IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

• – an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD.

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Following the unexpectedly positive response to my recent article about Seamer & Crossgates Parish Council in the Borough of Scarborough (where there are 39 Parish and Town Councils) – I have received a number of requests to report on a largely unpublicised little ‘closed-shop’ just a few miles to the north of the town, where the ‘part-time’ Parish Clerk (and Responsible Financial Officer) has been operating a ‘nice little earner’. Asking around amongst my Councillor confidants over the past week, I was surprised to discover that hardly anyone knows the name of Mrs Jools MARLEY.

I have been corresponding with Jools MARLEY in her capacity as Parish Clerk to Newby & Scalby Parish Council where she works 25 hours a week.

Rather like her counterpart at Seamer & Crossgates Parish Council, Parish Clerk Jools MARLEY still believes that her Council’s Standing Orders came down from the mountain with Moses – and neither Act of Parliament nor public demand shall ever cast them out of the temple. She seems to believe that the Rt. Hon. Eric PICKLES, Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government, is barking up the wrong tree when he insists that:

“An independent local press and robust public scrutiny is essential for a healthy local democracy. We have given councils more power, but local people need to be able to hold their councils to account. We are taking action against town hall Pravdas which are undermining the independent free press, but I want to do more to help the new cadre of hyper-local journalists and bloggers.

I asked for councils to open their doors, but some have slammed theirs shut, calling in the police to arrest bloggers and clinging to old-fashioned standing orders.

It was Mrs Thatcher who introduced the right to attend council meetings back in 1960. It is right that we now bring her legacy up to date with the digital age. Councillors should not be shy about the good work that they do.

This new right will be the key to helping bloggers and tweeters as well as journalists to unlocking the mysteries of local government and making it more transparent for all. My department is standing up for press freedom.”

Confronted by the reality of members of the public attending meetings of Newby & Scalby Parish Council and recording some extraordinary departures from the Council’s own protocols by County/Borough/Parish Councillor Derek ‘First Class’ BASTIMAN, Parish Clerk Jools MARLEY announced that there would be no use of ‘electronic devices’ to film/video, audio-record, live-stream or Tweet meetings and that, instead, the Council would henceforth be recording meetings itself.

So, on 10^th October 2013, I sent her an FOIA request for a copy, in *.wav format, of the Council’s own audio-recording of the meeting held on the preceding evening – 9^th October 2013.

Two weeks later, on 24^th October 2013, Parish Clerk Jools MARLEY wrote to inform me that:

• “. . . the council will need to incur a cost of £5.00 on purchasing the necessary equipment to convert the recording from analogue to digital.”

In due course (having raised the five pounds through public subscription), I sent her a cheque for a fiver. Scarcely had I dropped the envelope in the post when I received an email from Parish Clerk Jools MARLEY informing me that:

• “The fee note in the sum of £5 issued to you on 24th October 2013 is hereby withdrawn and cancelled with immediate effect.”

Naturally, I was delighted by this magnanimous gesture, so I responded to her congratulating her on her exemplary service and asking her to destroy my cheque and provide evidence of having done so. (I do not wish to have my bank account number and sorting code bandied around the corridors of power).

On 5^th November 2013, I received an email from Parish Clerk Jools MARLEY, informing me that the requested audio-file was being uploaded to a file-sharing website and that I would presently receive an email informing me that the file was ready for download. Furthermore,

• “The file will be available for download for 7 days. For further information, please see here.”

Being thoroughly conversant with file-sharing websites, I did not follow the link “for further information”.

But on 14^th November 2013, having heard nothing further, I emailed Parish Clerk Jools MARLEY asking her for the promised link.

On the 18^th November 2013 one week after the expiry of the 20 working-days time-limit on my FOIA request of 10^th October 2013, I received the following information from Parish Clerk Jools MARLEY:

• “Recordings are only kept by Council until the minutes of the meeting have been approved – that being the case, the Council no longer has any recordings for the meeting of 9th October 2013, therefore I am unable to provide you again with this information.”

What Mrs Jools MARLEY could not anticipate was the eventuality of privately-recorded audio being provided by a member of the Council; not every secret stays in the bag.

In the light of this miserly approach to transparency, one wonders if Mrs MARLEY learnt her trade from Ebeneeer SCROOGE . . .

In the greater scheme of public sector skulduggery, this is a trivial enough episode, but whenever I encounter conduct like this on the part of a paid public servant, I am motivated to investigate further. So I have been having a closer look at Mrs Jools MARLEY, Clerk to Newby & Scalby Parish Council, where she works 25 hours per week.

