• an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, presenting an Open Letter to the Chief Exec of Hambleton District Council, PHIL MORTON, summoning him to appear in the Court of Public Opinion.

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Mr Philip MORTON – CEO & Head of Paid Service – Hambleton District Council

Phil,

As I write, the North Yorks Enquirer has thus far made only the most cursory examination of the way in which Hambleton District Council has been operating since your internal promotion to your present exalted position as Chief Executive Officer. A 35% salary-increase in the past eighteen months must compound your sense of personal success.

• HDC: Evasive FOI Responses
• Payback Time For Anonymous Tory Cllrs
• Hambleton ‘Double-Dippers’ Revealed
• Huge Hambleton Payoffs
• HDC: Tricky Micky’s Musical Chairs
• HDC: Incompetents, Liars & Fools
• HDC: As I Was Checking Dr Ives

How embarrassing it must be for you now to find yourself caught in the searchlights of a significantly more robust investigation. Happy days.

It was with sadness and disappointment that I took note of your reluctance to provide the courtesy of an acknowledgement (or response) to my email of 11th September 2014. I fear that your reticence leaves both you and your Director of Environmental and Planning Services Micky JEWITT in a most uncomfortable position.

As you will be aware, Micky JEWITT has handed down his verdict on my formal Corporate Complaint against his chum, your Monitoring Officer Gary NELSON. In itself, Micky’s ruling is well within the customary ambit of a provincial public sector Legal Officer’s response to a formal Corporate Complaint, relying (as it does) on the normally efficacious strategy of trawling the statutes for any form of words that can, by contortions, be pressed into service to exculpate the subject of the Complaint. Without, of course, the merest passing regard to the wider ethical context. But then Hambleton District Council does not ‘do’ ethics, does it, Phil?

Local authorities have been slow, even in the metropolitan areas, to adjust to the new era heralded by social media. In the past, a report such as Micky JEWITT’s would find its way, in hard copy, to a solitary complainant incapable of parrying even the most mediocre solicitor’s deconstruction work – invariably with the result of leaving the hapless complainant with no reasonable prospect of achieving a fair and just outcome.

Hot damn! How times have changed!

Today’s complainant may take his/her grievance to the Court of Public Opinion. It is a forum with no affection for pedantry or slippery semantics. The jury – the public gallery – is legion. And uncompromising.

This is an Open Letter; I shall therefore constrain my remarks to only the sketchiest reiteration of the current issues.

Andy and Michelle DOLAN have been very poorly served by their Parish Council – Exelby, Leeming & Newton (ELN). More than that, they have been libelled, verbally abused, ignored and denied democratic process.

It so happened that they became (serendipitously) aware of the NYE‘s wider scrutiny of Parish Councils throughout North Yorkshire. Appalled by the dereliction of statutory duties practised by ELN, I lodged a Freedom of Information Request with ELN which disclosed unrebutted evidence of an utter disregard for statutory requirements.

I pointed out to Parish Clerk Margaret STEAD the extent of her (and her Council’s) inadequacies, with the result that  I was invited – invited, mark you – by ELN Councillors to an Extraordinary Meeting to provide advice to the Council and Clerk on the steps necessary to bring ELN into belated compliance with the law. (Compare and contrast with neighbouring  Well Parish Council – whose web-site is up-to-date and informative, and makes available audio-recodings of Meetings, on-line).

I was greeted by a hastily press-ganged ‘Rent-a-Mob’, so hostile that I and my colleague Nick HENDERSON suffered verbal abuse actively encouraged by one of the (then) Councillors. Local resident Andy DOLAN was physically assaulted.

None of the foregoing accords with the prevailing understanding of democracy, transparency and accountability that we in England have been promised.

I would like to ask you – and I require a response on this point – to whom should abused electors turn in the face of such disgraceful conduct on the part of a Parish Council in the District of Hambleton – even one for whom not one single voter has ever provided a mandate to even one of its members? Willam HAGUE MP? Julia MULLIGAN? Archbishop SENTAMU? The Provisional Office of the People?

