A meeting with limited purpose?

The York Council Joint Standards Committee – which is charged with ensuring there is probity in public life – meets for the first time in the new Council session on 17th June.

The, decidedly thin, agenda can be viewed by clicking here. It involves only the appointment of a chair, a vice chair and agreeing future meeting dates.

As well as regulating the activities of City of York Councillors, the 10 strong committee also considers complaints about Parish Councillor conduct. The parishes appoint 3 members to the committee. Two of the three nominations are former City of York Councillors. Both were rejected by the electorate at the recent May 3rd poll. (Stuart Rawlings and Sian Wiseman)

Only one of the Council appointed members has (recent) previous experience of York Council work. Ironically that is former Leader David Carr. Cllr Carr was himself the subject of a complaint over his handling of, what turned out to be, bogus allegations against Cllrs Aspden and Ayre in 2017.

It has taken 2 years and expenditure of over £100,000 to resolve those claims.

Steps were taken to start an independent inquiry into the process used by York Council officials to resolve the Aspden/Ayre case. There has been no recent update on the progress of this investigation. The Councillors themselves suffered a significant financial penalty as they lost earnings and had to pay for their own legal representation (costs thought to be in excess of £10,000).

The expectation had been that the outstanding case would have been resolved by now with the conclusion being reported to this standards committee meeting on 17th June.

The minutes from the committees last meeting, held on 13th February, included the following comment

” Since the committee’s last meeting in November 2018, two long running cases had been concluded and two cases remained ongoing. Details were set out in the table at paragraph 2 of the report. Members noted that one of the ongoing cases was likely to be concluded in February and stressed the importance of concluding the other case, which dated from 2017, before the start of the pre-election purdah period on 26 March 2019“.

The case started in September 2017 but investigated allegations going back as far as 2014.

It now seems that there will be no final closure on the Nigel Ayre case for a few more weeks at least.

The actual investigation into the case is understood to have concluded last year.

Police confirm “nothing to investigate” decision on suspended Councillors

Cllrs Aspden and Carr

It will come as no surprise to most residents that the Police have decided that there is no case to answer following an allegation made by Council Leader Carr regarding the conduct of two Executive councillors (Aspden and Ayre).

He arbitrarily suspended them from their offices in September. The power he used was designed to give elected Leaders an opportunity to change Cabinet placements but – when a coalition existed – needed to be exercised with caution, tact and agreement.

His action was none of these.

His public claim that the allegations against the two Councillors were “serious” was highly prejudicial (and likely in most residents eyes to be viewed as untrue)

The Police decision will hopefully bring Cllr Carr’s resignation forward by a few weeks. A fresh start could then be made in time for the important budget Council meeting on 22nd February.

The Councils Standards Committee could now decide to extend the period of uncertainty which has descended on West Offices.

They already have had had the opportunity to consider a report produced by, what officials at the time claimed to be, an independent third party, into allegations linked to the leaking of “confidential” information to residents. This, in turn, arose from a further confidential report into “contract” issues.

But the Standards Committee failed to use the autumn profitably to test the issues raised. Several members of that committee themselves have also issued public statements which could be regarded as prejudicial to the fair and impartial assessment of any allegations.

The water is further muddied by another report which the Council Leader has been pressurised to make public. It also referred to the actions of Councillors and officials at a stormy Audit committee meeting earlier in the year.

The Councils Chief Executive has been indecisive and ineffectual in dealing with the issue. There is no obvious way forward.

However, what is clear is that there needs to be more transparency in the Council with all reports routinely published unless there are real, pressing and justifiable reasons not to do so.

More to be banned from becoming Councillors in York?

York’s Standards Committee, which monitors Councillors behaviour, is being asked to support government moves to extend the range of offences which preclude people from standing for election.

There are already a wide range of exclusions including anyone having been convicted of a criminal offence, with at least a 3-month prison penalty, during the previous 5 years. Other disqualifications prevent some Council officials, teachers and bankrupts from seeking election.

The Government now considers that anyone who is subject to sex offender notification requirements, commonly referred to as ‘being on the sex offenders register’, should be barred from standing for election. Residents may have some sympathy with that view.

The government goes further and proposes to exclude anyone who is subject to some anti-social behaviour orders i.e. Civil Injunction or a Criminal Behaviour Order.

However, anyone subject to a dispersal, community protection, public spaces protect, or closure order will be able to seek election. We think there is a case for requiring anyone in this category to reveal the fact in any literature they may distribute when seeking election.

We do not, however, expect to see a mass exodus of “Yoof” in the general direction of the local polling booth.

More serious, though, is the way that in which the Standards Committee is failing its own Council members. Two have been under suspicion of wrongdoing now for three months. They have been (very publicly) sacked from paid jobs on the Executive and have been given no indication when they will have the opportunity to hear any evidence which may be available against them, much less have they had any opportunity to respond.

That simply isn’t good enough.

If the police had any evidence of wrongdoing they would have acted by now.

It is for the Councils own committees to bring the matter to a swift conclusion.

The committee may also wish to look at whether the individual circumstances of other Councillors may have changed since they qualified to stand at the last election.

Essentially Councillors need to have their principal place of residence or work in the Council area and/or own property in the area.

Judging by the councils web site, no fewer than 12 of the 47 Councillors give only “West Offices” as their contact address. All will have had to declare their home address on their nomination forms before being elected, so why the rush for secrecy now?

Gone it seems are the days when a taxpayer could pop a note about an issue through the letterbox of their local representative.

In fairness all the Conservative, Green and Independent Councillors publish their home addresses. All but one of the LibDems also do the same.

Quite why 2/3 of Labour Councillors seem to have gone into hiding is unclear

NB One Conservative Councillor has been offering their home for sale for some months now. Whether this is to allow them to move closer to the ward that they represent hasn’t been revealed. Alternatively they may have moved away from the City.

One Labour Councillor gives neither his home address or a contact Email address on the Council web site!

“Pillock” remark by York Tory Councillor prompts investigation

Lovers of Dickensian drama will no doubt turn out in large numbers at a public hearing meeting next week (West Offices 10:00am 19th Dec)

Groves Chapel

They will hear a complaint from 3 residents who claim foul play in the way that a planning application, relating to the establishment of a supermarket in part of the Groves Chapel, was handled at meetings which took place last spring.

An independent report into the storm will be discussed at a “Standards Committee” meeting.

The report finds that Cllr. John Galvin – the chair of the planning sub committee – was disrespectful to those attending a site meeting when – in an aside – he referred to someone as a “pillock”.

The investigator says “pillock” is not a swear word.

The complainants say that they didn’t actually hear what was said while John Galvin says the comment described the behaviour of a lorry driver who was touring the area in an attempt to influence the views of the planners.

The report dismisses claims that the Councillor had a vested interest in the outcome of the planning application by virtue of his, Council nominated, governorship of the York Hospital.

At a meeting on 7th April 2016 John Galvin used his Chairs casting vote to approve the plans to bring the Groves Chapel back into use (it had been largely vacant for several months).

The committee has the power to impose sanctions on Councillors found to have breached protocols. Usually breaches are dealt with by way of a warning about future behaviour.

While John Galvin’s approach can be viewed as robust – and he can sometimes appear intolerant of opposing views – we doubt whether the case should have got this far.

Better to use mediation to sort out this kind of thing, perhaps over a coffee and a handshake.

The costs of the investigation will be borne by taxpayers.