Dear all, as promised, I have escalated the groups complaint to the Corporate Complaints Officer. I expect we will be bounced back again, and will then have to take it to the Ombudsman, but we have to give the council the opportunity to investigate thoroughly - it is only right and proper: Dear Mr. Henry, Pardon me for e-mailing you directly, and I hope that you are indeed the Corporate Complaints Officer. On behalf of the peaceful public protest group Parents Against the Decision to Scrap Free Post 16 Transport, I sent in a complaint about Mr. Grant Davey deliberately attempting to mislead the general public about the cost of the extraordinary general meeting held on the 11th July this year. I received the response from Colin Logan below. As you can imagine, the group are not satisfied with this response and have been advised below to escalate to the Corporate Complaints Officer if we wanted to take it further. The group does. There are many press quotes from Mr. Davey specifically referring to the cost of the extraordinary meeting as being £80K – I include a couple to prove the point below. Not only did he attempt to mislead the public about the cost of the extraordinary meeting but he has also done the same regarding the ordinary meeting cancelled from 2.7.14, which he stated would save the council the cost of the meeting to a tune of £18k when we have been told it is significantly less than that following a FOI request report. Newcastle Journal dated 9th July 2014. Council leader Grant Davey said: The cost of the extraordinary meeting has skyrocketed and weve had to audit the cost. It now stands at nearly £9k each for each of the signatories of the motion put forward by their leader Coun (Peter) Jackson. Northumberland Tories have very serious questions to answer how can they justify calling a meeting that will cost taxpayers £80k while this council has to find £130m in cuts over the next four years? This is a scandalous waste of taxpayers money. Morpeth Herald dated 18 July 2014. But Council Leader Grant Davey said: Its clear the Tories are running scared over the £80,000 cost of this extraordinarily expensive extraordinary meeting, Coun Bawn may think £80,000 is poppycock, but residents who will have to shell out for Tory political vanity wont forgive. The group believe this is bringing the council into disrepute by deliberately attempting to mislead the public about use of public finances. Please can you acknowledge receipt of this complaint. We all look forward to hearing from you. Yours Sincerely, Allison Joynson – on behalf of Parents Against the Decision to Scrap Free Post 16 Transport. From: Logan, Colin Date: Tuesday, 29 July 2014 11:00 To: Allison Joynson Subject: RE: Official Complaint Dear Allison Thank you for your complaint dated 23 July 2014. I have looked at the breakdown of the £80k cost which has been provided by the Council and as a result is in the public domain. It is clear from this breakdown that this represents the full costs incurred in the whole process of the revision to the Post 16 Transport Policy. I am informed that it was never the intention to mislead in this matter and the fact that the detail behind these costs were released and it is obvious what they represent bears this out. I accept your argument that many of the costs detailed such as those relating to officers of the Council and County Hall would have been incurred anyway but the fact of the matter is that £80k of the financial resources available to the Council have been expended on this process. I cannot therefore uphold your complaint for the reasons given above. If you are not satisfied with my response, you can escalate this matter to Stage 2 of the Council’s corporate process by addressing your complaint in writing to: The Corporate Complaints Officer County Hall Morpeth Northumberland NE61 2EF Yours sincerely Colin Logan Head of Financial and Customer Services Northumberland County Council Tel: 01670 622926 Mobile: 07909966410 Web:northumberland.gov.uk From: Allison Joynson [mailto:allison.joynson@btinternet] Sent: 23 July 2014 08:50 To: Logan, Colin Subject: Official Complaint Dear Mr. Logan I wish to make a formal complaint against the leadership of the council for deliberately, and provocatively misleading the public and the press regarding the use of public finances, specifically, the cost of the extraordinary meeting held on 11.7.14 at County Hall, Morpeth. The apparent cost of £80k was hugely exaggerated, and on closer scrutiny, most of the costs are councillor/ council officials time or buildings costs, which are paid for anyway. The only tangible costs truly attributed to this meeting appear to be £1088.01 for members travel costs, £163.73 for security, £19.80 for copying the agenda and £1019 for hiring a PA system (which even this may be questioned because surely the council have an obligation to the general public for their meetings to be heard – and it did not work properly!). The councillors and council officials are not paid an hourly rate, and council costs are not managed to project codes. All other costs are business as usual costs. Telling the press and the public that the cost of the meeting was £80k when in fact it was only £2290.54 is not only deliberately misleading, but brings in to question other financial claims from leaders of the council, and as such brings the council into disrepute. Yours sincerely, Allison Joynson Parents Against the Decision to Scrap Free Post 16 Transport.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 11:27:15 +0000