But Micky JEWITT feels that his loyalty lies with his friend and colleague Gary NELSON, with whom (perhaps) he shares a common purpose – so Exelby, Leeming & Newton Parish Council may continue in the belief that members may insult the people – and the statutes – with officially approved impunity.

I do not think so. Let me explain why.

It is child’s play to interpret the law in such a way that, though its letter remains intact, its spirit is kicked with a jerk of the knee into the trash can. It is, as I say, child’s play – both childish and foolhardy.

Your Council needs to reconsider its position, Phil. Citizen-journalists are scrutinising its activities ever more closely.

People are scandalised by the opacity surrounding the unconscionable Senior Office pay-rises. You yourself have enjoyed a 35% increase within the past eighteen months.

In the light of the Council’s adoption of the widely-condemned practice of exploitative Zero Hours Contracts for employees at the opposite end of the salary spectrum – 2 market supervisors, 3 admin covers, 155 leisure attendants and coaches and 160 ‘casual’ posts, working without the assurance of any salary at all, let alone a ‘living wage’, you and your close colleagues (Justin IVES, Dave GOODWIN, Micky JEWITT and Marty RICHARDS), with obscene salaries totalling £457,828 – almost £½-million per annum – have made yourselves easy targets for criticism and righteously indignant anger. Out of interest, Phil, what percentage of the total HDC work-force do those Zero Hours Contract workers constitute?

Revelations published in the past few days regarding the extraordinary ‘arithmetical errors’ in the Council’s published accounts, amounting to inexcusable incompetence, at best, and at worst, ‘cooking the books’, go some way to suggesting an explanation for how the Senior Officer pay-rises have been funded. One example identified £566,248.00 travelling in the ‘wrong’ direction; another, £55,689.00 – more than enough to cover those inflated Senior Officer salaries. Fill ya boots, eh?

Skullduggery masquerading as incompetence is far from unknown in the public sector – especially in those rural backwaters where the light of scrutiny has not penetrated for many decades. My, but it is certainly shining now. How will the Senior Officer redundancy packages stand up to inspection?

The non-responsiveness of Council Leader Councillor Mark ROBSON to legitimate questions regarding his part in the Senior Officer salary increases and redundancy packages is another cause for concern. His balance of judgement has been called into question before. Twice.

Is he now expected to put his head on the line again to explain away Officer wrong-doing at Hambleton District Council?

Please make clear to Micky JEWITT and Gary NELSON that, in the absence of a sincere and convincing assurance from them that Exelby, Leeming & Newton Parish Council will be brought immediately into conformity with statutory requirements, I shall pursue my formal Corporate Complaint against Gary NELSON through every stage of the Complaints Procedure – irrespective of my personal conviction that it is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE – and far, far beyond.

And you should most definitely ensure that Monitoring Officer Gary NELSON pursues the matter of ELN Vice Chair Councillor Dorothy DIXON’s failure to declare her interest in the successful Clapham Lodge Planning Application.

For the avoidance of doubt, the North Yorks Enquirer is not concerned with the conduct of people who are no longer engaged in public life. Only the actions of public servants command our attentions.

Unlike the mainstream press, we take no interest in the indiscretions of members of the public, who may – for all we care – be caught in flagrante delicto bouncing about on their neighbours’ sofas.

That is nobody’s business but theirs – and their respective spouses, of course.

Public servants are another matter.

So my best advice to you is carefully to reconsider my very reasonable invitation to meet with me one-on-one, in Whitby, where together we may (hopefully) carry the Council into a brave new world of transparency and accountability. And good repute.

Please do not by-pass this final opportunity.

