Miss Ledden takes over from Miss Marple as she investigates Lorber's leak

Fiona Ledden, currently under pressure from Christine Gilbert and Cara Davani as they take action on the senior management restructuring in the run up to the Christmas break, has in turn, attempted (or been instructed)  to put the heat on ex Liberal Democrat Council Leader, Paul Lorber.

Ledden has written to him about an investigation she is undertaking into information 'of a sensitive nature' which appeared in a letter from Paul Lorber published in the Brent and Kilburn Times on November 8th.

The letter was about the senior management restructuring which did not go to General Purposes Committee until November 5th.

Ledden said:

In the letter...you refer to the disbanding of the Environment department. This was confidential information  and staff in the department were not aware, no consultation documentation could be available until after the meeting of General Purposes Committee.

She went on to say:

I am very concerned that this information was available to you and I an writing formally to ask you who gave you that information.

Ledden went on to offer to have a meeting with Lorber 'if that would assist'.

Ledden does not cite any authority for making such a request of someone who is now a member of the public.

Lorber replied that he was sorry that she had been asked to waste her time on the matter and wrote:

I expect that the Labour Leader must have been furious at the disclosure of his secret hatchet plan. Secret even from his own Councillors and even the newly appointed Lead Member of Environment.

He went on to say that 'in the spirit of Open Government' he would be happy to answer the question:

I worked it out for myself from the headlines of the report. My many years on the Council and my intuition led me to guess which Department was for the chop and which Lead Member was the weakest and therefore least likely to cause a fuss.

Perhaps you would now reciprocate by forwarding a copy of the General Purposes Report so that it can be properly scrutinised and debated.

Ex Executive member Cllr George Crane was appointed successor to Cllr Keith Perrin on October 21st. Perrin had  the previous month resigned for 'personal reasons'. The appointment made by Muhammed Butt and not by ballot of the Labour Group was first announced on the Wembley Observer's  Get West London website.

Wembley Matters published the outline Agenda item for the General Purposes Committee on October 30th LINK and the anonymous officers' report on Saturday November 8th LINK  which identified plans to delete Fiona Ledden's post as Director of Legal and Procurement along with the post of Assistant Chief Executive which has only been created a year or so before.  Some information was still withheld as the Council claimed details about individual staff could be identified.

Kensal Rise Fake Email Investigation: Brent Council knows about progress but haven't told the public

Regular readers will remember that the Mystery of the Fake E-mails has not been solved. Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council,  having avidly pursued the matter early on seems to have lost his appetite for an answer to the question of who wrote the fake emails and to whose benefit? 

The emails were written in support of an earlier planning application for the redevelopment of Kensal Rise Library. Despite the investigation not being completed Brent Planning Committee approved the  recent planning application by the developer Andrew Gillick.

Now a Freedom of Information request has established that Simon Lane, Head of Audit and Investigations Team at Brent Council was last updated by Brent Police on the investigation on July 16th 2014.

Brent Council had no information on when the investigation was likely to be completed.

Surely it is of the utmost public interest for Brent Council  and Brent police to pursue this matter. An attempt was made to subvert the Council's planning process and in the course of this the identities of Brent citizens were stolen.

Rather than a Miss Marple mystery we now seem to have a rerun of the Hancock classic,The Last Page: