Actions to provide the strong, united and informed managerial and political leadership

On Wednesday the council passed a motion to initiate six actions to reset the council and reinforce best practice by 28 votes to 17 with two abstentions. 

The motion was put by Cllr Paul Hayward, seconded by Cllr Todd Olive.

Paul Hayward said that the actions flowed from the letter to Michael Gove and were aimed at “looking to do things better”. An approach encouraged by the Local Government Association (LGA).

The full text of the motion can be found here.

Forceful case to reset the council came from unexpected quarter

The most forceful case for the urgent need to reset the council was made, not by the proponents of the motion but, unintentionally, by Tory Cllr Mike Goodman. 

Early in the proceedings he gave vent to an angry speech that was at times out of order. At one stage he had to be rebuked by the Monitoring Officer for naming officers. See below for verbatim quotes.

In reply, Leader Paul Arnott, said he would put aside all the venom and inaccuracies and deal with issues calmly and rationally. 

He stressed that this motion was as a result of the council, LGA and LGA(SW) coming together with the LGA offering to come forward to get this work underway. Otherwise the work was in danger of becoming piecemeal. 

See more detail on Paul Arnott’s reply below.

Costs and “value for money”

Cllr Goodman’s attack followed Conservative Group leader, Cllr Marcus Hartnell, contribution. Cllr Hartnell questioned the motives of the administration in bringing this motion to full council. 

Whilst saying that he could support the positive elements (at least five of the six) at Owl’s count. He ultimately voted against. 

The groove the Tories seem stuck in is one of cost and “value for money”. Though, as disclosed in the meeting, the bulk of the costs will be picked up by the  LGA and there is a motion item to review costs in any case. 

Later, Cllr Paul Hayward, Portfolio Holder Finance (Assets), confirmed that this would be covered within the existing “transformational” line of the budget. 

Technicalities

Both Cllr Eleanor Rylance (Chair) and Cllr Sam Hawkins (vice chair) voluntarily stepped down from their posts and left the chamber during this agenda item. This was because they were both signatories to the recent letter sent to the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, by the administration, revealed by the BBC.

The letter asked for government officials to become involved with overseeing an “improvement journey” aimed at bringing the cabinet and senior managers together as a “unified team” that can “move forward as one body”. The context concerns the “historic case of paedophilia and the way it has been treated within the council”.

Council agreed that Cllr Joe Whibley should take the Chair, (during the recorded vote he also followed suit and abstained). 

Quotes from Tory Cllr Goodman’s angry outburst 

Cllr Goodman started by saying (1hr 47approx on EDDC YouTube recording):

This has “nothing to do with helping residents, it is a personal motion to discredit officers of this council. We have all seen this in the tone of the letter Cllr Paul Arnott sent to Michael Gove….it is a reflection of the poor leadership of this council under Cllr Paul Arnott.” 

He then went on to accuse the Leader of undermining the Chief Executive Officer “This needs to be treated as a code of conduct issue and I have today reported this issue to the Monitoring Officer”.

He then, strangely, made heavy reference to the “mysterious report” reported last week.

“What a shame we have to wait for the critical Grant Thornton Report which I am confident will tell the truth about how the current Leader leads this council. This report was requested from this council after the procurement of the Verita report and was conducted independently by Grant Thornton [Fact check: the report was commissioned by the Chief Executive]. I have tried to get this report published before tonight’s meeting so members can make decisions based on facts. But I have not been successful…..We are here to serve our residents, not the ego of our leader.”

Calmer reflections from Paul Arnott

In reply, Leader Paul Arnott, said he would put aside all the venom and inaccuracies and deal with issues calmly and rationally. 

He made  three points:

It is a convention within the council that referrals to the Monitoring Officer are not made public. (This is probably his  fourth against the leader).

He stressed that this motion did not come from an ill-tempered councillor trying to dominate from the Chair, but was as a result of the council, LGA and LGA(SW) coming together with the LGA offering to come forward to get this work underway. Otherwise the work was in danger of becoming piecemeal. 

He asked, through the Chair, whether Cllr. Goodman had seen the Grant Thornton recommendations? (Cllr Goodman replied that he hadn’t) Paul Arnott then asked “So why are you beating me about the head with it? ” (The publication date of this “report” is unknown.) Paul Arnott then suggested that unless Cllr Goodman had some privileged information it was not relevant to the motion.

Worth a reread from May 2020:

Tories in denial, they have finally lost what they thought was theirs by right

As with last week’s extraordinary Council meeting, the Chief Executive did not attend.