Philip Grant added a comment to a previous blog yesterday which contains
some new information about the likely “pay off” by Brent to Cara Davani. So
that all Wembley Matters readers are aware of this new development, I am
posting his comment here as a separate guest blog:-
Despite a reminder to Christine
Gilbert this afternoon (Friday Aigust 7th) that I was expecting her reply 'by the end of this
week', I have not heard anything further from her, and so am still waiting for
her answers to my two simple "yes" or "no" questions. See LINK if you
don't know what these are.
Cllr. Warren copied to me an email
he sent to Brent's Chief Legal Officer on Wednesday, referring to my email
above of 3 August and supporting the arguments I had made. Calling for
Christine Gilbert or Fiona Alderman to provide the answers to my questions, he
said: 'It cannot be right to deny both Members and Brent Council tax payers
such basic information.' Ms Alderman copied to me her acknowledgement, saying
that she would reply to Cllr. Warren shortly, but if she has replied, I am not
aware of what she has said.
I can now say for certain that
there WAS an agreement between Brent Council and Cara Davani. Some WM readers
have said that the continued mantra from Ms Gilbert, Ms Alderman and Cllr. Butt
of: ‘The council cannot legally disclose any details of the arrangements
relating to Ms Davani’s departure,’ meant that there must have been
"arrangements". They were right.
A reliable source has now told me
that when she left Brent in June 'both Cara Davani and the Council signed an
agreement. One clause of this restricted either party from disclosing the
details of the agreement.' So much for openness and transparency! Both parties
had something to hide, so they both agreed to hide it.
Despite this, it is NOT the
details of the agreement that my two questions are asking for, so there is no
valid reason why Christine Gilbert should refuse to answer them. It seems
highly likely that the agreement involved some financial benefit to Ms Davani,
so that the answer to at least one of the questions must be "no". In
that case, Christine Gilbert also needs to tell Brent's councillors, its staff
and its residents what the justification is for the Council giving that
financial benefit to Cara Davani, so that councillors in particular can satisfy
themselves that this is not a misuse of Council funds.
