LIBERAL Democrat councillors at Warrington are calling for an independent public inquiry into the circumstances which led to the borough council being found guilty of serious maladministration over a long-running planning battle.
Cllr Bob Barr, opposition spokesman on planning is to put a motion to next week’s meeting of the council, calling for an independently chaired, open and transparent public inquiry.
He says the inquiry should report, no later than the end of the calendar year, on the loss of documents, including the wholesale unlawful destruction of planning records in 2006.
The inquiry should also report on the relationship between the transportation, planning and enforcement functions of the council which led to the Local Government Ombudsman finding the authority guilty of maladministration.
Cllr Barr said: “Faith in Warrington’s planning service has been seriously shaken by the recent Ombudsman’s report that highlights serious maladministration, dating back to 1993 and the unlawful destruction of records.
“While we believe that the service is essentially sound, and the council has nothing to hide, we do not believe that it is right for the council only to investigate these charges itself.
“We are calling for an independently chaired public inquiry to report by the end of the year on what went wrong and what can be done to improve our service in the future. We believe that only a genuinely independent and transparent inquiry and report will clear the air.”
The motion to be put to the council next Monday says the inquiry’s terms of reference should cover the steps needed to improve record handling procedures and the relationships between the council’s planning, transportation and enforcement services to avoid such cases in future and restore the council’s reputation for the sound administration of planning permissions.
Earlier this year, the Ombudsman, Anne Seex, criticised the council for “an extraordinary and inexcusable act of maladministration” for destroying planning records it had a statutory duty to hold on record.
She recommended the council pay £5,000 compensation each to two residents involved in a long running planning dispute over construction of a house in Twiss Green Lane, Culcheth.
Nothing to hide over plans blunder
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
18 Comments
Why wasn’t this raised when he was in office?
Better late than never. Will the truth come out/ Don’t forget this is politics and Labour are very good at cover-ups.
I completely agree that there should be a full and independant and public enquiry into the unlawful destruction of all the planning records… but I would like to question why the timescale is being set at being reported ‘ no later than the end of the calendar year’. Surely it shouldn’t take that long as they know when they were destroyed and which people were ‘allegidely’ involved so that part in itself should be pretty quick for quetions to be asked, answers to be given and action to be taken if/where appropriate including calling in the police if found to be necessary. The first and immediate port of call should be that backup copies of ALL remaining planning documentation (and any susbequent ones) are made and stored in a secure way so that this sort of thing can never happen again at the whim of an officer or other person for ‘whatever’ reason. Simples for starters. They need to act quicker as word seems to be spreading fast on the net about certain oddities which have allegidely taken place and names and possible motives are already being given. Until such time that the council can state the true facts, reasons, action etc etc these reports, stories and consipracy theories will grow and grow. Not good for Warrington Councils reputation at all.
The actual destruction of the records would not in itself be a criminal matter, and therefore not something for police involvement. The term illegal in ths case has probably been used in its widest sense, that being, unauthorised or prohibited by a code of official or accepted rules, rather than forbidden by law. However I am prepared to stand to be corrected if somebody can come up with the specific law that has been broken and the penalty for breaking that law. Most, if not all local authorities will have a specific policy document relating to retention and destruction of documents, so I assume in the case of Warrington it was their own policy document that was breached, rather than some statute. With regards to an Independent and Public Inquiry, how much will it all cost, and if the council employees who were involved with the destruction of the records, and who I understand have since retired, refuse to take part as would be their right, what is really to be gained from what in effect would be an expensive talking shop. Maybe the money would be better spent on keeping a library open or filling in some potholes. I’m sure that your council there in Warrington has a cross party committee that is quite capable of producing a factual and substantive report in to this matter. Its terms of reference could be something along the lines of: when, what, who & why, and then come up with some appropriate and effective recommendations to stop it happening again, although I would sense with the introduction of electronic records in recent years, the destruction of paper records is no longer a real problem.
