillors’ and their officers knew best.
Councillor Nick Holinghurst said “They [the council] seemed to have adopted an attitude very early on of toughing it out, and I really can’t forgive them for that.”
The No To Mob are not just a group of people standing at the side of the road with a sign, they are also made up of a group of experts in various fields, which unfortunately for Herts CC some of those expert fields cover TRO’s, road signs and lines. So began a long trail of emails between the No To Mob and Robert Gordon/Stuart Pile along with their Highway officers. You can download just a tiny part of that email trail here.
The campaign group quickly established that despite what Stuart Pile had told Nutsville in interview, the council had no special permission to use signs that were not authorised in the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (TSRGD) from the DfT. Pile wrote to the No To Mob saying “I have again been advised by officers that the correct signing for the restriction in Moor End Road has been used and they do not require DfT authorisation.” Pile was digging his heals in, and backed his officers to the hilt saying “The sign combinations used at Moore End fall within the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions and we believe are lawful. Enforcement activity will not cease as special permissions from the secretary of state for the signage used at Moor End Road is not required.”
The No To Mob went on to learn that far from forcing the council to use a spy camera at Moor End Road the Police in meeting after meeting had asked the council not to use cameras for enforcement.
So what about that TRO that Cllr Pile had read out to Nutsville, and which the No To Mob had challenged him on in multiple emails. It took a ruling by the Chief Adjudicator at the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (Ms Caroline Sheppard) on the 30th March 2012 to back what the No To Mob had said from the start.
In her ruling the adjudicator said:
The wording of the Traffic Regulation order applied to westbound traffic only and therefore vehicles travelling east did not contravene any traffic order.
Ms Sheppard went on and on in her ruling for 14 pages, upholding all of the points the No To Mob had been making to Herts CC for the last 7 months.
Stuart Pile later described the damming ruling by the adjudicator as just a technicality.
Hertfordshire County Council eventually held a cabinet meeting last Monday (23rd April 2012) which the No To Mob and Dennis attended. The group were banned from filming and recording the meeting which was completely against the recommendations of the Local Government Secretary’s Eric Pickles MP and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State’s Bob Neill MP.
During and after the meeting not a word of thanks came from either the council leader Robert Gordon or Stuart Pile for the hundreds of thousands of pounds that both Dennis and the No To Mob had saved the council.
Even in interviews given to BBC Three Counties Radio yesterday Stuart Pile still believes motorists entering Moor End Road to be guilty, even though not one of them had committed any offence. Pile stated “Look at your conscious. We recognise we have a moral obligation here to give the money back. What I say to people is this, do you really want us to pay even more to you processing 35,000 £30 cheques or not. Will it be better to give that money to a worthwhile cause, and that’s what we’re suggesting.”
So Stuart Pile is attempting to take the moral high ground claiming that even though the council had no legal obligation to refund the money, he and his council were taking a moral decision to do the right thing. What Pile is not so keen to point out is that through the No To Mob the council were facing an investigation prepared for the District Auditor which could have led to all of the money being taken from the councils control, so what choice did Pile really have?
By the end of March 2012 Hertfordshire County Council had unlawfully issued nearly 35,000 tickets to the value of approximately £2.1m (35,000 x £60). Why did Stuart Pile refuse so many times to hold a site meeting with the No To Mob, or even suspend enforcement of what was an illegal trap for motorist?
The only real winners from this must be the enforcement company that Pile picked to supply and operate the spy cameras. They did nothing wrong and will keep the bulk of the revenue raised from the illegal PCN charges.
You can download a 19 minute MP3 sound file here of yesterdays BBC Three Counties Radio show where local people from Hemel Hempstead give their views on Cllr Pile’s moral high ground idea of donating money taken from them illegally to charity.
Today the No To Mob called for councillor Stuart Pile to do the morally right thing by asking him to resign for his million pound blunder at the taxpayers expense.
If heads don’t roll for this huge display of arrogance and incompetence, there is nothing to stop the whole farce happening again at Hertfordshire County Council.
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A shocking video has been published today highlighting the plight of a 37 year old woman who suffers from Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). The woman who lives on her own in the borough of Westminster receives only one hour of care per day. Symptoms of CRPS are continuous, intense pain out of proportion to the severity of the injury, which gets worse rather than better over time.
With so little support from the council the woman has to depend on the goodwill of others for shopping. Because of her injuries she is forced to eat her food from a bowl on the floor in the corner of her room.
Thanks with help from the councils Chief Operating Officer with responsibility for finance and performance Barbara ‘Babs’ Moorhouse Westminster Council achieved a massive under spend of its Adult Social Care budget by £4.4 million in 2011/12.
Babs must be chuffed for such sterling work for the community, but perhaps she needs to take time out to think of the consequences of her empire building when juggling the council’s finances.
Last January we wrote about the great mole hunt going on at Westminster City Council. We said because of the number of redundancies at the time, the flow of un-official information leaking from City Hall had increased, and we learnt that the then councils procurement officer, Alastair Gilchrist was spearheading a hunt to root out the mole infestation.
We’re pleased to say that no moles were ever caught, and Mr Mole continues in place working hard for Westminster Council and Nutsville. Although unlike the money grabbing council Mr Mole has never asked for a single penny. Gilchrist on the other hand has since departed from the council, but perhaps it’s not surprising that he did not continue with a career in pest control.