Mrs Jools MARLEY is also Clerk to Burniston Parish Council, were she is contracted to work 6 hours per week. Interestingly, she also designed (and has for the last 10 years maintained) the Council’s website.

Mrs Jools MARLEY is also Clerk to Cloughton Parish Council, were she styles herself ‘Mrs Julia MARLEY’ and is contracted to work 3 hours per week. Interestingly, she also designed (and has for the last 13 years maintained) this Council’s website, too.

And there is more.

Mrs Jools Marley is also Clerk to the Hackness & Harwood Dale Group Parish Council (comprising Broxa cum Troutsdale, Darncombe cum Langdale End, Hackness, Harwood Dale, Silpho and Suffield cum Everley Parish Councils), were she is contracted to work an undisclosed number of hours per week. Interestingly, she also designed (and has for the last 7 years maintained) this Group Council’s website.

And finally, Mrs Jools Marley is also Clerk to Staintondale Parish Council, were she also seems to have been contracted to work an undisclosed number of hours per week. Interestingly, she also designed (and has for the last 14 years maintained) this Group Council’s website.

In total, Mrs Jools MARLEY works at least 36 hours per week – even if she clocks only 1 hour per week at the two last-named Parish Councils on this list.

In 2009, the National Association of Local Councils recommended a sliding-scale remuneration full full- and part-time CiLCA-qualified Clerks of between £22,221 and £31,754. I do not know the hourly rate paid to Mrs Jools MARLEY by her various Councils. But I do know the salary of one local Clerk, based on a 36 hours per week contract – c. £28,000 per annum (plus superannuation).

Following the mandatory Procurement Process, that same Council paid almost £5,000 for its web-design, with a £500 per annum service charge.

The National Minimum Wage is £6.31 per hour, or £227.16 per 36 hour week. That equates to an annual salary of £11,130.84 gross for a 49-week year. We can reasonably conclude that, all in all, Mrs Jools MARLEY is picking up something like three times that amount.

But readers who follow the links provided above will quickly discern that the websites for Mrs Jools MARLEY’s above-named Parish Councils are all built to the same rather simplistic template. I think we might be interested to know how much each of the respective Parish Councils has paid out (from the public purse) to Mrs Jools MARLEY for her web-design and maintenance over the years, in addition to her basic salaries.

One might reasonably conclude that Parish Clerk Mrs Jools MARLEY is on a nice little number – except that the number is not so little.

And what is the public receiving in terms of value for money from our Parish Clerks? Are they, as many suggest, nothing more than leeches on the public purse?

Aside from the less than demanding standard duties of a Parish (or Town) Clerk, we may wish to consider Mrs Jools MARLEY’s attitude to the over-arching principles of openness, transparency and accountability, including of course statutory duties defined under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Localism Act 2011, much-vaunted by the Rt. Hon. Eric PICKLES.

We have already examined Parish Clerk Jools MARLEY’s highly dubious technique with regard to my own FOIA request.

Then there is the curious matter of the many different versions of Auto-Response sent out in response to particularly penetrating questions.

Other members of the public report similar evasion. One man felt compelled to report Mrs Jools MARLEY to SBC Monitoring Officer Lisa DIXON.

And Newby & Scalby Parish Council has already attracted the interest of the Department for Communities & Local Government.

Consequently, I have emailed the Clerk informing her, amongst other points, that:

“I intend to visit your various Parish Councils in due course, on an ad hoc basis, where I shall be exercising my right to film/video, audio-record, ‘live-stream’ and/or ‘Tweet’ the manner in which those Councils conduct there business.”

Let us see how Parish Clerk Jools MARLEY acquits herself in the court of public opinion.

I rather suspect that she is about to become a LEGEND in her own part-time.

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Lights, Camera, Action! Councils ‘Pickled’

Once again, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is in the news, reiterating his loud and clear announcement of June this year, regarding the right of the public to film, record, ‘live-stream’ and Tweet of Council Meetings:

• “In June this year, Mr Pickles published guidance to councils asking them to open up to overt filming and social media, but since then several councils are still continuing to prevent reporting.”

The message does not seem to have been received here in the Borough of Scarborough – at Parish, Town and Borough Council levels.

In an email dated 11^th September 2013, Mrs Jools MARLEY, Clerk to the Newby & Scalby Parish Council, had this to say:

Council’s standing orders specifically state “Photographing, recording, broadcasting or transmitting the proceedings of a meeting by any means is not permitted without the Council’s consent”.

The Minutes of the Full Council Meeting of Whitby Town (Parish) Council held on 2^nd July 2013 include:

098/13 FILMING RECORDING OF MEETINGS BY AN IMPARTIAL BODY

RESOLVED that Whitby Town Council do not allow the filming of any meetings of the Council and its committees due to cost, security and copyright issues within this building.

