County Hall has become a strange and fearful place since 2017. Secret meetings and conspiracies are the order of the day, and constitutional abominations like the informal cabinet are accepted as if they’re reasonable and normal.
The outcome of the employment tribunal brought by Sarah Kirk and Chris Stephenson has shone a little light into some corners of Daljit Lally’s ways of working. What’s interesting is how little interest is shown in what’s been revealed by the self professed queen of transparency, Georgina Hill.
In case you’ve not followed the tribunal story, here’s the short version. Two senior HR managers were made redundant in 2016. Both went to tribunal with a skip load of claims about why their redundancy was unfair. Amongst the skip load of complaints was an allegation by Sarah Kirk that she’d been discriminated against because she complained about Barry Rowland leaving NCC with a compromise agreement and a confidentiality clause.
Barry was an Executive Director, and a former chief exec at Newcastle. He was pretty divisive; people either loved him or hated him. Sarah Kirk’s allegation was that Barry was manouvered out by Daljit Lally, who went to an employee who worked under Mr Rowland, and persuaded her to complain that he was bullying her.
NCC’s defence to that claim by
Sarah Kirk wasn’t to deny her version of the facts, but to claim that she
hadn’t blown the whistle in the right way, so shouldn’t be protected as a
whistleblower, and any way, she deserved to be made redundant.
So what we’re left with is an
accusation that Daljit Lally chose to reward a bully with a payoff and a
secrecy agreement in order to secure a swift exit for him, and the job of
Deputy Chief Executive for herself. What’s odd is that Daljit Lally hasn’t
chosen to speak against that accusation. Nowhere in the findings of fact
made by the judge is there anything to suggest this was a fantasy or a fiction;
instead there’s just the suggestion that Sarah Kirk went about it the wrong
way, and got some of the details of who she told and when she told them wrong.
Now amongst the odd things, like
the way Daljit Lally chose not to give evidence, is Barry Rowland;s response to
all this. He could have offered to give evidence to rebut the central
accusations about his behaviour. Instead he made an application to have the
tribunal hushed up, because he had a confidentiality agreement. He failed, but
he’s said nothing in public to defend himself against these accusations. Given
that he’s still a public servant, in the Falkland Islands, you might wonder why
that is.
What does Georgina Hill have to
say about the use of public funds to pay off and silence an employee accused of
bullying? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. She’s got lots to say about anyone who agrees
with Northumbria Police that her ‘investigation’ into Arch has produced no
evidence of any criminality, but on the subject of senior managers hiding each
other’s disciplinary offences behind confidentiality agreements, she says
nothing.
In all the circumstances, anyone
with a shred of credibility would be asking how it can be that public money
could be used in this way. The problem for Hill is that there’s no way for her
to smear Labour politicians from such an investigation. Instead there’s a risk
she’d sabotage the career of Daljit Lally, who is throwing money at Berwick to
ensure Hill can continue pretending to be an independent advocate for the town
while doing whatever her patrons at County Hall want. In Daljit’s Kremlin that
appears to be how politics works.
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