You are probably right Legal Eagle but the actual Ombudsmans report does state that “Since 1947 local planning authorities have been under a STATUTORY DUTY to
maintain a register of every planning application in their area. The register must
be available for public inspection during normal office hours. Part 1 of the register
contains a copy of all current (undetermined) applications, together with a copy of
accompanying plans and drawings. Part II of the register contains copies of all
planning applications received, dated copies of the decisions including any
conditions subject to which permission has been granted together with stamped
and dated copies of the approved plans……..Retaining just decision notices does not discharge the statutory duty. A copy of the application, a copy of the notice and a copy of the approved plans to which the notice relates must all be retained………………….. It then also goes onto say that “The Council should apologise to both householders for: the problems they encountered as a result of its UNLAWFUL DESTRUCTION of the Statutory Records. So you can see why people are calling for a proper investigation allthough I agree that Illegal and unlawful are slightly different matters. Infact having never actually read the actual ombudsamns report until today after all it just refers to one particular planning application which the destruction of records has caused a problem with it does makes quite shocking reading especially as the planning application it referes to has had many stages and changes over many years it would seem. I suppose in reality the majority of destroyed records will not actually ever cause a problem but the problem now is that yet again many people in Warrington are cautious, suspicious and questioning of the council as there have been too many occasions where the council have lead the field and reported on certain instances and facts and it’s only been when resident groups and independants have jumped in and requested info under FOI requests that the true facts and findings have emerged. Basically Warrington is turning into a town of cynics and I am one of the biggest ones 🙂 Anyway after all that they are only a pile of old planning applications anyway so not to worry 🙂
replying to my own post again ha ha….. I forgot to mention the bit in the report that made me grin. It states that the “The senior officer responsible for destroying the records has left the authority. The present Senior Planning Officer says that he was aware that the records were being destroyed and expressed his reservations to the person responsiblewho was, at the time, his senior officer. He says it did not seem appropriate for him to report the matter to any other officer”………… Well having had the pleasure of may dealings with the current one way back to before 2006 when the records were allegidely destroyed believe me he is definately NOT one to mince his words or hold back on comments and is quite a forecful and stuborn character…. in a nice way of course ‘allegidely’ 🙂
What happened when this guy was in office? Why is he now saying there should be an investigation/ I will not hold my breath!
Legal Eagle seems to be laying the foundations for a whitewash.
ALL records should be kept as a matter of course for future reference. If you don’t have structure, chaos rules.Individuals should not be allowed to make decisions. The truth needs to be told, so get on with it.
Several of those commenting point out, quite correctly, that we were in charge, and I was responsible for planning in the last administration. However the matter of the destruction of records only came to light when the Local Government Ombudsman’s investigator began to dig into the Marton Close affair and was only formally stated in April when the report was published.
This was just before the May elections and I raised the issue. The Leader of the Labour Group, now the Leader of the Council, chose to describe this as a ‘stunt’. It was not, and is not a stunt. Labour have promised an open and transparent administration, the motion before the Council next week offers them an opportunity to demonstrate that openness and transparency.
The actual destruction of records took place after the May 2006 elections when we had taken control of the Council. The officers involved did not see fit to inform Councillors, or the senior management of the Council, as to what they were doing.
As senior and trained Planning Officers they should have been sufficiently familiar with planning law to know that what they were doing was unlawful. This is also the Ombudsman’s conclusion.
What is unfortunate is that an act, which was probably carried out with the best of intentions to free up expensive office and storage space, by destroying records over ten years old, will appear, to conspiracy theorists, to have been an intentional cover-up. I don’t believe it was but would like that concern to be publicly examined so that fears may be allayed.
What is more serious is that many matters that need reference to planning permissions granted in 1996 and before cannot be dealt with properly because of the destruction of the records.
I very much hope that my motion to give the Council an opportunity to air these matters in public, transparently and openly, will be carried next Monday and that the enquiry can be concluded well before the time limit set in the motion of the end of the year.
Bob
Freeing up space? Do me a favour. It’s inexpensive to archive material and they knew full well they had an oblilgation to keep records. I don’t work in planning, knew nothing about the statutory requirement before reading about this but even I could work that out with common sense. Not only that, the current Head of Planning continued to work on the Culcheth case knowing full well there was no information available to make informed decisions, yet chose not to reveal this fact until forced to do so. The LGO report confirms he ‘misled’ councillors, yet still you are asking him for advice on this case.
His motives for doing this and those of his predecessor? There’s one that springs immediately to mind as the most likley explanation. Even without that, he should have already faced disciplinary action.
I hope you get your open investigation, but you have all helped to create the impression in people’s minds that the planning department is corrupt and the council either does not have the will to face up to it or is institutionally corrupt itself. You have to deal with this decisively and you can start with this investigation and sorting oout the Culcheth case and helping those people in Marton Close who you have been failing for years.