As recently as 17^th October 2013, Lisa DIXON, Scarborough Borough Council’s Director of Democratic and Legal Services told Yorkshire Coast Radio:

“We don’t currently allow filming or voice recording at council meetings but this is currently under review and we are exploring how we can make our meetings more widely accessible in the future.”

But a member of the public here in the Borough has asked Eric PICKLES for clarification on the matter of Councils interpreting the legislation in such a way as to prevent the public from exercising the right the Secretary of State has insisted is theirs – in the interests of openness, transparency and accountability.

The Department for Communities & Local Government has now provided the following response, actively encouraging the public to exercise its right to use available technology to ensure that councils act openly and transparently. Here is the full text of the letter:

“Thank you for your email of 11 October addressed to the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles regarding Newby & Scalby Parish Council. I have been asked to reply to this as I work in the team which has policy responsibility for local democracy issues.

To answer your questions, the law on recording council proceedings can be found in section 1(7) of the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960. The Act provides for councils to permit the taking of photographs of any proceedings, or the use of any means to enable persons not present to see or hear any proceedings (whether at the time or later), or the making of any oral report on any proceedings as they take place, but does not require a council to give permission. However, the Government wishes to encourage all town and parish councils to maximise transparency and openness wherever possible as media reports about the public or press being denied access to meetings or being prevented from filming, recording or reporting live by tweeting about meetings can only weaken local people’s confidence in local democracy and their elected representatives. I would therefore encourage you to ask your parish council to reconsider its position and allow citizens to use electronic devices to report on proceedings.

With regards to the declaration of interest, please see below a link to the Government Guidance, ‘Openness and Transparency on Personal Interests: a guide for councillors’ which you may find helpful.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/240134/Openness_and_transparency_on_personal_interests.pdf

The law on this issue can be found in The Localism Act 2011 particularly chapter 7.

I am sure you will appreciate that local authorities act independently of central government. Parish councils are accountable for their actions to their electorate, the auditors and ultimately the courts. I would encourage you to continue to attend meetings, ask questions and hold your parish council to account so that they act consistently and are open and transparent.

Yours sincerely,

Eleanor Smyllie

Department for Communities & Local Government

Eland House

Bressenden Place

Zone 3/J1

London

SW1E 5DU”

Progress, however incremental, is progress – even if  local authorities in the Borough of Scarborough have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the age of democracy.
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– an “In My View” – by Nigel Ward

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Recent articles outlining the long list of discrepancies in the Public Record (insofar as it concerns itself with the conduct of Councillor Jane Kenyon) have thus far touched only lightly on her life-partner Councillor Thomas William (‘Bill’) Miller.

I remind readers of one particular incident, reported in one of my ‘In My View’ articles entitled “Jane Kenyon and the Forged Signature – Who Done It?” – the incident of the Companies House 288a Appointments Form, appointing Jane Margaret Kenyon to the position of Company Secretary in Dales Timber Ltd (DTL), on which Miss Kenyon claimed that the signature ascribed to her was not, in fact, made by her – it was, therefore, a forgery. That 288a Appointments form is countersigned, within an inch or so of the allegedly forged ‘Jane M. Kenyon’ signature, by none other than Councillor Thomas William (‘Bill’) Miller.

In an email to NYCC Head of Legal & Democratic Services Carole Dunn (dated 19^th June 2012), I thanked her for her confirmation of the fact that the NYCC Internal Investigation into compelling suspicion of fraud and forgery in the deployment of the Extended Schools “Me Too!” voucher scandal, and I raised another case of compelling suspicion of fraud and forgery, in the following terms:

“The public record shows that Councillor Jane Margaret Kenyon’s alleged ‘unawareness’ rests on claims that her signature on the Company Secretaryship documents provided to Companies House “did not closely resemble other examples of” Councillor Jane Margaret Kenyon’s signature.That implies that the signature on the document was inscribed by another – a counterfeiter, or forger.

Would you please explain to me what steps you have taken, given your knowledge of Councillor Jane Margaret Kenyon’s claim to be ‘unaware’ that she was registered as Company Secretary of Dales Timber Limited, to inform the police that there was prima facie evidence of forgery?

I draw your attention to the terms of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.”

How is it, I wonder, that Carole Dunn has offered me no acknowledgement or response on this very serious matter – fraud and forgery, remember – though almost two months have now elapsed?

• Could it be that undue influence has been brought to bear to suppress the matter?

