Philip Grant, an occasional contributor to this blog, posted a comment on the Brent and Kilburn Times website about the above story. As, for some reason yet to be explained, it has not been published I print it below.
This is not the first time that Cllr. Butt
has had difficulties because of ‘website blunders’ by Brent Council, which
expose that he can say one thing publicly, but mean something else in practice.
When changes were made to Brent’s Constitution last
June, he told the Brent & Kilburn Times what a good idea the new
“Deputations” were (on page 2 of the 12 June 2014 edition):
'Cllr Butt
said, "New proposals allow the public to speak in council meetings for the
first time ever is aimed at bettering how the community engages with the
council and allows residents to hold us to account." '
In advance of the next Full Council
meeting on 8 September, Brent Council “tweeted” an invitation to more than
8,000 “followers” on 29 August, saying (see image):
'Speak out
to the whole council. Ask for a five-min slot (a deputation) @ full
council. For 8 Sept. email committee@brent.gov.uk by
noon Mon.'
At least one person, Martin Francis (a
Brent resident and an active member of its community), did respond to this
invitation, and sent a request on Monday morning, 1 September, to speak on the
subject of the appointment of a permanent Chief Executive. However, he was told
by Brent’s Legal Director that his request had been made after the “five day” time limit, which she calculated meant by midday on Friday 29
August, and that the “tweeted” invitation had been issued in error.
I do not know what Mr Francis intended
to say in his five minute Deputation, but as Christine Gilbert was appointed as
interim Chief Executive in the autumn of 2012, initially for six months, there
was a valid point of concern. Her interim appointment was only extended
until the May 2014 local elections because, it was claimed, she had to oversee
the Council’s move into the new Civic Centre in 2013, and act as Returning
Officer for those elections. Surely it was time for a permanent Chief Executive
to be appointed, under the Council’s proper recruitment procedures?
I was one of several people who
expressed concern over what appeared to be an unreasonable attempt to stop Mr
Francis from speaking to the Full Council under a process which was meant to
help residents to “hold the council to account”. I wrote to the Mayor, who as
“Chair” of Council meetings has powers over how they are handled, asking him to
allow Mr Francis to speak, as he had requested to do so in line with the
Council’s own published invitation. He replied that he had to leave the matter
in the hands of the Legal Director. At the meeting itself he simply told the
councillors that ‘there are no deputations’, even though Mr Francis was there,
ready to speak, and there was up to twenty minutes set aside on the agenda for
hearing deputations.
I had copied my emails to Cllr. Butt,
the Council Leader, and on the day after the Full Council meeting, 9 September,
I sent him an email setting out details of what had happened, and saying:
‘I am writing to ask you to explain why you, either individually or in
concert with the Council's Director of Legal and Procurement, did not allow
Martin Francis to present his Deputation on the appointment of a permanent
Chief Executive to the Full Council meeting on 8 September.’
Despite
several reminders, I have not received a reply. It seems that he, or Brent’s
over-staffed Public Relations team, will reply when they can put a positive
“spin” on a story, but when events show that they have acted wrongly, they will
either keep quiet or seek to excuse what has happened as an ‘error’, as if
websites or tweets have minds of their own.
