Caesar Crossing the Rubicon: Adolphe Yvon
The mounting sense of crisis at Ledbury Town Council was revealed in sharp outline last night (29 August 2017) when it decided controversially to fight on with the judicial review into the banning of two councillors.
Worries about the six figure costs involved were waved aside on the questionable assumption that the professional indemnity insurance of its legal advisers would cover the council's financial exposure if it loses.
The town council leadership says that the National Association of Local Councils confirms that the sanctioning of councillors for staff bullying using Health and Safety procedures is legally sound. Lawyers for Liz Harvey argue that this is unlawful and against the terms of the Localism Act 2011, the most recent local government legislation. It is upon this question that the dispute hinges.
Before the formal meeting, residents were given time to ask questions and make their views known. Among the thirty-strong crowd, there was dismay that the council was again intending to vote to exclude them from the debate on grounds of confidentiality.
Mayor Elaine Fieldhouse claimed that all the information pertaining to the legal action was legally sensitive, including even the naming of the London firm of solicitors which the town council had recently appointed.
Other councillors, including Nina Shields, protested that the principle of whether the town council should pursue the legal process was firmly in the public interest and not of itself confidential or sensitive. Residents should be allowed to understand why the council is challenging the judicial review and committing itself to so much expense, she argued.
'It's our money', shouted residents from the public seats, tempers rising. 'We are entitled to hear your reasons for spending it'.
An ex-councillor, Maria Mackness read out a statement reminding the Council of the resolution to dispense with Lynda Wilcox's services in December 2015. She explained how this decision had been withheld from the council on spurious grounds of 'confidentiality' and still had not been properly minuted in the public record.
'I had great difficulty with the interpretation of the word 'confidential'. I couldn't get to grips with the flexibility with which it is applied in LTC', she said. 'It seemed to be for the benefit of whoever wanted to use the word'.
A resident asked whether councillors would be so keen to proceed with the legal action if it were their own money being used. 'It's so easy to dip your hands into public funds', she said.
Several other people asked about the council's progress in setting up mediation, but to a chorus of jeering, Elaine Fieldhouse said this topic too was confidential and couldn't be discussed in public.
Reaching a stormy conclusion before the public and press were ejected, there were questions about whether competitive quotes had been obtained for the appointment of the council's London solicitors.
In an acrimonious exchange Andrew Harrison, one of the 'banned' councillors, accused the mayor of having broken its financial regulations in not presenting three quotes to council, nor having sought the council's permission to accept just one tender for the legal work. He read out the relevant paragraphs from the regulations. Fieldhouse said the council's action was perfectly legal but then, amid shuffling of papers, failed to provide the evidence that confirmed this.
After several chaotic votes, the Mayor expelled the public and the council went into closed session. The mood afterwards downstairs was furious, with talk of demonstrations and civil disobedience.
Worries about the six figure costs involved were waved aside on the questionable assumption that the professional indemnity insurance of its legal advisers would cover the council's financial exposure if it loses.
The town council leadership says that the National Association of Local Councils confirms that the sanctioning of councillors for staff bullying using Health and Safety procedures is legally sound. Lawyers for Liz Harvey argue that this is unlawful and against the terms of the Localism Act 2011, the most recent local government legislation. It is upon this question that the dispute hinges.
Before the formal meeting, residents were given time to ask questions and make their views known. Among the thirty-strong crowd, there was dismay that the council was again intending to vote to exclude them from the debate on grounds of confidentiality.
Mayor Elaine Fieldhouse claimed that all the information pertaining to the legal action was legally sensitive, including even the naming of the London firm of solicitors which the town council had recently appointed.
Other councillors, including Nina Shields, protested that the principle of whether the town council should pursue the legal process was firmly in the public interest and not of itself confidential or sensitive. Residents should be allowed to understand why the council is challenging the judicial review and committing itself to so much expense, she argued.
'It's our money', shouted residents from the public seats, tempers rising. 'We are entitled to hear your reasons for spending it'.
An ex-councillor, Maria Mackness read out a statement reminding the Council of the resolution to dispense with Lynda Wilcox's services in December 2015. She explained how this decision had been withheld from the council on spurious grounds of 'confidentiality' and still had not been properly minuted in the public record.
'I had great difficulty with the interpretation of the word 'confidential'. I couldn't get to grips with the flexibility with which it is applied in LTC', she said. 'It seemed to be for the benefit of whoever wanted to use the word'.