Mr Mole
Yesterday Mr Mole unearthed for Nutsville an 8 page confidential report ‘not for publication’ ( don’t download it here ) penned by the councils’ very own Chief Operating Officer (with responsibility for finance and performance), Barbara ‘Babs’ Moorhouse, who is declared in the report as the sponsor of the whole project.
Now Babs has an unusual way with words which we call ‘BabsSpeak’, luckily we are able to translate BabsSpeak for you.
The report opens with a summary written in ‘BabsSpeak’:
BabsSpeak: “The purpose of the contract is to deliver an “end to end “ eSourcing Platform encompasses spend analysis, strategic sourcing, procurement (including RFQ), evaluation, contract management, compliance, supplier performance management, and programme management solutions in an integrated suite. “
Translation: She’s buying some software to help the council keep track of what they’re buying.
Most of the financial software packages the council uses are basically knackered and reached the end of their working life long ago.
Babs goes on to explain that this software is needed because of the Tri Borough merger with Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea councils, and it will be mainly Westminster’s job to handle the buying of things, procurement.
An open secret
Babs tells us in the report that the council needs to be more open:
BabsSpeak: “Westminster City Council need to create improved visibility of contracts let through procurement and the purchasing activity against those contracts in the Ariba P2P Platform that Westminster already uses via its relationship with Vertex Data Science Ltd.”
Translate: Westminster City Council wishes to confess that it’s been less than open in its incestuous relationship with Vertex Data Science Ltd.
BabsSpeak: “That this report be exempt from disclosure by virtue of the Local Government Act 1972 Schedule 12A, Part 1, paragraph 3 (as amended), in that it contains information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).”
Translation: Shhh, don’t tell anyone, if this got out it would upset both Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea Councils, along with Vertex and not to mention the three suppliers trying to flog their services to the council:
BravoSolution; who quoted an annual subscription of £133,000 and estimated professional services costs of £69,900.
Emptoris; who quoted an annual subscription of £150,000 and estimated professional services costs of £100,000
And the winning company Ariba Inc with an annual subscription of £121,000 and professional services costs of £35,000.
Bringing the cost of the ‘solution’ over two years to £311,090.
Hooray, and how patriotic the American company wins the day.
Why would Westminster City Council mark this document as confidential – not for publication when we are supposed to be entering a new age of transparency and openness?
BabsSpeak: “eSourcing requires Cabinet Member endorsement given the scale although will be procured through the Vertex Data Services contract, therefore a formal Contract Notice will not need to be published or tenders invited. No Waiver of the Procurement Code will be required. A change request will be required to be raised to amend the Vertex contract.”
Translation: We’re doing this under the radar.
It’s worth noting that Vertex will not be doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, as we estimate they will slap around 8% on the costs for helping out Westminster Council.
Clueless
BabSpeak: “Westminster City Council does not have reputable spend visibility at a category or supplier level that can provide the analysis and spend granularity to drive increased savings through strategic sourcing.”
BabSpeak: “Westminster City Council does not have a complete view of all key procurement activity across the council or a fully populated and actively managed contracts register which supports compliance, governance and transparency.”
Translation: I haven’t got a clue where all the moneys gone.
Sources tell us that trying to get a hold of Babs on a Friday can be quite tricky. Perhaps unlike us who are busy grooming our mole, she maybe off grooming her horses. Ahh don’t worry though, our Mr Mole has already provided us with a hard disc full of documents that will benefit from the disinfectant of sunlight.
BabsGate Part 3 soon.
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On Thursday 29th March 2012 a series of questions were sent by Nutsville to a number of Westminster City Councillors. Those councillors were due to sit that evening on the councils Audit & Performance Committee.
In spite of regular checking of the Nutsville inbox, we were again disheartened that not one of them acknowledged our email.
The email to those councillors contained information that Nutsville hoped would prompt the inglorious members to use the opportunity of the meeting to ask some serious questions of Westminster Councils senior officers.
Nutsville believed the information provided showed that Westminster City Council officers have had little regard for the governance procedure of the council.
We said that Virements (an administrative transfer of funds from one part of a budget to another) of earmarked reserve funds have been made without Cabinet or Cabinet Member / Leader approval which is in flagrant breach of council governance procedure.
We felt it was helpful to remind councillors that Westminster City Council’s constitution made it clear that it was the duty of only elected members to make these decisions and not the unelected council officers.
To most people this would seem obvious and sensible – after all, what’s the point of electing someone who has no control over their portfolio.
The importance of having these rules in the constitution is to prevent council officers shifting money around to directly influence policy decisions, as we believe has been the case at Westminster Council.
The whole process can be serious. If an officer makes out that a particular department is short of funds and underperforming, this could lead to not only unnecessary job cuts but also withdrawal of essential frontline services.
Last December (2011) Nutsville made a series of objections to the District Auditor, along with the clearly stated aim to follow up with more objections in the near future. ( Our post about the objections are here)
From the get-go the District Auditors took our objections seriously setting up a meeting with four of them at their headquarters in Millbank Tower.
As we were obliged to, directly after the meeting we delivered a copy of the same objections to the council.
Amazingly, within a few minutes a reply came back questioning whether what we had submitted were objections at all. It went further to the point of even asking for a copy of the evidence supplied to the District Auditor.
The District Auditor is only answerable to the Queen (yep not even politicians), and it is for them to decide what is, or is not, a valid objection.
