Wednesday 2 October 2024

Bobby Moore Bridge advertising lease – When is a complaint not a complaint?

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity



Final slide from petition presentation, asking 28 May Cabinet meeting to choose Option A.

 

On 2 September, Martin published a guest post, giving details of the formal complaint I had made to Brent’s Chief Executive over the advertising lease award. The main grounds for the complaint were that as well as being biased in favour of “Option B”, the main author of the Report and recommendation, which Council Leader Muhammed Butt had accepted (in the name of his Cabinet), had not disclosed his conflict of interests, in that he was the Head of the Council Department which benefitted financially from “Option B”.


A further guest post on 11 September set out Brent Council’s response, from the Corporate Director Finance and Resources (covering for the Chief Executive). He told me ‘that the report was drafted and agreed in accordance with the council’s standard practices,’ and expressed his confidence ‘that this procurement was open and fair and that the award of the contract will therefore stand, as formally agreed by Cabinet.’ 

“How complaints are dealt with – Stage 1” from Brent Council’s website.

 

The email did not actually address the main points I had raised, and did not even refer to my open letter of 30 August being a formal complaint, or what I should do if I was not satisfied with the Council’s response to it. I ended that article by asking (jokingly, I thought!): ‘Is Brent Council now dealing with complaints by not even treating them as complaints?’

 

As I found out that Kim Wright, Brent’s Chief Executive, was on leave until 25 September, I waited until then to write, requesting a Stage 2 final review of my complaint. I included the text of my email to her as a “for information” comment under my 11 September guest post, but this is the relevant section of it:


Extract from my email to Kim Wright of 25 September 2024.

 

Earlier in my email, I had said: ‘I realise that there will be other matters awaiting your attention on your return from leave, so do not mind waiting for up to twenty working days for your final review response.’ I was surprised when I received her response only two days later, and even more surprised by what it said:

 

‘Dear Mr Grant

 

Thank you for your emails. I understand that my office and Minesh Patel, covering for me, replied to you on 9 September outlining a response.

 

Whilst I do not dispute the significance of the issue at hand, I regret to inform you that this issue does not fall within the scope of the Council's normal complaints procedure. The complaints procedure is intended to deal with cases where a member of the public has suffered personal injustice as a result of the Council's actions or inactions. This is also the criteria that the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) uses to decide whether to investigate a complaint. This is mentioned on the LGSCO’s website and in the Council’s Complaints policy.

 

The policy states under section 3.2 “Who can make a complaint? Anyone who uses and/or is individually affected by our services can make a complaint. We cannot investigate complaints where there has been no personal injustice (in other words, where the complainant has not been directly affected by the matter raised).” In this particular case you have not suffered a greater degree of personal injustice than anyone else affected by the matter raised. Your concerns were therefore not logged as a formal complaint but were addressed in the response provided to you by the Corporate Director of Finance and Resources whilst I was on a period of annual leave. I do apologise that this was not explained to you at the outset. If you disagree with the way we have addressed your concerns, you can if you wish approach the LGSCO to ask them to review our decision to not treat your concerns as a formal complaint.

 

I understand that you have submitted a number of FOI requests concerning the Bobby Moore Bridge lease, including one relating to the signing of the lease, and you will receive replies to these within the usual deadline.

 

Kind regards

Kim Wright (she/her)

 
Chief Executive, Brent Council’

 

The Policy Statement from the Brent Council Complaints Policy (August 2024).

 

That response does not fit well with Brent Council’s stated policy of welcoming complaints, aiming to resolve them quickly and using the information gained from them to improve the quality of what they do!

 

I don’t agree that I have not suffered any personal injustice, (or as the Local Government Ombudsman’s website actually describes it ‘not affected you personally or caused you an injustice), but if I try to argue with the Chief Executive on that point she will just “kick the problem down the road”. 

 

I believe that there has been an injustice in this case, not just to me personally, but to everyone who signed the petition (which was ignored and not even considered by Brent’s Cabinet) in support of “Option A”, and also to every Brent resident and visitor to Wembley Park who continues to be denied the enjoyment of the tile murals in the subway from the station to Olympic Way which celebrate Wembley’s sports and entertainment heritage.

 

If Brent won’t consider my complaint, by abusing the words of its Complaints Policy to pretend that it is not a complaint, how else can that injustice to be dealt with? That is the issue I took up in my reply to the Chief Executive on 27 September:

 

‘Dear Ms Wright,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

Without prejudice to the question of whether or not I have suffered a personal injustice in this matter, please to me have your answer to the following question.

 

If this significant issue does not fall within the Council's complaints procedure, under what Brent Council process can the 114 citizens of the borough, who were signatories of the petition which I presented at the Cabinet meeting on 28 May, seek redress for the collective injustice which they suffered, as a result of the actions by Council Officers (and the Council Leader) set out in my formal complaint letter to you of 30 August 2024?

 

Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant.’

 

Please feel free to add your comments below on this particular matter, or on how Brent Council has dealt with (or not) a complaint that you have made.

 

In answer to my own question of “When is a complaint not a complaint?”, I would say “When Brent Council knows it is wrong, but is afraid to admit it, or to put it right.”


Philip Grant.