Yours, with very kind regards,

Nigel

“For too long those in power made decisions behind closed doors, released information behind a veil of jargon and denied people the power to hold them to account. This coalition is driving a wrecking ball through that culture – and it’s called transparency.” – [David Cameron]

“If councillors and council officers are to be held to account, the press and public need access to the information that will enable them to do it. If town halls want to reduce the amount they spend on responding to freedom of information requests they should consider making the information freely available in the first place. The simple act of throwing open the books, rather than waiting for them to be prised apart by the force of an FOI, might even save a few pounds in the process.” – [Eric Pickles]

• an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, reporting on the fortunes of one of the most incompetent, disingenuous and thoroughly superfluous Parish Councils in North Yorkshire – Exelby, Leeming & Newton Parish Council – a sinking ship already abandoned by three out of seven rats.

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Background

Regular readers will already be familiar with eight previous reports detailing the many failings of Exelby, Leeming & Newton Parish Council, situated between the delightful market town of Bedale and the County seat of Northallerton, where both Hambleton District Council and North Yorkshire County Council preside over the locality’s local governance:

• “Equal Under The Law? Parish The Thought” – (“In My View” article – 27th June 2014)
• “Broken Parish Council” – (Letter to the Editor of the Enquirer – 4th July 2014)
• “Carry On, Cowboy Council” – (“In My View” article – 23rd July 2014)
• “A Parish Council From Hell” – (“In My View” article – 10th August 2014)
• “Incredulous At Council’s Antics” – (Letter to the Editor of the Enquirer – 12th August 2014)
• “ELN LATEST: Execrable, Lying & Nefarious Parish Council” – (“In My View” article – 24th August 2014)
• “ELN: Ray WRIGGLES – For All He’s WORTH”– (“In My View” article – 29th August 2014)
• “ELN: Rogue Parish Council Up-Date” – (“In My View” article – 6th September 2014)

Latest Developments

ELN Chair Councillor John KETTLEWELL has published a Notice of Agenda for yet another Extraordinary Meeting to be held on Monday 22nd September 2014 – the fourth Ext.Ord. since the last Ordinary Meeting of Full Council on 19th May 2014. Moreover, the Minutes of an earlier Extraordinary Meeting were not ratified as they should have been, at the Ordinary Meeting of 8th May 2014, nor have they been ratified since).

Chaos.

Unsurprisingly, this document falls short of being a legally valid Notice – and for more than one reason.

Firstly, ELN’s own Standing Order 4.9 states that the Minutes of the preceding Meeting must be ratified as a true record by Council at the following Meeting, and signed off by the Chair.

Yet Councillor John KETTLEWELL, that paragon of incompetence at the controls of this runaway Council, has omitted to include an Agenda Item in compliance with his Council’s own Standing Orders.

Secondly, Item 4 of this Agenda is not preceded by the necessary opportunity for the Council to invoke the exemption of press and public during the discussion of Item 4 itself. Leaving aside, for the moment, the form of words – ‘Complaints Against Councillors’ – which is itself ambiguous in the light of the fact that Formal Complaints remain pending against both former Councillors who have recently resigned (and who are, therefore, not Councillors but members of the public whose personal data may not be discussed in open Council) as well as present Councillors –  there is also an issue regarding the identities of those members of the public who have lodged Formal Complaints against Councillors (or former Councillors) and the Clerk, whose personal data, as Complainants, is protected under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998, and may therefore not be disclosed in open Council.

Yet the identities of the Councillors and former Councillors who are subjects of these Formal Complaints are carefully concealed by the Agenda’s form of words.

In mitigation of the Chair’s incompetence in the matter of the unlawful Agenda, it should be remembered that Parish Clerk Margaret STEAD – who is employed by the Council not only to prepare Agendas and Minutes that comply with the law, but also to advise Chair and Councillors on points of law – has been absent from her post since very shortly after the Extraordinary Meeting of 21st July 2014 (the infamous ‘Rent-a-Mob’ incident). Her record shows that she is not competent to advise Council on points of law.