It is also up to the District Auditor to choose what evidence is shared with the local council.
So Westminster City Council were not off to a good start, especially as this was the third set of objections we have made against the Council in as many years.
You would think they would have got the hang of it by now.
So we were flabbergasted that when the story the council’s Chief Operating Officer (with responsibility for finance and performance), Barbara ‘Babs’ Moorhouse came out with, it painted an entirely different picture. Even more extraordinarily, she says that in her view this is a matter to be resolved in the next few weeks.
Barbara Moorhouse
Babs got in front of her Remington, and all fired up with rarely seen passion writes in her report on the 20th February 2012;
A certificate, closing the audits, has not yet been issued for the 2008/09, 2009/10 or 2010/11 audits as the District Auditor is considering a potential objection from a local elector. The Council and the Audit Commission has met and will continue to do so over the coming weeks in an effort to expeditiously resolve these so the audits can subsequently be closed. (view source)
Considering we have more objections to present to the District Auditor for 2010/11, Babs saloon-bar rhetoric is more than a little over confident, to say the least!
One of our objections concerns the shifting of large sums of money around without first seeking the appropriate elected members approval in accordance with the councils constitution. This is called a virement.
That objection has already been accepted by the District Auditor for further investigation.
To many of the council’s finance team our concerns are not news. These issues have been raised with them over the course of many meetings during 2011.
As we were obliged to, we ensured that copies of all our objections have been promptly delivered to the councils head of legal and democratic services.
As you will read and see in the video at the end of this post, it is baffling that, according to Babs, our concerns about the council’s accounts are “news to her”, and instead are the work of a former council employee who surprised everyone with his revelations on his very last day of work.
To help understand Babs reaction to our accounts questions it may first help know a little of her history;
Never out of the media for long, Babs Moorhouse originally worked for the private sector. In one of her last stints for the private sector she spent working for software company Kewill Systems as their finance director. After just two and a half years Babs resigned from Kewill. At the time of leaving, the companies share value was worth £2bn less than when she started. On her watch, ignoring profit warnings and missed forecasts, the share price nose dived. When Babs started at Kewill they were valued at £2.3bn yet on the day she shuffled out with her shoe-box of possessions, the company was worth only £17m. In this case her finance direction only went one-way; down! (view source 1 and view source 2)
At the time Kewill’s Chief executive Paul Nichols said there had been no row over Bab’s departure.
Eventually Bab’s found her way to the public sector, initially as non-executive director for the Child Support Agency. In March 2005 she moved on to the Department for Constitutional Affairs. Understanding that she would climb the public sector ladder, as Babs said herself “it is like a spider’s web of inter-connected relationships and influences”.
Not one to wear out the cushions, Babs was soon off again, this time to the Ministry of Justice.
In May 2007 it became clear she was no shrinking violet and wanted more than just a say in dictating policy when she wrote;
“She [Babs] was not prepared to make the move into the public sector and find herself shunted into the back office, with little or no influence over the strategic direction of the organisation. The opportunity to influence policy debates and manage the interface between policy decisions and the budgetary framework was essential for Barbara.” (view source)
But her move to the Ministry of Justice was not without problems as she told Parliament “we went backwards for a period of time” after problems with the Oracle database system which came to light shortly after Babs got the job. Babs didn’t see the Oracle problem coming (geddit!), but it left the MoJ unable to pay magistrates and suppliers on time. (view source)
The next move for Babs was to the Department of Transport (what could go wrong?) Pretty soon after getting there the wheels started to come off. Her short time ended with her being paid to leave the station which brought Babs further media exposure as news of her £379,372 pay off got out. (view source, page 15)All of this at a time when commuters faced another stinging round of increases in fares. Ungrateful travellers might have been more understanding if they’d known that Babs does have a passion for a greener form of transport than smelly old busses and trains, and that is horses. It’s not cheap to run just one mare, so perhaps her pay off should have been met with more sympathy considering her unfortunate choice of expensive hobby.
It wasn’t long after the unfortunate DfT departure before Babs Moorhouse was back in the news again when her appointment by Westminster Councils chief executive Mike More came to our attention in November 2009. We wrote about Babs Moorhouse’s very colourful past history in this post http://nutsville.com/?p=1280 Many of the comments to that post came from people using the various Whitehall Internet connections judging by their IP numbers, perhaps they were past colleagues just keen to wish Babs on her merry way.
Babs bizarre appointment later made it in to Private Eye’s ‘Rotten Boroughs’ page, which also highlighted her string of past appointments / non-achievements and payoffs from organisations who had benefited from her peculiar financial wizardry.
Despite the bad publicity Mike More put a brave face on his possible gaff, saying:
“I am delighted that Barbara Moorhouse is joining Westminster Council. She has an exemplary record of achievement across the public and private sector and will be a real asset to the council.”
“Barbara beat a very strong shortlist of candidates and has the skills, attributes and qualities that are needed to help lead one of the best performing local authorities in the country.”
So Babs still has one fan at City Hall. She did have two back in July 2011 when the now disgraced former council leader Colin Barrow announced that Babs Moorhouse was to change from being Strategic Director of Finance to become the new Chief Operating Officer, a position she holds to this day.
So this is why it fell to Babs Moorhouse last Thursday to answer our questions about the council’s finances.
