Guest blog by Philip Grant. Christine Gilbert is the current Chief Executive of Brent Council who is due to leave after the summer.
Dear Ms Gilbert,
Further to our recent email correspondence, to which I have still to
receive a satisfactory reply, either from you or on your behalf, I regret that
I have had to resort to sending a letter to the editor of the “Brent &
Kilburn Times”, which was published today, and to writing this open letter to
you, which I will be copying to all elected members of Brent Council, and
making available to anyone who wishes to publish it.
In case you have not seen the letter in our local newspaper, here is a
copy of it:-
This is a matter of genuine public concern. You may feel that it is
“none of my business”, but it is my business if money which I have contributed
to through my Council Tax, and which should be used for providing local
services, is being secretly paid to a former senior officer. Cara Davani left
the Council at the end of June 2015, but should have resigned in September 2014
when the findings of fact in the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case were
made public. When she did not resign, it was your responsibility as interim
Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service to take the appropriate action, which
any other person on those facts would have seen as using the Council’s disciplinary
procedures against her for the gross misconduct which the Tribunal had
highlighted.
As a first step in dealing with this mess, which you have allowed to
develop through trying to “sweep it under the carpet”, I believe it is
reasonable to ask you again to reply, openly and honestly, to Council staff,
elected councillors and publicly to Brent’s residents, to the two simple “yes”
or “no” questions I put to you a week ago:
You know the answers to these questions, and I think it is unfair of you to have passed the matter to Brent’s Chief Legal Officer to respond to on your behalf (which she has not yet done).1. Can Brent Council confirm that there has not been, and that there will not be, any financial payment by the Council to Cara Davani in connection with her leaving the Council's employment as Director of HR and Administration, other than her normal salary payment up to 30 June 2015? YES or NO.2. Can Brent Council confirm that it has not agreed, and will not agree, to pay any award of compensation, damages or costs made against Cara Davani personally, as a separately named respondent from Brent Council, in any Employment Tribunal or other legal proceedings in which she and the Council are named parties? YES or NO.
As I
said to you last week, if the honest answers to both of these questions is
"yes", then that will be the end of the matter, and it is difficult
to understand why you have delayed saying so.
If the answer to one or both of these questions is “no”, then I believe that you have a duty to disclose, particularly to elected councillors, what financial arrangements (other than her basic salary payment to 30 June 2015) have been made or agreed in Brent Council’s name for Ms Davani’s benefit, who made or agreed those arrangements, and what is considered to be the justification for them. You have tried to put off my enquiries about this matter by saying that the Council cannot ‘legally disclose’ any details, and when I hoped to raise this matter at Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday evening it was claimed (at short notice by the Head of Executive and Member Services) that it would be ‘inappropriate’ for me to raise this subject at the meeting, because of the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 (which “provisions” has still not been disclosed). Whatever the legal excuses, it is surely in the public interest that councillors, staff and residents can be assured that any payments were properly and fairly due.
The way that this matter has been handled by you and other senior
officers gives the impression of a “cover-up”, even if the rumours of a “pay
off” to Ms Davani prove to have been false. What is needed, on this and any
similar issues, is transparency and accountability. I realise that you only
have a short time left as Brent’s interim Chief Executive, but please act
promptly to resolve this matter on a reasonable basis, so that you do not leave
the borough even further in disrepute. Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Philip
Grant
30 comments:
The BBC should be replacing James Naughtie on the Today programme with you, Philip, not bloody President-of-the-Oxford-University-Conservative-Association Nick Robinson.
Mike Hine
What's happened to the idea of good governance in local council transparency and accountability?
Why not submit an FOI asking for the total amount of payments made to ex-Brent staff unconnected to salary payments as part of any leaving deals?
What happened is Cara Davani, aided and abetted by Christine Gilbert, Mildred Phillips, Sara Williams, Bloomsbury Consulting et al...........
........and don't lose sight of the fact that this lot have a well established MO: Tower Hamlets, Ofsted, now Brent. In fact, their activities could contribute much to a learned study of host parasite relationships. I wonder where will they swoop down next...............?
Definately!
A destabilising counter group of..!?
Deals with meals, eh!?
Too right, Nan, and you have just listed a few of the nodding ducks who don't know their b's from their e's!
GO CRONIES GO! Let Brent redeem its good identity and rid itself of the disrepute the Cronies have left for the new chief exec to SHAKE OUT!
I received an email yesterday from Christine Gilbert's Executive Assistant, confirming that my open letter had been safely received, but no answer from the interim CE herself yet.