And in the great tradition of replying to my own posts, stuff like this doesn’t help people be any less suspicious:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_relating_to_ombudsma
Or this even 🙂
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_relating_to_ombudsma#outgoing-131217
How was the destruction of statutory records, whether for honest or deceitful purposes, concealed from senior management, the elected members and particularly the Monitoring Officer for over four years? Monitoring by definition should be a proactive function, not a passive one. As such the MO’s MO should have have been on reliant on a system regular checks being in place to ensure the actions of officers and members were lawful and complied with national and council procedures. Monitoring should not be a succession of ticks in the right boxes by those being monitored, there should be a clear audit trial of actions and verification. None seems to have been apparent where Mr Groves’ actions were concerned. There is little doubt, as grey_man observes that Mr Groves still appears to be actively involved in planning despite being exposed and discredited in the LGO’s report is remarkable. But the Monitoring Officer also has some questions to answer.
Where does this all leave us? Is Planning the only Department within the Council that nees investigation. It seems that we are in for a whitewash. It appears that the monitoring accross the Council leaves something to be desired. We don’t need a motion as Coun Barr describes. All we need is proactive Managment within the Council. What has the Chief ||Execuitve to say on this matter, bearing in miond that she, herself, has been found wanting during her short term in office. Perhaps we need a clear out of senior staff to restore confidence in our Council!
The council have been pulled up may times in the past years over their records management, both in planning and other areas so surely they should have already looked into their management strategies and had they done so ‘maybe’ these planning records would never havebeen destroyed and safeguards for paper, electronic or even the older way of microfiches would have been in place. I find the whole tale rather odd but they I find most things odd hese days. For anyone who may be interested THE INTERNAL AUDIT RELATING TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PLANNING RECORDS has been carried out and the TWO REPORTS can be found here (when I say found ..you can only find them if you figure out where to look (ironic 🙂 ) PASTE THE LINK AND THEN CLICK ON AGENDA ITESM 6 and 6A – Planning Investigation
http://cmis.warrington.gov.uk/cmis5/Meetings/tabid/73/ctl/ViewMeetingPublic/mid/410/Meeting/6870/Committee/1195/Default.aspx
Proving that if you want the right answers, ask the right questions.
Bob Barr aknowledges that THEY were in control of the council and HE was responsible for planning both when the records were destroyed and when this act was discovered. So for years they failed to notice it, all the time the ombudsman was investigating the matter they ignored it, when the damning report was thrust in their face and they could ignore it no longer – they tried to blame the previous administration for it!!!. Whatever decision the Labour administration would have made re an inquiry Barr & Co would have criticised it. An internal investigation – not good enough. An external investigation – a waste of public money. Personally I think that neither will suffice. Nothing other than a full police investigation will satisfy the public whose confidence in the ‘goings on’ in the various depts of the council are at an all time low. A lack of confidence bred from the lack of honesty and transparency of Bob Barr himself and the other members of the previous executive board. If Mr Barr was so concerned about the matter why wasn’t the principle planning officer suspended and the police called immediately – when Barr himself & Co were in power?
Indeed, why has the principal officer not been suspended? why is he still offering advice on this matter, he was as the adjourned 2nd June meeting to discuss this matter, and he will be offering advice on the 30th June, next Thurdsay, no doubt he will attend the site visit offering advice. He should not be anywhere near this case as he has been slammed by the LGO for misleading councilors. As posted earlier he still is misleading the council, the report to members, signed by A Farrall is clearly the same report from the original 16th Dec 2009, written by John Groves & slammed by the LGO as misleading. The report for next week states,
SHOULD THE OMBUDSMAN CONCLUDE THAT THERE HAS BEEN MALADMINISTRATION, RESULTING IN INJUSTICE COMPENSATION FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED THE SUCH INJUSTICE CAN BE SUGGESTED
This is ridiculous, the Council are trying to stage manage this fiasco, of note they still have not formally accepted the LGO findings, and the report to commitee ignores the LGO report completely.
Cyril, you can’t really believe that Bob Barr seriously wants an independant investigation? As I said earlier, If Mr Barr was so concerned about the matter why wasn’t the principle planning officer suspended and the police called immediately – when Barr himself & Co were in power?