She had intended not to appear at last week’s Audit & Performance Committee meeting but was abruptly summoned to attend, perhaps to try to keep a lid on the serious points we had raised.
When stuck in a corner, smear liberally with fiction.
Babs (in a fetching red number reminiscent of the Queen Mother’s wardrobe) looked decidedly uncomfortable, sitting bolt upright at the meeting.
She occasionally looked towards the District Auditor who was sat to her right. Wags may say that she was concerned her outfit clashed with his tie, but it’s clear her glancing appeals for agreement / acknowledgement / lifeboat or just hope were not going to be granted.
It quickly became obvious from Bab’s speech that when the mouth stumbles, its worse than the foot.
According to her, the embarrassing questions put by Nutsville were all the work of a disgruntled ex-employee. She took nondescript and made it a superlative departing from facts faster than a train on a leafy track and led the committee members along an altogether erroneous route saying that “We were quite surprised in that it was only on his [the whistle blower] last day that all sorts of issues/allegations have been made.”
As we said at the beginning of this post, we had been to see to the District Auditor about a dodgy virement back in December 2011.
A whistle blower had begun bringing his concerns to the council’s attention months before that.
You would think that Bab’s Moorhouse would have known that the issue on virements is flagged every year, and is even discussed with the Deputy Director of finance. So how come Bab’s seems to have no knowledge of this?
In June 2011, the point was raised again that virements needed Cabinet Member approval and a solid policy needed to be put in place. Yet to our knowledge we know of several occasions where virements have been processed without Cabinet approval, just on Babs’s authority (well who wants to be shunted into the back office? )
On hearing Babs’s explanation a wise politician would reserve judgment, at least until she had provided the promised written answers to our questions.
However one member of the committee was convinced by Babs’s disgruntled mischief making ex-employee story, and he’d obviously made up his mind.
Cllr Ian Rowley
Almost on cue Councillor Ian Rowley appeared like the dog who is always on the wrong side of an opening door.
He asked Babs “If the individual concerned was so concerned why weren’t they raised earlier?”
Well Councillor Ian Rowley why on earth didn’t you ask the Head of Legal and democratic services? You would have discovered that your council was aware of this whistleblowing, (Nutsville has theevidence) 4 months ago.
Babs replied leading the councillor on “Correct, I mean they were participating in many of the transactions that they are now questioning, so it’s slightly bizzare”
Councillor Rowley needed no further evidence other than the fragrant Babs’s testimony saying “If you’re going to be a whistle blower, do it earlier” (with perceptive advice like that its clear why he is a management consultant!)
Rowley then went on to ask Babs where these questions had been circulated.
This gave Babs a chance to explain how annoying this all was, with a number of staff being antagonised telling the committee “Well the Chief Executive, I think a variety of members have received notices, he’s circulated widely with the finance team”…”He’s certainly raised it with the minority party, he’s certainly got on to Nutsville”…. and “ I’m getting faintly bored having seen it in a number of places now” (to which I suppose one should say – don’t go to those places then!)
Stuff it, how did that happen! Nutsville has gone from being banned from the council’s computers, never to be spoken of out loud to being mentioned by the Chief Operating Officer. It was bad enough when the BBC’s Ann Robinson mentioned us, now we’ve sold out and gone mainstream.
Rowley then asked Babs “Is there any issue where you think that employees of the council have been intimidated by this?”
Babs replied “Let’s just say we are considering the behaviour of the individual whether it has been entirely in accordance with the usual rules” (the irony being that the ‘usual rules’ are somewhat of a stranger to Bab’s)
With that Rowley said he was concerned this was about intimidating staff under challenging circumstances. He wanted it relayed to the finance staff that he fully understood the stresses they had been put under by this type of action saying “when it circulates in public it’s a form of a deliberate attempt to intimidate” ending with “I hope that can be minuted as well”.
We believe that if you’re spending public money you should do it in public.
We must admire Cllr Ian Rowley’s gift for being able to decide the facts based just on the testimony of Babs after he admitted not having had the chance to read our email of questions and spread sheets. What a gifted star!
As P T Barnum so famously didn’t say – “There’s one born every minute”
He was right about one thing (surprising we know). He was correct to praise the staff in the finance team who genuinely have worked hard, with 70 hour weeks not being uncommon.
To most people, 70 hour weeks are bad enough, but if you add to that a department ruled by fear and intimidation by morally bankrupt empire builders it rather puts a different light on things.
But that’s for another post, soon!
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Things don’t seem to be going well for Westminster City Councils troubled communications company WestCo Trading. This company was set up by the council using taxpayers money to allow Westminster’s bloated communications department to make money for their services, away from any scrutiny by the public.
We now learn that the Allied Irish Bank have put a charge on the company, putting themselves at the head of the queue of creditors and even preventing the directors of WestCo trading from withdrawing any money from the company without the banks say so (download charge document).
Cllr Melvyn Caplan
Guess who is the only Councillor on the board of WestCo, Melvyn Caplan, yes the same Melvyn Caplan that Westminster Councils new leader Phillipa Roe put back in charge as Cabinet Member for Finance.
Job well done?
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Two days before Christmas Westminster City Council announced it was to introduce extra double yellow lines across the West End. This was seen by many campaigners’ as spiteful revenge after the Council was forced by the High Courts to postpone the introduction of the revenue raising and much hated Sunday and weekday evening ‘nightlife tax’ on parking.