Regular readers of the Real Whitby ‘In My View’ column will readily connect the foregoing with “The Clergyman’s Widow Recalls . . .”, the personal verbatim testimony of an eighty-year-old lady reported in the article entitled “Jane Kenyon & Bill Miller”, in which it was stated (and I have high-lighted the relevant passages in bold type):

• “Later, facilities were found for young people to meet, grants were applied for and further premises developed.  Miss X saw her opportunity and invited her boyfriend Mr Y, a property developer, to get involved. Before long, with his eye to business, Mr Y forged one of the cheques intended for the builder and transferred it into his own account. When this was discovered, all the details, with the original cheque, were prepared for the police but before Mr Y could be challenged all the relevant files suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from police files, and also all the project files of another person at County Hall.”

 I have since enjoyed two lengthy conversations with the Whitby Town (Parish) Councillor who was an eye-witness to the events described by the clergyman’s widow, and that Councillor has confirmed to me an unequivocal willingness to testify in a court of law to the veracity of the clergyman’s widow’s testimony. Yet no charges have ever been brought . . .

Again, I ask,

• “Could it be that undue influence has been brought to bear to suppress the matter?”

And then I am reminded of a letter of complaint to Scarborough Borough Council by Mrs Pamela Miller – the long-estranged wife of Councillor Thomas William (‘Bill’) Miller (whose life-partner, as is well known, is none other than Councillor Jane Margaret Kenyon, Chair of the North Yorkshire Police Authority), in which the following line commends itself to our particular attention:

“It is only a matter of time before the police are involved and Mr Miller is arrested for forgery and fraud.”

But Scarborough Borough Council decided to take no action in respect of Mrs Pamela Miller’s complaint, though she is a first-hand eye-witness to the matters that she raised.

I ask again,

• “Could it be that undue influence has been brought to bear to suppress the matter?”

On 12^th July 2012, at 9:53am, former NYCC, SBC and WTC Councillor Rob Broadley posted a comment in the FaceBook section of the Real Whitby ‘In My View’ article entitled “Jane Kenyon Story in Private Eye”. This is what he wrote:

• “Jeremy Holderness[Chief Executive Officer of the NYPA] refused point blank to divulge information to me regarding who it was who went to the press about my criminal past, when I was voted onto NYPA as a county councillor. My election to that body was not appreciated in certain quarters – I could never prove it, but I know it was a certain county councillor, and a defeated Labour councillor who stirred the shit for me, causing a lot of grief for my wife and kids. Magistrates threatened[sic] to resign from NYPA if I so much as turned up for the meeting which would have ratified my appointment to the NYPA. I was also told that the national press would be invited to do an expose on me! Personally, it did not bother me, but in the end, I did not attend, so it would not cause any more grief for my family. Kenyon is one shrewd cookie – she’ll not give in without a fight. Maybe the press could hound her out – much in the same way that I was!”

Yet again I ask,

• “Could it be that undue influence has been brought to bear to suppress the matter?”

In another of the ‘In My View’ articles – “Open Letter to Nicholas Long – Independent Police Commissioner”, – I made public the following information:

• “Despite providing written and recorded statements from two Whitby Town Councillors and one Scarborough Borough Councillor, who had witnessed these slanders at first hand, my complaint to the NYP was dismissed on the risibly spurious ground that “the offence was denied by the suspect”. Despite repeated requests, my evidence has not been returned to me to this day.”

IPC Commissioner Nicholas Long has neither acknowledged, nor responded to, my ‘Open Letter’.

Once more;

• “Could it be that undue influence has been brought to bear to suppress the matter?”

Some of the high-ranking Officers of the North Yorkshire Police are said to be immeasurably displeased with Real Whitby. If such is the case, I would suggest that they may be guilty of ‘shooting the messenger’. The real cause of the dramatic collapse of public confidence in the NYP (and for that matter, the NYPA – whose members have no mandate to influence operational police activities) is not the factual reportage of disgraceful conduct by Real Whitby, Private Eye and the BBC, but rather that deplorable conduct itself.

The NYP should be far more concerned by Lord Maginnis of Drumglass’s public reference to the NYP in the following form of words:

• “That particularly dubious constabulary [NYP] merits careful investigation”.

So the message to Acting Chief Constable Tim Madgwick has to be that, unless he is merely marking time waiting for the 15^th November 2012 election of the new Police & Crime Commissioner (and the dissolution of the NYPA on 22^nd November 2012), whereupon a new Chief Constable will be duly appointed, and hoping against hope that the redolence of impropriety surrounding the Chair of the North Yorkshire Police Authority Councillor Jane Kenyon (and others) can be ‘contained’ until then – and since he has been unable, thus far, to set his own house in order – he should prepare for the intervention, long overdue, by a Chief Police Officer of high standing and sound principle from another force.