Loraine,I could write a book about certain Councillors at Hounslow. Whether any ever took bribes I have no knowledge of whatsoever, but the usual line that these Councillors started with when they called me was "this person is a major contributor to our party so we (the Councillors) have to be seen to be helping them".I was asked (in a very polite and gentle manner) on more than one occasion to write a "gentle" committee report in regard to an enforcement investigation and my response was always the same, i.e. "you know me, it'll be a detailed, thorough but fair report". Everytime I spoke with any Councillor from any party the content of that conversation was logged afterwards by me on a form which every employee had for precisely such occurrences, and recorded accordingly.A couple of Councillors were, quite frankly, idiots (and I don't like to speak ill of the dead) and didn't seem to realise that their 'antics' would have consequences. Before I joined Hounslow one Area Committee had already been warned by the Scrutiny Committee about its behaviour when it came to decisions on planning enforcement matters. During my time at the Council, the same Councillors on the same committee carried on that behaviour, and what happened was that were instrumental in persuading the Committee to just (5-4 I recall) overturn a recommendation to take enforcement action, and that overturn was so absurd it flew completely in the face of the Council's planning policies and guidance.Not surprisingly, the person who had first complained about the unauthorised development (and who was present at the committee meeting) made a formal complaint about the behaviour of certain Councillors at that meeting, which not only generated an internal investigation but also resulted in the Local Government Ombudsman investigating. Indeed I was interviewed by the Ombudsman, and I showed the Ombudsman all the records I had of how certain Councillors had engaged with me and such like.As is well known, that investigation resulted in that Area Committee being stripped of its enforcement decision making powers for 12 months.After I left in 2006, one of those Councillors (Mohinder Gill) didn't learn his lesson and from what I read about the case he tried to cast doubt on the evidence of aerial photography in an attempt to avoid enforcement action being taken. Another Councillor was stupid enough not only to breach planning control but then to ignore requests to remedy the breach, resulting in an enforcement notice being served, which he then didn't comply with and ended up being prosecuted in court.From what I've just read in the public domain as I understand it LBH spent £45k of tax payers money defending its own findings of impropriety against then Councillor Mohinder Gill, so it wasn't the Council paying his legal fees, but being forced to incur costs defending themselves against an appeal process he instigated.But before anyone gets political about any of what I've just written, my last job in local government involved 9 weeks at a Conservative run authority where I quickly uncovered a culture whereby the Director, if told to do someone by a Councillor, would do so without question. That led to the situation, and I still have emails in my possession showing this, where when it transpired the Council was unable to take formal enforcement action because, due to staff shortages or pure oversight, committee resolutions hadn't been actioned and the associated development was consequently now immune for enforcement action. But such failings were covered up, and in one case (the one I keep emails about) 2 of the senior management team lied to an member of the public and got them to incur tens of thousands of pounds of expense changing a development which was, by that time, perfectly legal. To cover my back I sent an email to those 2 Officers pointing and their response was "yes, you're completely right, but it's the right result for us". After 9 weeks of such shenanigans I was ordered to do something similar, which I refused to do, and the upshot of that was that I was suspended, then attended an employment hearing at which I was told that I'd failed my probation, yet without ever asking for anything I was told that I was being given a 5 figure sum anyway.And I kid you not, the Director at said Council was awarded an OBE a few years back for "services to the community".So the point of this extremely long and somewhat off-tangent post is that no-one knows more than me about the 'antics' that can go on inside local government. But, at the same time, just because a planning appeal is allowed, no-one should immediately cry 'corruption' unless they have the documented evidence to support such a serious claim.
Adam Beamish ● 2633d