The council attempted to play down the extent of it’s planned double yellow line painting spree by hiding behind disabled groups and putting out fake figures of the number of parking spaces which would be lost in the West End.
Then in February this year the Evening Standard reported that some of the high profile campaigners’ who had fought against the council, had noticed an alarming amount of double yellow lines appearing around the restaurants and clubs they operated.
Were the campaigners right, was the council embarked on a nasty game of payback? The council had produced three PDF maps with the proposed new stretches of double yellow lines marked on in red. These maps had formed part of the little known consultation period leading up to the decision.
In the photo below we show the end of Riding House Street as it runs along the side of All Souls Church which stands in front of the BBCs Broadcasting House. As you see a nice single yellow line allowing cars and motorcycles to park off peak for free as they have done for years.
Next we show you a close up of from one of the maps used by the council for its consultation and which is supposed to indicate what’s not changing as much as what is.
We’ve added the little peg man to show you which way our photographer is facing, the thick red line is where the double yellow lines are meant to go..
Our last photo was taken this month, the council have indeed gone mad with painting double yellow lines, losing at least four car parking spaces, and no hint on the councils consultation map that double yellow lines were to be painted where they have been. Oh look, not a dropped kerb in sight, that’s payback for you!
Cllr Lee Rowley
It doesn’t help Westminster residents or visitors that the Conservative Cabinet member for spin, illusion, misdirection and all other parking related headaches Cllr Lee Rowley seems to have no head for figures let alone know how to read a simple map as he has spent £209,000 writing off his failed parking policy (as again reported in the Evening Standard) after having to scrap most of the signs he pre-ordered before even making a decision on the nightlife parking tax. We now learn that the cost of blitzing the West End with yellow paint has robbed the taxpayer of a further £101,950.
The new double yellow line costs comprise;
The estimated cost of putting down the yellow lines in the West End (Zones E and G and Sub-Zones F3 and F6) was approximately £23,600
WestOne was paid approximately £31,550 to draft the delegated authority reports to initiate the public consultation, consider the responses received and make the traffic regulation order;
WestOne was paid approximately £31,100 to undertake site visits, prepare and modify plans illustrating the proposals and setting out the limits of the double yellow lines on site, ready for the lining gangs to lay the double yellow lines.
The City Council incurred other costs such as staff time and paying for postage and advertising that totalled approximately £15,700.
Rolwey refuses to apologise for his cock-ups and desperately clings on to his Cabinet position claiming the extra cash he gets in allowances for being at the head table, no matter how lacking in ability he is in being able to actually do the job he’s supposed to be doing.
What a man.
One wonders if those disabled groups would have been so quick to back the council’s double yellow line policy if they’d known the true human and financial costs. As this month the NHS-run Adult Social Care Survey (ASCS), which collates information from people receiving social care, rated Westminster joint worst in London. Also this week local pensioners are up in arms as Westminster Council are taking away their Taxicards seeing one man with Parkinsons now spending £40 just to get to hospital.
We repeat, what a man you are Lee Rowley!
Church Street resident Ash Naghouni, 42, who has been in a wheelchair for almost 20 years, says he has noticed a decline in his social care and told the local press: “The attitude before last year was how the council could help you to become more independent and contribute to society. Since last year it’s been as if I’m not important any more. All they are talking about is ways to cut down my care package to see how much money they can save.”
Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, Leader of the Labour Group, said;
“Westminster Council’s priorities are back to front, with painting double yellow lines in the West End seemingly having more importance than the welfare of Westminster’s most vulnerable residents. With a new Leader due to be elected this week it is high time that the Council concentrated on serving residents better than its current hard-hearted approach to those most in need.”
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As some of you know Nutsville was enjoying some time off, we really should not have to come back and point out to the council their slimy incompetent ways, hopefully this is a one off.
Westminster Council please get someone in charge who knows what they are doing for everyone’s sake, and cut loose some of your over paid senior officers who really haven’t got a clue how to do their jobs, it’s ridiculous.
From the 4th to the 6th of January 2012 Nutsville attended the London Employment Tribunal hearing of the case of Hakim Berkani
Hakim Berkani
versus his former employers NSL Services.
Hakim was employed by NSL Services as a Civil Enforcement Officer (CEO) patrolling the streets of Kensington and Chelsea, who had outsourced their parking enforcement contract to NSL Services.
Nutsville has written about the practices of NSL before, most memorably when Channel 4 commissioned a documentary called ‘Confessions of a traffic warden’. Neighbouring borough Westminster City Council who also uses NSL Services granted access to TV production company Betsy to make a documentary describing what it was like for newly arrived immigrants to work on the streets of London who obtained their first job with NSL Services.
At the time a number of CEO’s approached Nutsville to tell their side of the story. We catalogued tails of ticket targets, bullying, substandard working conditions, and examples of any CEO who complained being ‘managed out’ from the company. At the time our interviews were dismissed by both Westminster council and NSL as simply stories from disgruntled troublemaking CEO’s.
Now today we have obtained a damming judgement from the London Employment Tribunal (download here) where three Judges Mr Jeremy Burns, Mr T Robinson and Ms N Foster condem NSL Services managers for conducting a sham disciplinary hearing attempting to ‘manage out’ another honest CEO.