I have sent the open letter to ALL of Brent's councillors, as they are the people who have been elected to run the borough on our behalf, and they should have the power to influence the outcome of this matter. I sent separate, more detailed, emails to the members of Cabinet and the Scrutiny Committee, but this is what I said in my emails to the other back-bench councillors yesterday:-
'I am attaching, for your information, a copy of an open letter which I sent with a covering email to Brent's interim Chief Executive, Christine Gilbert, yesterday evening. I advised her that I would be sending copies of it to all of Brent's elected councillors, and I have already sent it to members of the Cabinet and of Scrutiny Committee.
Some of you will already know that I have been trying to get a range of concerns arising from the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case (which gave its judgement in September 2014) brought before councillors for their consideration, but have been prevented from doing so by the actions of some senior Council Officers (supported, in some cases, by a leading councillor).
I believe that councillors, Council staff and residents deserve transparency from Ms Gilbert over rumours of a secret (and both unnecessary and undeserved) "pay off" to Cara Davani. I hope that you will add your voices to the call for answers in this matter, and for any payments or other financial benefits agreed with Ms Davani on her leaving the Council to be independently scrutinised. Thank you.'
The matter is now with Christine Gilbert to deal with, and our elected councillors have it in their hands to ensure that she does. It is NOT a party political issue, but a wider one of transparency and good governance which affects all parties, just as the further "bite" into Council funds if any "pay off" is given to Cara Davani will affect all of Brent's citizens in terms of reduced services.
Philip Grant.
I did consider an FoI request, but by the time this had been dealt with (even if the information were to be disclosed) it would probably have been too late to make any difference.
Philip.
This story is a gift for London TV news programmes, surely.
PERHAPS BRENT COUNCIL SHOULD BE ASKING ITSELF WHAT ARE THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD GOVERNANCE?
Is governance is accountable...?
Is accountability a fundamental requirement of good governance.
Does local government have an obligation to report, explain and be answerable for the consequences of decisions it has made on behalf of the community it represents?
Should good governance be transparent..?
Should people be able to follow and understand the decision-making process?
Should this include why a decision was made?
What information, advice and consultation was considered, including legislative requirements?
Should good governance abide by the rule of law - including laws relating to Equalities, including judgments from employment tribunals?
Should officials be rewarded for equality breaches and poor governance?
Never too late to make a difference if bad practice is analysed and improvements made based on findings.
Brent Council already knows what the characteristics of good governance are. They are set out in its Constitution (in Part 2, Article 1) as follows:-
Purpose of the Constitution:
1.4 The purpose of the Constitution is to:
• support the active involvement of citizens in the process of local authority decision-making;
• help councillors represent their constituents more effectively;
• enable decisions to be taken efficiently and effectively;
• create a powerful and effective means of holding decision-makers to public account;
• ensure that no one will review or scrutinise a decision in which they were directly involved;
• ensure that those responsible for decision making are clearly identifiable to local people and that they explain the reasons for decisions; and
• provide a means of improving the delivery of services to the community.
So all the Council, its officers and members, need to do is to follow their own rules. That shouldn't be too difficult, should it?
Philip Grant.
It is evident from the Employment Tribunal which Rosmarie Clarke brought against 1. London Borough of Brent and 2. Cara Davani that OUR ELECTED COUNCILLORS PAID OFFICIALS IN BRENT HAVE GREAT DIFFICULTIES FOLLOWING THE RULES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE, PARTICULARLY IN RELATION TO ' ENSURING THAT THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR DECISION MAKING ARE CLEARLY IDENTIFIABLE TO LOCAL PEOPLE AND THAT THEY EXPLAIN THE REASONS FOR THEIR DECISIONS'.
To illustrate an example of Brent being wholly vague and incompetent, in relation to ENSURING THAT THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR DECISION MAKING ARE CLEARLY IDENTIFIABLE TO LOCAL PEOPLE AND THAT THEY EXPLAIN THE REASONS FOR THEIR DECISIONS - or deliberately mislead and lie - we only have read Wembley Matters, dated 28.9.14, when Philip Grant, a local resident, raised some important questions.
Philip Grant asked:-
"Did Senior Brent Council officers allow Cara Davani to continue her victimisation of council worker?"
He goes on to say:-
"Brent Council has been “found guilty” of racial discrimination in this case, and wants to clear its name. If race did not play a part in the decision to continue disciplinary action against Rosemarie Clarke after she had resigned, what was the reason for the decision, and who made it?"
Phillip quotes from the judgement of Judge Henry:-
"The tribunal judgement says at para. 240:
‘With regards to the decision being taken to pursue disciplinary action against the claimant, following the termination of her employment, the respondents [Brent Council and Cara Davani] have been unable to state by whom or when that decision was made. Indeed, by the evidence before the tribunal a decision was taken following a meeting between Ms Cleary [a Brent HR Manager] and Ms Ledden [Brent’s Legal Director]. In her oral evidence, Ms Ledden confirmed that Ms Cleary’s role at the meeting was an advisory one only, but also that she, Ms Ledden, had not made the decision either. Ms Ledden could not identify who had made the decision."
