To receive questions from members of the public who wish to ask a general question in respect of matters within the Council’s area of responsibility or influence.
Subject to the Chair’s discretion, members of the public may ask one question and one supplementary question, which should relate to the original question and answered received.
Councillors may also ask questions under this agenda item.
Minutes:
(1) Mr. L. Harron referred to accountability, statements of fact and the evidence he had to back those statements up. Having appealed to the Information Commissioner on two occasions and winning both appeals to obtain information from Council, he had recently received a further decision by the Information Commissioner who had been critical of the Council in restricting information. He regarded this as a waste of public funds and resources by the Council and the Information Commissioner.
Having received the decision by the Information Commissioner about an issue he raised in a Council meeting 2.5 years ago he had sent the Leader a paper which he had also given to the Chief Executive 3.5 years ago detailing evidence of dishonesty. He, therefore, asked would the Leader be accountable and nominate an Elected Member to work with himself to look at the issues of dishonesty of officers since 2015.
The Leader acknowledged this was a prolonged period of time, but explained he would be unable to nominate an Elected Member due to the formal procedures already in place to investigate complaints where there were allegations of officer dishonestly or malpractice. The three tier process ended with a panel of Elected Members coming to a final decision and making any sanctions necessary. It would be highly irregular to have Member involvement to lead at the beginning of the process and again at the end.
Mr. Harron confirmed he had lots of evidence of the dysfunctional complaints process and how it controlled rather than looking at the issues. In fact, the Council had, on a number of occasions, used independent investigators to look at issues that could not be done internally. He had also attempted to lodge a complaint on behalf of an adult survivor, but there was no response to the email. He had also asked for this to be debated in public for the next Council meeting.
He confirmed he had referred another response from Rotherham to the Information Commissioner very recently, bizarrely, as it was a very simple question, which was then altered into a Freedom of Information request. He, therefore, asked around the 1st September, 2016 had the Chief Executive met with an officer and a reporter from the Advertiser about the Sheffield Star’s intention to publish an article about the investigation into Swinton Lock. The Chief Executive could simply answer yes or no.
The Leader confirmed he had been involved in correspondence on this matter and the answer had been there was no record and no one could remember whether such a meeting took place. It was, therefore, not possible to give a cast iron guarantee.
The Leader was happy to ask the Chief Executive to confirm, but this was four years ago and it would be if she could recollect such a meeting. This was frustrating for Mr. Harron in the absence of any written information.
Mr. Harron had assumed he would receive a simple yes or not, but this was changed to an FOI response. He had, in fact, received an email around that time from a reporter from the Star which proved some previous correspondence had existed. This had been denied by the Council which confirmed such an exchange had existed, but somehow this had been deleted from records.
(2) Mr. Felstead confirmed he had written to the Leader three weeks ago about Councillor Sue Ellis over claiming on her expenses and had yet to receive a reply. This was documented in the local press where she had received an extra £9,000 on top of the £22,000 for a year without letting anyone know.
Mr. Felstead confirmed he had raised this on a forum of around 5,000 people in Wickesley and Councillor Ellis had received little support. Bringing this into perspective Councillor Ellis was at the time a Director of a multi-billion pound company and in their annual statement they described her as a former Police Officer and Social Worker and how she had served as a Labour Councillor since 1995 along with other roles and responsibilities. It also confirmed the dates she represented the Council on the South Yorkshire Pensions Authority and eventually became Chair.
The Pensions Authority helped to maintain consistently high level performance of an £8 billion fund, but it was clear Councillor Ellis was not financially competent when she was incapable of realising she had overpaid by such a sum.
Mr. Felstead, therefore, asked, having asked his own four year old child to highlight in picture format bigger block proportions, if the Council believed Councillor Ellis to be incompetent.
The Leader thanked Mr. Felstead for his question, but pointed out that Councillor Ellis did not claim any money as she was paid an allowance and the overpayment was an administrative error on behalf of the Council.
The Leader was not willing to speculate on personal circumstances of Members, but confirmed the error had been rectified and Councillor Ellis had paid the money overpaid in full.
This had been very frustrating for Councillor Ellis and as a result the Council had issued her with a formal apology because the fault of making those excess payments lay with Council staff.
There was more work to be done and procedures were now in place to ensure this did not happen again.
In a supplementary question Mr. Felstead asked if the Police had been informed. He referred to a recent article where a man received money by mistake and landed himself with a prison sentence when he spent the windfall. He compared this to the case for Councillor Ellis.
The Leader having regard to case law believed any overpayments made in error required people to repay the money in a period of time no longer than the period for which the overpayment occurred. As previously indicated Councillor Ellis had already repaid that money quickly after the issue was drawn to her attention. It was not believed there was any criminal wrongdoing and Mr. Felstead was, of course, welcome to draw these matters to the attention of the Police. If they wished to investigate information was already in the public domain.