The unanimous verdict lists a catalogue of events and exposes claims that obtaining the maximum number of parking tickets is really what local councils and their subcontractors are all about, and at whatever cost:
NSL knew that their CEOs were regularly issuing PCNs unlawfully for taking longer than 5 minutes for loading until Hakim Berkani studied the rules and told his colleagues it was wrong.
He was sacked allegedly because he gestured from a distance a reminder to a driver whom he knew not to overstay his parking time. This was noticed by a supervisor hiding in waiting together with a CEO (who issues more tickets than any other) ready to ticket this car the moment the time expired (if the driver did not return in time). The preposterous allegation was that he had “endangered her safety and wellbeing”! This allegation wasn’t made known to Mr Berkani until more than two years after the event!
This allegation reveals the misconduct of the other CEO and her supervisor who were hiding for the sole purpose of issuing every PCN possible, this being a common practice in Kensington & Chelsea.
It was customary practice known to NSL management to start the PCN issuing process before a contravention had occurred. Visible CEO presence on the street is an objective of proper enforcement procedure.
Some NSL management statements made to the Employment Tribunal flatly contradicted earlier statements of the management presented in evidence.
CEO witnesses who gave statements to the Tribunal also contradicted evidence and statements made by the NSL management. Derogatory allegations made against Mr Berkani by the NSL management were not supported by evidence from his CEO colleagues.
Contrary to NSL Management allegations against Mr Berkani, one Manager told the Tribunal that he had never had any complaint about Mr Berkani’s conduct.
In the course of an earlier contrived and biased management investigation into Mr Berkani’s alleged behaviour the manger involved had been leading CEO witnesses in their statements and he failed to interview any of Mr Berkani’s colleagues who would have spoken strongly in his favour.
One NSL manager categorically denied that there was any performance quota for the issuing of PCNs yet Judges accepted evidence that the managers clearly wanted more rather than less PCNs to be issued. This is corroborated not only by an email from Emma Collins, Regional manager within NSL to Jeff Miles and Andrew Davison (then contract manager) dated 9 November 2009 which reads as follows “there are still significant numbers of people issuing at a rate of below .9 per hour …. we should not feel uncomfortable to use the disciplinary process … etc”.
A member of the NSL management (Mr Paul Boxall) actually told the Tribunal that “the Press are to blame for us not being able to have ticket targets” ! ! !
It was also shown that Kensington & Chelsea Council is fully aware of the unlawful PCN targets and also that they are necessary to achieve the terms of their contract with NSL.
NSL management denied that there were any financial rewards but it was shown that there are bonuses and overtime opportunities for those who issue large numbers of PCN and also the giving of Argos Rewards.
Mr Berkani became a representative of the GMB union because of the deplorable working conditions at the Fulham CEO operating base. He dealt with several working condition grievances from his colleagues which annoyed his supervisor.
NSL’s management style
Management disregarded Mr Berkani’s complaints about the water at the CEO’s NSL Fulham office which is fed from a roof tank. It was not safe for drinking and was contrary to health and safety regulations but NSL management refused to provide bottled drinking water. NSL’s base manager Mr Andrew Dunbar
NSL Base manager Andrew Dunbar
is alleged to have told Berkani that he “had a fucking big mouth and was a troublemaker“.
A few days later the Berkani found a large live cockroach in the kitchen and complained to a supervisor who went to report to Dunbar, who responded by suggesting to Berkani that “he was playing games … that the cockroach had come from Berkani’s own home … and that the workplace was like a ‘5 star deluxe’ for the other employees as where they come from they live with worse conditions on a daily basis etc … ”
Because of the grievances of the CEOs against their NSL management several joined the GMB union to have proper representation. This angered the NSL management, leading to one occasion where Berkani found that during his absence all his union application forms had been thrown in the bin. On another occasion he found that his locker at work had been forced and that his union diary was missing. When he went to see Dunbar about the binning of the application forms Dunbar refused to speak to him.
The tribunal heard how Dunbar tried to bribe Mr Berkani by offering him the opportunity of a favourable transfer to the NSL vehicle pound (which was highly sought-after position) on the condition that he ceased his union activities, stating “but that if he wanted the job he should immediately stop all his union activities“.
At about this time Dunbar was resistant to providing Berkani (who is a diabetic) with new shoes, requiring him to first to obtain a GPs letter at the cost to Berkani of £25 (to prove the already well known fact that diabetes involves a heightened risk to the health of the sufferers feet), and then telling Berkani that “he does not deserve a pair of shoes because he is a union representative, a lazy fuck, and because he did not issue enough PCNs to justify a new pair”
The tribunal Judge’s thought it was clear that by October 2010 relations between Mr Berkani on the one hand and NSL’s immediate managers, namely Messrs Rowland, Dunbar and Davison had reached a very low ebb. They saw the Berkani as a trouble maker in several respects, principally because he had refused to comply with and had sought to expose publicly the NSL’s clandestine PCN quota system, and because Berkani had become a union activist, and had taken a leading role in organising an increase in union membership, in representing members in grievance and disciplinary hearings against the self same managers, and in raising legitimate health and safety issues.
The Judge’s state “These Managers decided to get rid of the Claimant and schemed to do so by trumping up various alleged disciplinary charges against him.”