Philip goes on to say:-
"The tribunal clearly found the evidence reported here scarcely credible, as any reasonable person would. Despite claiming not to know who had made such an important decision, Brent’s most senior legal officer chaired the meeting on 31 July 2013 which implemented that decision, and found Rosemarie “guilty” of gross misconduct. What was the “misconduct” which she had been suspended for? The letter to her on 26 February 2013, supposedly written by the Director of her department, but emailed to her by Cara Davani, said: ‘It has been alleged that you maybe liable for gross misconduct in respect of your failure to follow reasonable management instructions.’ The ‘instructions’ had been given by Ms Davani, who Ms Clarke had lodged a formal complaint against for bullying, and the tribunal found that they had not been ‘reasonable’.
In light of the general vagueness relating to who the made life-changing decisions which have affected Rosemarie Clarke, as well as others', surely it's now time to call for an independent investigation as there have been too many genuine concerns raised about the potential misuse of public money, including misuse of Oyster cards, as well as poor practice and pay-off through failures and/or nepotism, all of which are a potential breach the rules of good governance.
Perhaps renewed calls should be made to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to investigate.
Guess it's just a matter of time!
UPDATE:-
One week on from my open letter, and I have not received the answers to the two questions, from Christine Gilbert or from anyone else at Brent.
I have received emails, in response to the copy of the open letter which I sent to them, from two Labour councillors, both Conservative groups and the Lib-Dem councillor, and in reply I have urged them to press Christine Gilbert to publicly answer the two questions. It is concerning that no members of Brent's Cabinet have even acknowledged the email that I sent them with a copy of the open letter.
If there are no "pay off" arrangements between Brent and Cara Davani, then it would put the rumours to rest if the interim Chief Executive confirmed this. If there is any "pay off", out of Brent Council funds, then councillors (and the public) should be told, so that they can raise any questions they feel should be asked in order to satisfy themselves over whether the arrangements are justified.
Philip Grant.
Guess the Councillors have been given strict orders to take a vow of silence by Cronygate.
FOR THE RECORD (Part 1):-
In the continued absence of a reply from Christine Gilbert, I sent the following email to her on Friday afternoon (24 July):
'Dear Ms Gilbert,
It is more than two weeks since I first asked these two simple questions, and more than a week since I put them to you in an open letter. As Brent's Chief Executive, you not only know the answers to these questions, but have a responsibility to answer them.
As I said previously, I believe it is reasonable to ask you to reply, openly and honestly, to Council staff, elected councillors and publicly to Brent’s residents, to these two simple “yes” or “no” questions:
1. Can Brent Council confirm that there has not been, and that there will not be, any financial payment by the Council to Cara Davani in connection with her leaving the Council's employment as Director of HR and Administration, other than her normal salary payment up to 30 June 2015? YES or NO.
2. Can Brent Council confirm that it has not agreed, and will not agree, to pay any award of compensation, damages or costs made against Cara Davani personally, as a separately named respondent from Brent Council, in any Employment Tribunal or other legal proceedings in which she and the Council are named parties? YES or NO.
I look forward to receiving your answers to these two questions at an early date. I am copying this email to the same councillors as my previous email(s) to you, and would ask that you copy your reply to them also. Thank you.'
(Note: comment continues in Part 2 below.)
FOR THE RECORD (Part 2):-
On Saturday 25 July I forwarded the email above to Cllr. Muhammed Butt, with copies to the other members of his Cabinet, with the following message:
'Dear Councillor Butt,
Further to my email to you and your Cabinet colleagues on 16 July, attaching a copy of my open letter to Christine Gilbert about a rumoured "pay off" to Cara Davani, I am disappointed that Ms Gilbert has still not answered the two simple questions I put to her. I am forwarding a copy of the further email which I sent to her yesterday.
Although it is the responsibility of Brent's interim Chief Executive to answer these questions, I believe that the Cabinet has a duty to ensure that Brent's councillors, its staff and residents, are given this information. Ms Davani was a controversial Head/Director of HR, and the findings of fact about her victimisation of a Council employee in the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case have brought Brent into disrepute.
Rumours of a "pay off" to Ms Davani have raised concerns that need to be dealt with, and the continued failure by Ms Gilbert to deal with my reasonable request only adds further concern over what she may be trying to hide from councillors and the public. There needs to be transparency over this matter, not what appears to be an attempted "cover-up".