Be that as it may, we once again are faced with evidence of a ‘runaway’ Council – three of whom have already washed their hands of this ‘Carry On’ catastrophe, and four of whom are either the subjects of rigorously-documented Formal Complaints, ICO investigations or criminal investigations, whose ostensibly elevated status as Councillors has ‘runaway’ with them. Delusions of grandma, as I like to say.

Hambleton District Council Monitoring Officer Gary NELSON – himself the subject of an as-yet unsatisfied formal Corporate Complaint in respect of his repeated misinformation to me regarding the terms of his statutory duties – has kindly provided an up-to-date list of the present incumbents of Exelby, Leeming & Newton Parish Council. Readers will (I hope) be unsurprised to learn that not one of these received a single vote at the ballot-box. If ever there was a case made for electors to actually nominate candidates and cast their votes – votes that their forebears may have sacrificed their lives to claim – then cast your eyes over them now; the case is made. To be clear, when Councillors are elected unopposed, there has been no ballot (since the result, with only one candidate, would be a foregone conclusion).

HDC Monitoring Officer Gary NELSON was unable to inform me of the names of the Proposers and Seconders of the Councillors because that information is not held by HDC and it appears that nobody at HDC ever bothered to ask ELN to provide it. Of course, the Parish Clerk Margaret STEAD had a duty to do so.

So we know of nothing that would dispel the very disturbing suspicion that these Councillors actually nominated one another.

Nothing on the public record suggests that the Councillors have followed either the letter or the spirit of the electoral and democratic procedures that we rely upon to underpin the accountability of the people we elect.

To all intents and purposes, then, the Councillors of Exelby, Leeming & Newton were effectively self-appointed – with the exception of Brian SHUTTLEWORTH who was simply cronied on board.

Of the remaining four, only Councillor Frank HERBERT has a clean sheet.

Vice Chair Councillor Dorothy DIXON faces investigation regarding her failure to declare her interest in a Planning Application debate, and then actually taking part in the Agenda Item whose resolution was to recommend Planning Consent. That may be the clue as to what motivated Dorothy DIXON to sign up to the Parish Council in the first place.

Councillor Louis ROBINSON (or ‘Lawnmower Man’, as he is known in the village) has held the grass-cutting contract at ELN since May 1999, with no available record of proper tender processes or required advertisiments/Notices, and only the Parish Clerk’s assertion that renewals were “verbal agreements” with Louis ROBINSON, after she had “telephoned around various companies” of her own choosing and passed the job back to one of her own Councillors. Nice work, if you can get it. No doubt Louis was suitably grateful. I wonder whether or not he threw in cutting Margaret STEAD’s grass as part of the deal?

Chair Councillor John KETTLEWELL is also on the receiving end of a whole raft of allegations, all of which add up to an almost total dereliction of his statutory responsibilities, in defiance (born of ignorance or arrogance) of all seven of the Nolan Principles of Public Life.

Perhaps Councillor John KETTLEWELL will explain how the rounding-up of the 21st July 2014 ‘Rent-a-Mob’ fits into Lord NOLAN’s vision of democratic accountability?

Hambleton District Council Monitoring Gary NELSON has been made aware of the unlawful nature of the Agenda for the Extraordinary Meeting on Monday 22nd September 2014. One can only hope that he has the inclination and good sense to intervene.

Meanwhile, Andy and Michelle DOLAN have today met with their MP, former Secretary of State William HAGUE, who has indicated that he will be referring the matters raised to the Department for Communities & Local Government (Eric PICKLES’ office). He will also be writing to Hambleton District Council directly.

Following the physical assault on Andy DOLAN at the 21st July ‘Rent-a-Mob’ Meeting, the North Yorkshire Police have been reminded of their Duty of Care in respect of Monday’s Meeting. I am grateful for their consideration.

Hopefully, Monday’s Meeting – if it does take place – will be conducted in a more civilised manner.

In any event, it will be filmed – for posterity.