NSL contract manager Paul Boxall
Mr Boxall another NSL manager became involved in the process when he started visiting the NLS Fulham base from October 2010 onwards as part of his familiarisation process before taking over as contract manager in November 2010. The Judge’s thought that Boxall must have been told by Davison, Dunbar or Rowland and probably by all three that the Mr Berkani should be got rid of and that the place would be much happier if he went. Boxall accepted this argument and in fact told the tribunal that he thought that the base was a better place now without Berkani there (even though he had no first-hand experience of Mr Berkani during normal work conditions).
The plot thickens
One step in the plot against Berkani was to get a Ms Cangy a fellow CEO, to write a complaint about Mr Berkani. The Judges said it was a strange document in several respects. Its purported date (possibly 14 September 2010) was doubtful, particularly as it appeared to describe events over a previous period during much of which Berkani had been absent from work on unpaid leave. It was subsequently used by NSL as a complaint about Berkani’s personal conduct, but about that it was very vague. In fact the initial statement by Ms Cangy raises as its main issue Berkani not issuing PCNs, which, if it was a real issue, was a performance issue which NSL had decided not to deal with through any proper channel.
Cangy was interviewed by NSL base manager Steve Rowlands in October 2010 where he pressed her to come up with something more specific against Berkani. The best she was able to come up with was a reference to an incident in the past when Berkani had tipped off a motorist that he was about to get a PCN. It transpired that this incident had in fact taken place in 2008 but had not been complained about by Cangy at the time.
NSL Base manager Steve Rowlands
The Judges concluded that Cangy had been placed under some pressure by the conspiring NSL managers to come up with this material. What she produced was not a genuine complaint which warranted investigation or disciplinary charges.
The Judges said that the same applies to the so-called complaint produced later against the Berkani from a fellow CEO, Mr Khatri who did not speak or understand English very well or even at all.
According to the Khatri complaint, Berkani had been pressurising him to join the union, and had racially abused him calling him “that bloody asian“. The latter allegation was not corroborated by any other witnesses.
Rowlands helped create a petition to attack Berkani personally and as a union rep. Although Rowlands initially denied this he subsequently gave inconsistent accounts in different statements to the tribunal about this. The Judges said that Rowlands together with “other managers and seniors which he was not at liberty to identify” had drafted documentation, and caused it to be spread around Berkani’s workplace and placed on the public notice board during his absence.
Rowlands said his only motivation in drawing up these documents was to ensure that the GMB rep was democratically elected, and that he was entirely neutral as to who the rep should be. But the Judge’s thought that was wholly disingenuous as Rowlands eventually admitted having drafting a petition which contained a direct personal attack on Mr Berkani.
Mr Berkani also learnt from fellow CEO’s (which the judges found truthful), that during his absence Rowlands was trying to get CEOs to sign the petition and along with Dunbar was canvassing various employees trying to get them to make statements against Berkani.
Hakim Berkani was suspended on 2th October 2010 and interviewed by a Mr Samsay Samatrai on 29th October. Berkani gave an account of events which Judge’s found to be consistent with his subsequent versions. Berkani complained that he was being made the subject of a propaganda campaign by the two NSL base managers, Rowlands and Dunbar.
Mr Boxall an NSL contract manager later invited Berkani to a so called grievance hearing followed by a disciplinary hearing on 2nd December 2010. However Boxall decided to deal with Berkani’s complaints as a grievance separately from the disciplinary charges.
Judges said that Boxall’s actions were highly artificial and failed to place the Berkani case in its proper context. They went on to say that the fact that Boxall was intent on pressing on with the disciplinary hearing regardless of whether the grievance was well founded or not. By that stage Boxall had been persuaded by the NSL base managers at Fulham Rd that getting rid of Mr Berkani was desirable and Judges said that Boxall was just going through the motions with the sole intention of achieving that objective.
Mr Berkani learnt that the NSL managers (including Boxall) were contacting other CEOs trying to get them to make statements against him. Mr Boxall in evidence admitted making a call to a potential witness but denied that he did so with any improper motive. Mr Berkani said that by then he’d lost faith in NSL’s disciplinary process.
Boxall sacked Mr Berkani by letter dated the 11th February 2011.
Mr Berkani appealed against his dismissal with help from his union rep a Mr Abid. Even Mr Abid had to submit a written complaint after NSL base manager Rowlands bullied and harassed him in an effort to deter him from helping Berkani.
NSL’s shame continues upwards
NSL regional manager John Storey
Mr Berkani’s appeal was finally heard by NSL Services regional manager Mr Storey on 10th March 2011 where he was represented by another union rep, Mr Carter.
After the hearing Mr Carter was handed a letter dated 19th January 2011 which neither Mr Carter or Mr Berkani had seen before – it was Boxalls rejection of Berkani’s grievance regarding NSL’s propaganda campaign. Boxall wrote “I cannot conclusively prove that Steve Rowlands produced the documentation that is the foundation of the grievance claim“. Judges branded Boxall’s findings perverse and plainly wrong. They went on to say “In dealing with the appeal against dismissal Mr Storey appears to have accepted or followed Mr Boxall’s highly questionable conclusions about the Claimant’s grievance. Mr Storey also went off and asked witnesses highly leading questions designed to elicit answers unfavourable to the Claimant. He then dismissed the appeal without giving reasons”
The Judges concluded by saying:
The Respondent has not shown that the real reason for dismissal was misconduct or any other potentially fair reason.
The real reasons for the Claimant’s dismissal were (i) his opposition to the Respondent’s clandestine quota system relating to the issuing of parking contravention notices, and (ii) his trade union activities, neither of which were potentially fair reasons for dismissal within section 98(2) or some other substantial reason of a kind such as to justify dismissal.
