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27 Mar 2015

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EDDC, Mark Williams CEO EDDC

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Senior officers of the council must be politically neutral, especially now

It says so on page 186 of EDDC’s constitution.

Political neutrality

3.1 You must serve all Councillors equally regardless of their political beliefs.

3.2 If you are asked to advise one of the political groups, you must do so in an impartial way and only with the prior approval of the Chief Executive.

3.3 You must follow every Council Policy and not let your own personal or political opinions interfere with your work.

So, why did CEO Mark Williams, when dealing with incisive questions from Councillor Claire Wright at the Council’s meeting about the Local Plan, (when she suggested consultants who wrote recent reports to the council should be questioned by those councillors) refer to her “political ambitions”?

3 thoughts on “Senior officers of the council must be politically neutral, especially now”

  1. At the November or December Council meeting (I forget which) he went far beyond this, disclosing information about Claire given in confidence to Devon & Cornwall Police (who presumably broke the DPA in giving it to Mr Williams, who then may have broken the DPA in disclosing it further and putting it into the public domain). Moreover, at that meeting his words, tone of voice and facial expressions seemed to me to indicate a strong emotional-based dislike of Claire that went way, way beyond a lack of impartiality.

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  2. The difference between some employees of EDDC, as to their committment to serve the public with absolute impartiality is considerable.
    Yesterday I rang EDDC and the member of staff to whom I spoke could not have been more helpful and more focused on assisting me in relation to a particular matter, not only answering my query fully, but offering welcome relevant impartial advice and information.
    And then there are the senior management team.
    We, and the employees of EDDC, deserve better.

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    • I haven’t asked anyone at EDDC, so I don’t know for sure, but…

      I imagine that if you are a middle-ranking EDDC officer, you might well hate your job at the moment. I would expect that they really want to get on with their jobs in the most professional manner, but (some at least) find that their actions are continually being interfered with for political reasons by Senior Officers (sometimes following steers from Cabinet councillors).

      If this is the case, then working for the current EDDC might be very stressful indeed.

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