A resident asked whether councillors would be so keen to proceed with the legal action if it were their own money being used. 'It's so easy to dip your hands into public funds', she said.
Several other people asked about the council's progress in setting up mediation, but to a chorus of jeering, Elaine Fieldhouse said this topic too was confidential and couldn't be discussed in public.
Reaching a stormy conclusion before the public and press were ejected, there were questions about whether competitive quotes had been obtained for the appointment of the council's London solicitors.
In an acrimonious exchange Andrew Harrison, one of the 'banned' councillors, accused the mayor of having broken its financial regulations in not presenting three quotes to council, nor having sought the council's permission to accept just one tender for the legal work. He read out the relevant paragraphs from the regulations. Fieldhouse said the council's action was perfectly legal but then, amid shuffling of papers, failed to provide the evidence that confirmed this.
After several chaotic votes, the Mayor expelled the public and the council went into closed session. The mood afterwards downstairs was furious, with talk of demonstrations and civil disobedience.
How has it come to this?
It was pointed out several times by concerned residents that local councils have a legal duty to adhere to the highest standards of transparency and openness in their decision-making. The onus is on them to justify their actions and decisions, not on the public to justify why they should be allowed to know things.
Once again, Ledbury Town Council has turned this principle, democracy itself, on its head. Handling of the largest tranche of money to which the council has ever committed itself - challenging the Judicial Review - has been kept secret from the general public, but also from town councillors themselves.
It is believed that councillors voted to hand over the management and decision-making for the entire legal process to a small sub-committee of the council comprising Elaine Fieldhouse, Keith Francis, Annette Crowe, Bob Barnes and Tony Bradford. At least four of these people have been conniving in the vendetta against Liz Harvey and Andrew Harrison since the start, in December 2015.
Despite being warned by their ex-colleague Maria Mackness 'not to be misled by these people', councillors, by a slim majority handed over the reins to the very people who have led Ledbury Town Council into this catastrophic mess.
The council's Kafkaesque manipulation of financial regulations, incomplete meeting minutes, missing agenda items and blatant deceptions to the council and to the general public, raises profound questions about some councillors' fitness to hold office.
Make no mistake: Ledbury is in the grip of a secretive, authoritarian and malevolent regime. Its behaviour will cost the town - and its residents dear. Not just in financial terms, but arising from all the missed opportunities and flunked necessities, Ledbury will be impoverished and denuded while the crooked gang running the council continue to obsess about their legal travails. And then there will be the legal decision and the further legal wrangling over who pays.
We have arrived at a turning point. The council has jumped the Rubicon, and the consequences will be fateful. There seems no turning back. The choice for us, the public, is to look on like dummies and let them squander our money and chances. Or to fight back.
Which is it to be?
Once again, Ledbury Town Council has turned this principle, democracy itself, on its head. Handling of the largest tranche of money to which the council has ever committed itself - challenging the Judicial Review - has been kept secret from the general public, but also from town councillors themselves.
It is believed that councillors voted to hand over the management and decision-making for the entire legal process to a small sub-committee of the council comprising Elaine Fieldhouse, Keith Francis, Annette Crowe, Bob Barnes and Tony Bradford. At least four of these people have been conniving in the vendetta against Liz Harvey and Andrew Harrison since the start, in December 2015.
Despite being warned by their ex-colleague Maria Mackness 'not to be misled by these people', councillors, by a slim majority handed over the reins to the very people who have led Ledbury Town Council into this catastrophic mess.
The council's Kafkaesque manipulation of financial regulations, incomplete meeting minutes, missing agenda items and blatant deceptions to the council and to the general public, raises profound questions about some councillors' fitness to hold office.
Make no mistake: Ledbury is in the grip of a secretive, authoritarian and malevolent regime. Its behaviour will cost the town - and its residents dear. Not just in financial terms, but arising from all the missed opportunities and flunked necessities, Ledbury will be impoverished and denuded while the crooked gang running the council continue to obsess about their legal travails. And then there will be the legal decision and the further legal wrangling over who pays.
We have arrived at a turning point. The council has jumped the Rubicon, and the consequences will be fateful. There seems no turning back. The choice for us, the public, is to look on like dummies and let them squander our money and chances. Or to fight back.
Which is it to be?
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