I believe that you have a special responsibility to ensure that Ms Gilbert deals with this matter openly, before she leaves the Council. When you became Leader in May 2012 you told local residents, through the "Brent & Kilburn Times", that under you the Council would be ‘more open and transparent’. More particularly, it was you who appointed Christine Gilbert as interim Chief Executive (probably on the advice of Cara Davani), and have managed to keep her in that role for nearly three years, rather than the 'few months' it was originally meant to be before a permanent Chief Executive was appointed by open competition, and approved by Full Council.
You have a Cabinet meeting on Monday, and there is at least one report from the Chief Executive before that meeting, which should mean that Christine Gilbert will be present at it. I hope that you will ask Christine Gilbert to publicly answer the two questions in my open letter, either at or before your meeting on Monday evening. Thank you.'
Anonymous (24 July at 17:53) suggests that councillors may have been given strict orders to keep quiet about this matter. If they have, then not all of them are following those orders! I am aware that several councillors have asked Christine Gilbert to publicly answer my questions, in the interests of transparency. If Cllr. Butt and his Cabinet colleagues do not ensure that Christine Gilbert answers those questions, then they will be clearly showing themselves to be part of the attempted "cover-up".
Philip Grant.
Perhaps paid and elected officers should be reminded once again of their duty to uphold ..
The 7 principles of public life, which are:-
Selflessness
Integrity
Objectivity
Accountability
Openness
Honesty
Leadership
1. Selflessness
Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.
2. Integrity
Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.
3. Objectivity
Holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.
4. Accountability
Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.
5. Openness
Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.
6. Honesty
Holders of public office should be truthful.
7. Leadership
Holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and be willing to challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.
Based on the above, I think Phillip could be asking more difficult questions but let's hope he gets answers to the two he has asked.
WM readers could go to town on
2. Integrity
Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships..
I did ask 'more difficult questions' to begin with, but received this "brush off" response from Christine Gilbert on 8 July:-
'Having discussed your queries with Fiona Alderman, Chief Legal Officer, I am advised that the Council cannot legally disclose any details of the arrangements relating to Ms Davani’s departure.'
In order to get round this problem, and make things easier for our interim Chief Executive to give some information without the "legal" constraint that she was claiming prevented her from answering, I asked my two, simple, "yes" or "no" questions instead. Christine Gilbert's continued failure to answer these two questions puts her in breach of several of the seven principles of public life, and I hope that she will come to her senses and provide the answers very soon.
Philip Grant.
First the GOOD NEWS:- I will be receiving (and passing on to Wembley Matters readers) the answers to the two questions which I first put to Christine Gilbert on 9 July, and repeated in my open letter above.
The bad news is that I won't be getting the answers yet. I have received an email from a councillor who 'is always in favour of transparency', and who has taken up the cause of getting answers to my questions with Christine Gilbert. The councillor has been told that my 'questions to Christine Gilbert have been logged by the Council and passed onto Fiona Alderman who will answer in the permitted timescale', and that I will be provided 'with a full response in accordance with usual procedure'.
It is disappointing that I had to hear this from a councillor, as Christine Gilbert could have asked her Executive Assistant to tell me this, and tell me when the reply would be provided, in response to a request in an earlier email to let me know the date by which I could expect to receive a reply.
I have let the councillor know that I think the "excuse" over why the two questions have not yet been answered is a case of deliberate delaying tactics by Christine Gilbert:
'Christine Gilbert knows the answers to the two "yes" or "no" questions - no "pay off" arrangements could have been made without her direct knowledge and agreement. There was no need to pass the matter on to an officer who is already under pressure over her own workload. This is prevarication which goes against the principle of openness, and does not reflect well on either the Council or its interim Chief Executive.'
Philip Grant.
If answers aren't forthcoming, methinks Philip should write a play, titled: 'Brent's Cronygate'. It could be a best seller as it would contain mystery, romance and melodrama. It could replace Yes, Priminister wit Yes, **!?
What is a reasonable time scale? Is the delay deliberate pending a September agreement with Rosmarie Clarke?
For the continuing story of trying to get answers to the two questions from Christine Gilbert, please see the following blog and comments on 29 July:
http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/brent-council-cannot-legally-disclose.html
Philip.
Dear Anonymous 28 July at 08:21,
I don't think that the deliberate delay is because of the remedy hearing in the Rosemarie Clarke case, which I understand is due to take place in mid-September. I think the more likely reason is that Christine Gilbert does not want to explain to Brent councillors why she thinks any "pay off" agreement with Cara Davani is justified, and a proper use of Council funds.
That is assuming there has been a "pay off" - we are still awaiting the answer on that, but if there is no "pay off" you would have thought Christine Gilbert would have confirmed that by now!
Philip.
Sadly, it's not surprising - it's all Cronie a Clique with Cronie Speak & Cronie Silence! She's a big disappointment. Hope she takes early retirement and never darkens the doors of humble communities ever again.
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