With the Tories falling off the floating logs they are clinging onto hoping and praying their top bods accept REFORMS Farage as their new leader and they become the high hype no policies CONFORM Party or is it the RESERVATIVE Party? Their members in Northumberland have been hung again by their own petard as an independent report (don’t make us laugh), discovered their biggest problem has re-emerged within the fire service environment.
The lead councillor for the service is the Cabinet Member for ‘Looking After Our Communities’ who is delegated to act as the Fire Authority Chair. That member is the ex-cop, regular paper picker in Prudhoe, Councillor Gordon Stewart.
He must have been too busy posing for photographs of him doing the jobs of direct labour employees to read reports from past firefighters or listen to the concerns of over 200 current in post staff when he decided to select the current fire chief and his deputy into these top positions during 2023.
200? That the number of staff who complained about the Council allowing the continuation of a bullying and harassment culture to ruin working relationships following the release of the Max Caller report into the string of scandals which rocked the council during 2022 with the bullying of staff including its female chief executive front and centre among the complaints Mr Caller looked into.
The Council including the politically squeezed Cramlington Conservatives pushed through a no confidence vote against the then leader of Council, the anti-Prince of Wales Trust promoted Garden Village project Councillor Peter Jackson, who took the Party’s blame culture fairly and squarely on the chin while his fellow protagonists sat back and laughed.
Councillor Jackson who has just announced he’s not running at this election as REFORM eye his Ponteland seat as a quick win in the May 1st elections allegedly raising his disgrace on residents doorsteps being bolstered through the farmers in that ward jumping away from their Conservative roots trying to grab the Farage hype their being fed.
But the new Conservative Leader and his Deputy haven’t bit the bullet triggered by Max Caller and have left the fire service among others out on a limb through the secret nature of decision making within their closed ranks to keep not only the Labour Party away from having any knowledge of what's going on but also the Cramlington Conservatives, The LibDems and the Independent Group away from having any armour to expose further bullying episodes as the anti-bullying plan must be locked in a safe place somewhere.
Being only a few weeks away from Purdah, the Tories have the excuse that the election takes precedence and it will be up to Labour who are expected to form the next administration in the County as the alternative vote is split across most wards between Reform stripping out long serving conservatives from their roots.
Labour will also have to try to ensure that the culture of the Council in its openness, equity and equality is restored and the peripherals like the fire service, leisure and housing are brought and bought into a better working environment conducive to ensuring the wrongs of the Conservative past is erased and the roots of their Culture Centre being built in Blyth are smoothed out to ensure compliance with SOLACE, the Local Government Association and the North-east regional employers recommendations and wipe out the memories of eight years of Tory secrecy and back turning.
Let the public see some across the board corporate cuddling instead of the conflict that has damaged staff and trade union relationships since 2017 and take the services out from County Hall, delivering them face to face with the public as locally as is feasible.
Notes:
https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/chief-and-deputy-at-northumberland-fire-and-rescue-reportedly-suspended-5033366
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