Messrs Davison, Dunbar and Rowlands were a party to a campaign against the Claimant designed to frame him on trumped-up charges.
Mr Boxall and Mr Storey did not have a genuine belief based on reasonable grounds that the Claimant had perpetrated the alleged misconduct. There was substantial evidence on which they should have concluded that the Claimant was being victimised and that the original complaints against the claimant were simply an expression of this.
The so called misconduct – consisting in the Claimant not issuing PCNs because he was scared and unsupported, trying to persuade CEOs to join his union, and taking issue when he was on the receiving end of serious provocation from Messrs Dunbar and Rowlands would- not have justified dismissal in any event, even if these matters had been the genuine reason.
The disciplinary process was a sham designed to get rid of the claimant while skating over or ignoring the genuine serious counter-complaints which he had raised.
In final submissions Mr Preston suggested that the Claimant was guilty of contributory fault consisting in firstly his not attending the disciplinary hearings before Mr Boxall after 2nd December 2010. However, with good reason, he had lost faith in the process. He asked for a new process in front of an independent decision maker, but was refused.
Secondly it was suggested that he had refused to see matters from his “employers point of view”. However the main areas of disagreement were (i) that the Claimant objected to being forced to issue PCNs under a quota system, whereas the Respondents managers were seeking to advance such a system on a clandestine basis; and (ii) that the Claimant wanted to be able to pursue legitimate union activities on behalf of his union members in the face of severe illegitimate opposition to this from managers. We do not think that the Claimant refusal to share his managers’ views on either of these subjects can be justly described as contributory fault on his part.
There is also no basis for making a finding that had matters been dealt with fairly and properly, that the Claimant would have been dismissed anyway (ie under the Polkey principle).
NSL managers Boxall and Story arguing outside the tribunal
NSL managers Boxall and Story arguing outside the tribunal
NSL managers Boxall and Story arguing outside the tribunal
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There’s an old joke we couldn’t resist using when we learnt the latest news about resigning Westminster City Council leader Colin Barrow. He used to be indecisive but now he’s not so sure.
Last Saturday (14th Jan 2012) the BBC’s Political Editor Tim Donovan published his story that:
“Colin Barrow will resign as leader of Westminster Council and stand down as a councillor.” (view source)
As the days passed more journalists contacted the rather extravagantly funded Westminster Council press office to also have it confirmed that Colin Barrow was indeed resigning from both the leadership of the council and his role of councillor.
The significance of Barrow resigning as a councillor is because it would cause a by-election in Barrows ward, Hyde Park. The council’s standing orders state that the election must be called within 35 days of a councillor declaring his/her intention to leave.
Several journalists were led to believe by the council’s PR department that Cllr Barrow would be departing in March, staying just long enough to see this year’s council budget through.
Barrow himself was saying his resignation was something he had planned for a long time, as at 60 he wanted to use his time to concentrate on writing and lecturing. In all the TV and radio sound bites since last Friday Barrow never once said he was stepping down as a councillor, but perhaps tellingly he never once denied the official story being spread by his councils own PR department either.
With a number of journalists confirming to Nutsville that Westminster Council’s press office was telling them all, even after last weekend, there would be a by-election as a result of Barrow’s resignation, it creates a big question of who is running Westminster City Council.
By last Thursday the published press release on the councils’ website was quietly altered with the addition of this sentence tagged on at the end:
“Cllr Colin Barrow is stepping down as Leader but is yet to decide on his future as a Westminster councillor.”
A cached version of the original council press release can be viewed here whilst today’s press release is here.
We have spoken to a handful of Westminster Conservative councillors’ who have all said that Colin Barrow is giving the ‘impression’ that he is staying on as a councillor but all wanted Barrow to clear up what is happening. Some Tory councillors did say it was still a grey area which needs a clear statement from Colin as to whether he has resigned as leader and as a councillor.
With Barrow claiming his resignation decision was something he intended to do for months; it is odd for him not to be clear about his intentions at this late stage.
Could it be that once again council officers have attempted to lead councillors by the noses so to speak and jumped the gun by dictating policy or did Downing Street intervene? After all, the election for London Mayor falls on the 3rd May. So if there is a local by-election just before this date, it may help Ken Livingstone’s mayoral campaign. Most polls show Johnson and Livingstone just a few points apart, and the thought of Livingstone becoming London mayor is so abhorrent to Conservative’s it is bound to lead to speculation as to who is pulling Barrow’s strings because of the uncertainty over his resignation.
Colin Barrow might just be hoping to stay as a Westminster councillor for as long as possible? History does show Barrow as having the desire to ‘hang on’ to council jobs, as shown when he first went for the Hyde Park ward councillor’s job in 2002. At the time he was a lot clearer about his intentions than he appears to be now. He refused to step down from Suffolk County council, claiming he could be a councillor for both Westminster Council and Suffolk saying “I qualify to stand as a councillor in both Westminster and Suffolk and there are many examples of people who work on more than one council”.
Perhaps Colin Barrow might take the opportunity of tomorrows’ public council meeting to explain why his press office were saying one thing and he was not publicly disputing their statements.
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With long queues of two-and-a-half-hours at Heathrow recently, we thought the passengers might welcome something to read to help while away their time as they wait to get into jolly old Blighty.
