27 October - Nick Johnson. Still embarrassing Bexley council
Anyone
new around here may need a little refresher course on Nick Johnson. He was
Bexley’s Chief Executive before Will Tuckley and was as cosily tucked up with the
then council leader Ian Clement as Will Tuckley is with Teresa O’Neill. Another
mutual admiration society.
Mr. Johnson retired on grounds of ill health in November 2007 and by the
following March had miraculously recovered to take a similar job in Hammersmith
leaving Bexley taxpayers with a £50,000 a year pension bill on top of the
reported £300,000 pay-off. Mystery surrounded the detail; time
for some Freedom of Information (FOI) questions.
The
first of these was for details of his pay, annual increments and their dates. It turned
out that he went from £153,468 in December 2003 by annual increments to £167,211
in July 2007 and for no known reason to £198,480 two months later. The obvious next
question (30th June 2011) was “Why the £31,000 jump”. “A technical adjustment” said
Bexley council. The speculation was that a conveniently timed pay increase agreed over one of
Ian Clement’s credit card funded dinners
in a posh restaurant would nicely boost Nick’s pension.
The next FOI (12th July) asked for the nature of the technical adjustment to be
explained and Bexley council went very quiet indeed. Several further enquiries
were made about the fate of that FOI with no further information forthcoming and
on 9th September the matter was reported to the Information Commissioner (IC). Six
weeks later Bexley council was told to answer the FOI within ten days. They
expire next week.
Bexley’s attitude to FOIs is appalling. Just a few days ago I referred to the
nine page lecture on the law
delivered by the IC to Bexley council and the Nick Johnson question provokes another two pages.
His covering letter reveals something of the IC’s frustration with Bexley. It refers to the 20
day limit being “statutory” (section 10 of the Act) and to “serious contraventions of
section 10 are recorded and persistent contraventions will result in placing a
public authority on our monitoring programme. Our monitoring programme is proving very
successful at improving practices amongst public authorities who have shown a long term
reluctance or inability to respond to information requests within the statutory timescales".
After explaining that even stronger sanctions can result in further delay the ICO informs
the questioner that if he wishes that step to be taken he is "able to do so” because “your
concerns have been taken seriously. Thank you for bring this matter to the attention of the
Information Commissioner.”
Do I detect that with so many FOIs (plus at least one Subject Access Request)
being ignored, the Information Commissioner is losing patience with Bexley council?
Previous blogs about Nick Johnson…
• 2 November 2010 - More greed and amoral behaviour. It’s endemic!
• 18 April 2011 - Don’t tell audit
• 6 May 2011 - Where feeble men fear to tread
• 12 June 2011 - Freedom of Information
• 28 July 2011 - Newsreel