Up-Date

Hambleton District Council in the news again – for all the wrong reasons:

http://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/11485312.Council_accused_of_having_maths_skills_of_failed_GCSE_student_after_glaring_gaffes_in_accounts/?ref=var_0

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Dear Editor,

On Friday 22 March 2013 you ran an article that stated that Richmondshire District Council (RDC) had lost over £500,000 after unfairly dismissing a Care Worker.

I outlined to William Hague, my MP, that I was not happy that RDC had lost this money; he forwarded my email to Tony Clark, the General Manager of RDC, for a reply. Mr Clark did reply to Mr Hague simply saying that I complain too much so he was not going to address the issues that I raised, Mr Hague has accepted that as a professional answer.

I then contacted my District Councillor who told me that it was not her responsibility, and if I wanted an answer I should write to Mr Blackie “Leader of RDC”; he did not reply at all.

The bottom line now is that RDC has lost a sum of money between £500,000 and £1,000,000 and no-one wants to give the public an explanation. I calculate that this has cost me and every home-owner in Richmondshire between £20 and £40. In a year’s time these Councillors, and our MP, will be writing to us asking us to vote for them; but today they simply ignore us. Many of our Councillors belong to and represent “Main Line Political Parties”, these parties say that they are short of funds and are asking people to join them. How can you join a party or vote for a Councillor when for over a year they have refused to address this serious issue.

Several years ago, RDC upgraded some properties in Gayle; they made such a mess of it that the Council asked their own Scrutiny Committee to review, they produced a 29-page report that said, in summary, that “planning of the project was very poor . . . . . .the system failed from every angle”, and based on tha,t the D&S ran an article headlined “Gayle Housing Fiasco”, the following week Colin Dales “Assistant Director” of RDC replied that he had done nothing wrong; today, if I read communications from Tony Clark and my own District Councillor, they both maintain that RDC did nothing wrong: in that case the Scrutiny Committee itself must be wrong, and incompetent.

What we really need is a fully impartial investigation into the dismissal of the Care Worker; who did what and when; should anyone be disciplined or sacked?

Then we should have another investigation into the Gayle housing upgrade and establish if the Scrutiny Committee’s report is correct or did RDC do nothing wrong, that is, what would normally be done in a professionally-run private company.

Regards,

Brian

Brain TYLDESLEY. Middleham. 22nd March, 2014.

• – an “In My View” article – by Nigel Ward

~

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Readers of recent articles in my continuing “In My View”  series have been asking what it takes to persuade the authorities to address the (by now) almost innumerable concerns raised by an examination of the Public Record vis-à-vis Councillor Jane Kenyon. It would appear that an appeal to the Council Leaders, Monitoring Officers and Chief Executives to do what their job descriptions require is destined to be forever ignored.

North Yorkshire Police Chief Constable Tim Madgwick remains silent. North Yorkshire Police Authority Chief Exec Jeremy Holderness remains silent. Independent Police Complaint Commissioner Nicholas Long remains silent. Baroness Warsi and Lord Feldman (Co-Chairs of the Conservative Party) remain silent.

Only Robert Goodwill MP (Whitby & Scarborough – Con) has expressed confidence in Councillor Kenyon – some say, the confidence of ignorance; some say, the professed confidence of party loyalty.

On Monday last, 20^th August 2012, I emailed the Leaders and Chief Execs of NYCC, SBC and the NYPA – a call to action that I hoped would pre-empt the necessity of washing more of Councillor Kenyon’s laundry in the public domain. Not one of them has extended to me the courtesy of an acknowledgement – much less, a response.

Mike Ward, a former and perhaps future Scarborough Borough Councillor (Mike is a candidate for the Esk Valley Ward bye-election), has given his consent to Real Whitby publishing his correspondence with Robert Goodwill MP (Scarborough & Whitby – Con).

In that correspondence, Robert Goodwill MP has accused David Clark, a wheelchair-bound member of the public (and a senior citizen), of the crime of harassment of Councillor Kenyon “over some period of time”, claiming that allegations made against her “have been fully investigated”.

