23 August (Part 2) - Bexley Council behaves like idiots. You pay
It’s probably easier to merely report the antics of Bexley Council than engage them first hand. Those that do so and box the cover up merchants into a corner tend to be labelled vexatious and have all their questions go unanswered.
Sometimes
things get worse than that. The Table Snatching Buffoon (TSB) known as Gill Steward
banned John Watson from contacting Bexley Council for six months for daring to
notice that their Head of Legal doesn’t appear to possess the qualifications
that are deemed “Essential” to be employed in that role - and then having the
temerity to ask how Alabi gets away with it.
She said the questioning was causing Mr. Alabi “distress and embarrassment”.
You would think that if someone was clever enough to acquire a solicitor’s practising certificate from the Law Society
or some little known equivalent qualification it would be a source of pride not embarrassment. But
instead of providing the information that the Law Society is happy to divulge about genuine members
of the profession, Bexley Council refuses to say anything about him being unrecognised by the UK professional bodies.
It leaves a member of staff the subject of speculation as to whether he has been up to no good or
not. Good employers don’t do that. Perhaps there is skullduggery afoot in Watling Street yet again.
Fortunately I cannot be labelled vexatious for blog writing so Bexley Council
can do nothing to stop me highlighting the idiocy of the aforesaid TSB
for the seventh consecutive day. They could take
the Harassment path and complain to the police
but that tends to back fire on them. It creates another news story as well as being a waste of police resources.
When I met Mick Barnbrook last Wednesday i drafted out for him a Freedom of
Information request on Table Snatching. With the help of John Watson he has
refined it since then and it now reads as follows…
The Chief Executive, Gill Steward, has announced that Bexley Council has
withdrawn the press desk from public meetings with effect from 18th July 2016.
Please supply copies of all communications between council staff and/or
councillors and copies of all notes, including all information held by the
council electronically, relating to the council’s decision to withdraw the press
desk from public meetings, contrary to the guidance contained in Open and
Accountable Local Government, issued by the Department for Communities and Local
Government, that a press desk should ideally be provided.
Please state the estimated financial savings that will accrue to the council
over the course of a year, as a result of this cut to services to the public.
Mick must be having a laugh with his last sentence.
There is no way that Bexley Council is going to save any money on this one,
instead their juvenile attack on democracy will cost you, the taxpayer, plenty.
There’s my complaint to be answered, the almost inevitable enquiries by the
Local Government Ombudsman as well as the the FOI costs. And that ignores the
incalculable costs to what remains of Bexley Council’s tattered reputation.
And for what? Just so that some jumped up nobody from Cornwall and West Sussex
can say “I’m in charge”.
Numbskulls the lot of ’em.