I was attracted to the Audit Committee meeting because the agenda included an item on
Bexley council’s use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA)
which some councils use to excuse covert surveillance of residents in an
unreasonable way. Given Bexley council’s
unlawful use of the police to threaten
residents and the near certain use of
obscene blogs in an attempt to discredit
me and some other residents the misuse of RIPA cannot be entirely ruled out. The
meeting was chaired by councillor Steven Hall who began by welcoming members of
the public. At the outset only three were present (plus one child) and the
number subsequently grew to five but I do not recall a committee chairman
acknowledging the public before except to warn them of the consequences of ‘bad
behaviour’. Could we have the first councillor who respects the public?
The District Auditor was present who said that in the two previous years the
council was guilty of overstating assets and liabilities in their draft
financial statements. The auditor is going to specially check this area in this
year’s accounts which are due in tomorrow. The auditor will charge £289,900 which
will be rebated by £29,545 due to two separate ‘government’ grants.
The RIPA discussion did not in the event prove to be particularly interesting.
Bexley council claimed to have used its powers twice in the last year, once
against shopkeepers who persist in selling alcohol and tobacco to minors and
once against fly tippers. Hopefully the sort of people against whom
councillor
Tarrant’s conducts his vendettas will not be spied on. The government has
proposed that only crimes that would attract a prison sentence should be pursued
via RIPA but Bexley and other local authorities are campaigning that this
safeguard is abandoned thus ensuring that those whose dustbins are vandalised and
have the contents distributed along the street can continue to be persecuted.
I only just made it to the Audit Committee meeting as I was in Ashford again all
day. Ms. B. proved to the Ashford Employment Tribunal that she had been
unfairly dismissed by Bexley council and that she had good reason to blow the
whistle on criminal activity at the Thames Innovation Centre but the Tribunal
refused to award her compensation on a legal technicality. The Court very
specifically said that Bexley council’s procedures were unfair. As a one time manager of an outfit
several hundreds of times bigger than the Thames Innovation Centre in terms of
staff numbers, I was amazed at how everything done there was a management
disaster. I noted absolutely nothing of which a half decent manager or director
shouldn’t be thoroughly ashamed. Given the necessity to report the details accurately
I anticipate it will be Friday before anything more about it appears here and that
will have the advantage of putting it in July’s blog rather than publishing tomorrow
and having it effectively lost at the end of the day.