This is untrue.

Clearly, Robert Goodwill has failed to grasp that the Public Record exists so that concerned members of the public may scrutinise the actions and integrity of elected representatives and paid public servants. Having examined David Clark’s correspondence with the authorities, I can confirm that he has complied scrupulously with the proper procedures for complaints and requests for information under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. He has done so politely and extremely patiently. He stands falsely accused by Robert Goodwill.

And yet it now transpires that Robert Goodwill has made similar false and defamatory accusations against David Clark in other correspondence, with other members of the public.

Robert Goodwill needs to grasp the simple truth that it is the evidence of the Public Record that impeaches Councillor Kenyon’s moral probity. If Councillor Kenyon feels “harassed”, she will soon come to realise that it is the Public Record of her own actions that now calls her to account.

In the matter of my own ongoing complaints against Councillor Kenyon, NYCC’s Moira Beighton has informed me (apologising for a month’s delay) that an Investigating Officer had been delegated – Mr Stephen Knight – and he has been notified that I continue to await his visit for the purpose of providing him with further evidence. Far from having “been fully investigated”, as Robert Goodwill avers, matters have yet to progress even to the point where the allegations are fully defined and the evidence logged. The ‘investigations’ have scarcely begun.

Incidentally, we are left to ponder how it can conceivably be appropriate for Mr Steven Knight to be delegated the task of addressing these matter at all, when it was he who conducted the administration of David Clark’s complaint to the NYMNPA Standards Committee at which Councillor Kenyon, as well as Mr Stephen Knight and the all of the members of the Standards Sub-Committee have seemingly colluded in their decision not to report a crime of forgery.

See how that plays in plain English:

• Nigel: “Hi, NYCC! I think you should investigate how come these people, including Stephen Knight, appear to have kept ‘schtumm’ about a forgery – a serious crime. Oh, and by the way, Cllr Kenyon’s partner is the only credible suspect.”

• Moira: “Sure thing, Nigel. No problem. We’ll send Stephen Knight round to collect your evidence. We trust him to be impartial.”

Astonishing! They want to send one of the suspects to pick up my evidence!

Openness, transparency, accountability, the seven Nolan Principles – one really could not make it up.

Since there is obviously no will on the part of the Councils to investigate Councillor Kenyon, I have decided to offer the opportunity to our eight North Yorkshire Members of Parliament.

Until now, Robert Goodwill’s six fellow Conservative North Yorkshire MPs have elected to remain silent – as has the sole North Yorkshire Labour MP. Robert Goodwill is the only one to ‘break ranks’.

I believe it is now time for all of them to show their colours. So I have written to them, in the straightforward terms, asking them to comment on just two of the innumerable concerns that I have been documenting throughout the past four months.

Here is my email:

—– Original Message —–

From: ‘Nigel’

To: andrew.jones.mp@parliament.uk ; haguew@parliament.uk ; GOODWILL, Robert ; nigel.adams.mp@parliament.uk ; julian.smith.mp@parliament.uk ; mcintosha@parliament.uk ; hugh.bayley.mp@parliament.uk ; julian.sturdy.mp@parliament.uk

Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2012 8:19 PM

Subject: IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

To the elected Members of Parliament for North Yorkshire

Anne McINTOSH MP (Thisrk & Malton) [Conservative]Andrew JONES MP (Harrogate & Knaresborough) [Conservative]William HAGUE MP (Richmond) [Conservative] Robert GOODWILL MP (Scarborough & Whitby) [Conservative]Nigel ADAMS MP (Selby & Ainsty) [Conservative]Julian SMITH MP (Skipton & Ripon) [Conservative]Hugh BAYLEY MP (York Central) [Labour]Julian STURDY MP (York Outer) [Conservative]

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Anne –  Gentlemen,

I write in the Public Interest to solicit your individual responses on the matter of the very large number of discrepancies in the Pubic Record that raise serious doubts regarding the integrity of the present Chair of the North Yorkshire Police Authority, Councillor Jane Margaret KENYON (NYCC & SBC).Notwithstanding the widely-held opinion that no-one has the will to address these issues until after the abolition of the Police Authorities on 22^nd November 2012, I put it to you all that matters of integrity, of their very nature, stand paramount to the mere vicissitudes of the political calendar; they are immutable and omnipresent, both in time and in space.

