6 September (Part 1) - Eric Pickles. All talk, no bite
After
the AV referendum last May I was able to get hold of the spreadsheet that
detailed the election costs across London and listed Bexley’s expenses in the
blog for 20th May.
Chief Executive Will Tuckley was entitled to more than £8,000. A nice
windfall on top of his £208,000 salary. The following exchange in Parliament
yesterday caught my eye…
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire, Conservative) : “If the Prime Minister
were to give the Secretary of State an additional role, I doubt he would ask for
more money to do it, so does he agree that council chief executives who double
as returning officers and already earn more than he does should not receive an
additional fee for overseeing elections?”
Mr. Eric Pickles: “This is something very close to all our hearts in this
Chamber. That, of course, is a matter for the Secretary of State for Justice,
but to me this seems common sense. I have not come across many chief executives
who do the count and organise the postal votes; that is often done by the deputy
returning officer. I know that a number of returning officers ensure that the
extra money is shared among staff. I think that that is the right course, but if
chief executives are pocketing that money, they should feel ashamed.”
I wonder if a Freedom of Information Request would extract information on
whether Mr. Tuckley is taking “the right course” or not. The problem with
Pickles is that he comes out with bright ideas (such as councils should
co-operate with “citizen journalists”) and then
ignores councils that change their constitutions in order to make a monkey
out of him. Bexley being the prime example.
Bexley council is currently trying to make a monkey of the Information
Commissioner too. The Commissioner issues specific instructions to councils etc.
which state that they must ensure that things do not come to a halt if the
responsible officer is absent from work for any reason. Bexley council ignores
that as it ignores most things and everything came to a halt between 16th August
and yesterday because of annual leave. Partly as a result of that I know of six
complaints about Bexley council currently with the Information Commissioner.
Every one of them is an example of Bexley council breaking the law.