Former Brent Council Executive member James Powney returned to the subject of the current race discrimination and bullying scandal at Brent Council on his blog yesterday.
LINK
This is what he had to say:
I notice that in a debate on Martin Francis blog some of the
commentators appear to be confusing his position and mine. My original
post is here, and Martin has paraphrased it accurately, whilst adding his own view. Hence the understandable confusion.
My view is that Brent Council had strong rules and procedures before
2012, including appropriate relationships between members and officers.
These were built up over many years since the nadir of the Tory
administration in the 1990s, as explained here.
Since 2012, there has been a steady decline in the application of
appropriate standards, leading to a situation where accusations of
various forms of abuse, including racism and misuse of public money, are
flying about. This is, in my view, the result of the past couple of
years where patronage and irrational decision making have increased, scrutiny has declined, and certain individuals appear to have been allowed to believe that they enjoy impunity from accountability.
My view is that it is up to elected councillors to step in and sort this
out, whether the abuses are being committed by over mighty officers or
whether they are being committed by elected members who are out of
control (or indeed whether they are being influenced by people who fit
in neither category). Given the composition of Brent Council, that
primarily means the Labour Group.
The debate on Martin's blog can be found here.
It would be a pity if Labour councillors meeting tomorrow as the Labour Group let personal antipathy towards James Powney (as a member of the old regime), myself (as a member of a rival political party or Graham Durham (well, as Graham Durham) get in the way of recognising the need to deal with this issue.
Up to this point the scandal has not hit national media but any risk assessment of the potential damage to the Council and perhaps the Labour Party's reputation would recognise that the matters needs to be dealt with decisively and action taken.
In the last fortnight I have received emails and phone calls from former and current Brent Council workers about working conditions at the Council, some of whom work at a senior level. They have been told they will be disciplined if they approach Councillors directly and those that have left have had gagging clauses imposed as part of the settlement.
I have inadvertently found myself in the position of being their only outlet because of the Council's actions. Several have wept on the phone as they recall the effect on their health and emotional well-being as well as the impact on their families.
Councillors should recognise that it is their responsibility to
ensure that their employees are treated fairly in an atmosphere free
from harassment, bullying and fear.
It is as simple as that.
It is not something they can
ignore.
