I always thought the leadership and management of Rutland County Council had the odd screw loose, now we have the proof, The Rutland Anti Corruption Party have been told there only point of contact is to be the Chief Executive Helen Briggs.
How bananas is that, she is one of those accusing them of harassment and has been given a blank cheque
from public money to sue them?
Single Point of Contact (SPOC)–Refusal to accept.
Dear Mr Pook,
We write reference a letter received today from the Chief Executive reference a Single Point of Contact (SPOC), attached. This imposition sits at the heart of democracy in this Country.
We would make the following observations and statements:
1. We do not accept the imposition of a SPOC on us for the following reasons:
As far as we are concerned it is not legal. By taking this action Rutland Council are effectively finding us guilty of harassing Officers and defaming the Council, yet to date no evidence or case whatsoever has been produced to substantiate these allegations. Instead we have had to endure the most severe and defamatory statements being made against us at the Special Council Meeting, without any evidence being provided. This was nothing more than a Kangaroo Court with a totally unfounded decision, doing nothing but to serve to divert attention from the real issues and questions being raised by us with Rutland Council.
2. We do not accept the Chief Executive being appointed as a SPOC.
The SPOC is determined as the Chief Executive. Yet the Chief Executive is one of the Officers who has suggested they have been harassed by us, without ever stating how, raising any concerns or discussing the matter with us. By being appointed as the SPOC the Chief Executive is now being put in exactly the same position of having to correspond with us directly, the very people accused of having harassed. We believe that, before any such appointment, it must be fully ascertained how and in what way we have harassed the Chief Executive?
More importantly, the Chief Executive is the sole direct employee of the Councillors, since Councillors effectively sit as the Board of Directors. One cannot have an employee of the Board acting as a SPOC, collating and seeing all email traffic made by their employer. As stated to you before, we could be writing to the Leader of the Council, the Monitoring Officer or Legal Officer on matters that may be about the Chief Executive, matters that are not for the attention of the Chief Executive. What is being done here, we believe, is unprecedented.
3. We are now in the process of forwarding all documents on this subject to our Legal representatives in London who are looking into the matter. We believe no action of this type should be taken until this matter is fully resolved, as we believe this matter should first be resolved in the Courts to establish if we are guilty of theses most serious allegations or not. This has to be the case, as otherwise this action may be deemed as harassment of us as councillors in not being allowed to do our duty as required.
4. The letter received today from the Chief Executive also states: “The above contact arrangements apply to all communication including any contact made as a member of the public”.
This takes away our civil right as well, this cannot possibly be democratic, would you please advise accordingly?
We would also ask how this relates to our communication with yourself as the Monitoring Officer, since, as you stated to us, you sit in an independent capacity in the Council to ensure the law is upheld. We believe it would not be right, therefore, for any email we sent to you to then be being collated under a SPOC by the Chief Executive. Would you please give an opinion on this?
You also stated in our meetings with you that all of this matter was nothing more than political jousting, how then can we have a SPOC imposed on us. What is being sanctioned is the Majority Political Group being able to take an unsubstantiated case against a Minority Political Group, make false allegations against that political Group and then impose restrictions on their ability to ascertain information in the course of their duty. This would be unprecedented and must be challenged since it is at the heart of democracy. Again would you please give an opinion on this?
We have now decided to put all our letters on our website including this and any reply when received.
Yours sincerely,
Councillor D.Richardson
On behalf of the Rutland Anti-Corruption Group