 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think Philip Grant should join Donald Trump's campaign team....both seem to have trouble accepting results they don't agree with.

Philip Grant said...

Dear Anonymous at 11:22, I'm not sure whether your comment was trying to be funny, having a personal dig at me, or both.

I put my name to what I write, so I do leave myself open to such comments. You choose to do so anonymously, but even if you are not willing to disclose your name, it would help readers to know what perspective you are writing from.

Please reply giving an indication of that perspective - such as "Councillor", "Council Officer" etc. (I've not suggested Cabinet member, because I know that the Council Leader claims not to read "Wembley Matters", and discourages his colleagues from doing so.)

I look forward to your reply.

[P.S. As an avowed political independent, I would not join anyone's campaign team, although if I were a U.S. citizen, I would not be voting for Donald Trump.]

Philip Grant said...

FOR INFORMATION:

In my article above, I shared the text of a short email I had sent to Brent's Chief Executive, asking 'under what Brent Council process can the 114 citizens of the borough, who were signatories of the petition which I presented at the Cabinet meeting on 28 May, seek redress for the collective injustice which they suffered, as a result of the actions by Council Officers ...?'

This is the full text of the email I received today in response to that question. Please feel free to comment on the Chief Executive's "answer":

'Dear Mr Grant

The facility to petition the council and its decision makers is itself one of the mechanisms available to citizens to ensure their views and concerns about matters affecting the borough or their communities are heard and can be taken into account.

This is separate from the different mechanism, The Corporate Complaints Procedure, that exists for them to seek redress where they have been personally affected by a decision, action or inaction and consider they have suffered an injustice as a result. As indicated in the response from Minesh Patel, it is not considered that any issue of personal injustice arises here.

Although as explained, therefore, the matter does not fall within the council’s Corporate Complaints Procedure, you have nonetheless been provided with a response to the concerns you have raised.

If citizens consider there has been a breach of the Code of Conduct by a councillor, they have recourse to the separate process relating to alleged breaches of the Members Code of Conduct.

Ultimately citizen dissatisfaction with the decisions made by their elected representatives can be expressed through the ballot box.

Kind regards

Kim Wright
Chief Executive'

Philip Grant said...

FOR INFORMATION 2:

I shared the text of the reply of 3 October from Bren't Chief Executive in the "FOR INFORMATION" comment above.

I do not accept that the formal complaint I made on 30 August, about bias and an undisclosed conflict of interests in an Officer Report to the 28 May Cabinet meeting, is not a complaint.

This is the full text of the response I sent to Ms Wright today:

'Dear Ms Wright,

Thank you for your email of 3 October.

It appears, from your response to the question I raised, that there is no Brent Council process under which the citizens of Brent can seek redress for a collective injustice which they believe they have suffered, as a result of actions by Council Officers.

And my formal complaint of 30 August 2024, addressed to you as Brent's Head of Paid Service, was a complaint about the actions of one or more Council Officers, in respect of the Report and recommendation to the Cabinet meeting on 28 May 2024.

The Report and recommendation(s) were central to the award the new advertising lease under Option B, as you explained in your email to me of 29 May, the day after the Cabinet meeting, quoted here:
'If you refer to the recommendations, you will note that it says that Cabinet was asked to approve option B. The Leader gave the opportunity to the other Cabinet Members to comment on the report and its recommendations, therefore opening up the report for debate. Following this, and as Chair, the Leader was able to then move the recommendations in the usual fashion. The Leader asked for confirmation that the other Members were in agreement with the recommendations ....'

In your email to me of 27 September, you claimed that my complaint cannot be treated as a complaint because 'this issue does not fall within the scope of the Council's normal complaints procedure.'

The reason given for that is the Council's claim that I have not been 'individually affected' by the matter I am complaining about, and that I have not 'suffered personal injustice as a result of the Council's actions'. That is why you say that my formal complaint letter to you of 30 August was 'not logged as a formal complaint'.

I feel that I must now ask you for information which might help me to understand your, and the Council's, position over what I still believe was a valid complaint, which requires a Stage 2 final review by you, as I am dissatisfied with the initial response provided by the Corporate Director, for the reason given in my email to you of 25 September requesting that final review.

This is a request for information which should be readily available to you, and which you could provide to me in the course of this correspondence, but if you wish to treat it as a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act, please forward it to foi@brent.gov.uk and send me an acknowledgement to advise that you have done so.

The information that I would request is as follows:

1. Which Brent Council Officer (job title) decided that my formal complaint letter to you of 30 August should not be treated as a complaint within the Council's Complaints Procedure?

2. On what date was the decision in 1. above made?

3. a. What was the information on which the Officer in 1. above decided that the matter complained about in my formal complaint letter to you of 30 August had not affected me personally?
b. Please provide a copy of all or any documentary evidence relating to the information in 3.a. above, and of any communications, and any advice sought or given, in respect of that information.

4. a. What was the information on which the Officer in 1. above decided that the matter complained about in my formal complaint letter to you of 30 August had not caused me an injustice?
b. Please provide a copy of all or any documentary evidence relating to the information in 4.a. above, and of any communications, and any advice sought or given, in respect of that information.

I look forward to receiving your reply, and the information requested. Best wishes,

Philip Grant.'