They must be addressed.

Therefore, I would be grateful if, individually, you would respond to the following questions in the knowledge that your answers will be published into the public domain. Thank you.

1) How can it conceivably be acceptable to either the North Yorkshire public or to ‘the powers that be’ that the Chair of the North Yorkshire Police Authority, NYCC and SBC Councillor Jane KENYON, has failed, for over a year, to take action in the case of a crime of forgery – a crime of forgery by her own allegation, supported by the unanimous professional consensus of both the North Yorkshire Moors National Park Standards Committee Sub-Committee and the North Yorkshire County Council then-Deputy Head of Legal & Democratic Services, Mr Stephen KNIGHT – most especially when ostensibly the only credible suspect of that crime of forgery is her life-partner, Councillor Thomas William (‘Bill’) MILLER?

Surely, the contention that there may here have been a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice bears careful investigation here?

And is it not disturbing that the NYCC Officer delegated the position of Investigating Officer garnering evidence in relation to my complaints is that very same Mr Stephen KNIGHT?

2) How can it conceivably be acceptable to either the North Yorkshire public or to ‘the powers that be’ that the Chair of the North Yorkshire Police Authority, NYCC and SBC Councillor Jane Kenyon, has repeatedly accepted Allowances for her Broadband/telephone facility from both the North Yorkshire Police Authority and from North Yorkshire County Council, in the aggregate sum of circa £1,300 per annum – given that she was present at the Meeting of NYCC on 17^th December 2008 when the Resolution was carried to include Broadband Allowance within the standard NYCC Basic Allowance with the caveat that members could ‘renunciate’ [sic] all or any part of the Basic Allowance, and cannot, therefore, resort to an anyway  indefensible plea of ignorance?

Surely the seven Nolan Principle of Public Life were drafted for the express purpose of elevating Public Standards above the level of such petty thievery as ‘double-dipping’?

These two questions are informed by but a minute sample of the many penetrating questions I would like to see resolved. Evidence in my possession seems to unequivocally support the contention that, for many years, a culture of ‘cover up’ has prevailed here in North Yorkshire.

For the moment, though, a coherent answer would satisfy me that the Public Interest features prominently in the crowded purview of each and every one of you. I trust that such is the case.

In the interest of transparency (which we all uphold), I offer you, if I may, a word of caution; one of your number has already been rash enough (some are saying ‘foolhardy’) to state that a member of the public (identified by name) “has been harassing Councillor Kenyon for some considerable time”.

This is a very serious (though totally unsubstantiated) allegation of crime. It is defamatory.

I look forward to your suitably measured responses. My readers – your constituents – await word from each of you . . .

My given name is ‘Nigel’. My family name is ‘Ward’. Please respect my preference for being addressed by my given name. Thank you, most kindly.

Yours, with very kind regards,

Nigel

http://www.real-whitby.co.uk/tag/jane-kenyon/

“For too long those in power made decisions behind closed doors, released information behind a veil of jargon and denied people the power to hold them to account. This coalition is driving a wrecking ball through that culture – and it’s called transparency.”  – [David Cameron – Sept. 2010]

I leave you with the thought that Julian SMITH MP, who has been highly critical of Councillor Kenyon’s NYPA performance, is a relatively ‘new kid on the block’ in Parliamentary terms.

Perhaps he will now show his mettle now? He looks like a decent young man.

Otherwise, I shall just have to continue to expose evidence of misconduct, professional and private.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~