Council secretly shrinking Northumberland’s economy

 

It doesn’t matter how many times Council Leader Glen Sanderson appears dressed to death on Hexham TV to tell Northumberland County Council residents everything in the gardens rosy his secret cabinet have already backed his panic decisions to shrink the councils services.

Information is leeching out from his workforce and the Trade Unions that instead of backing projects to drive up trade and grow the economy across this geographically diverse English border county, raking in additional income to drive better service delivery, Glen and his other secret cabinet cohorts are about to launch another massive round of redundancies and buy out resignations that will seriously damage the Councils ability to deal with the essential functions unitary county councils are designed to deliver and were created for.

In recent weeks we the public have been force fed through the regional press short tongued excuses for this latest planned rundown of the counties economy. Another planned debacle list such as Councillor Oliver, blaming SEND kids costs, the amount the Council spends on support for older people and other Conservatives wheeled out to explain the cost of repairs to public buildings which stock surveys had pointed towards a decade ago, yet Glens team have quietly ignored them for the last eight years while the fabric of those buildings have been exposed to some of the most severe weather events in recorded meteorological history.

While sitting in his hand made suits on web TV not pressurised by political reporters to dull his thinking and draw him back to reality Glen has attempted (and in the codgers view failed) to grasp the importance of the Council to its residents and remind him that as a top politician for Castle Morpeth Borough Council prior to the inception of the Unitary Authority he followed a similar path and the residents under his wing suffered badly.

From that perch he was able to blame the old county council but now Glen sits on a unitary pedestal and is supposed to deliver all the services the old districts and boroughs excluding Castle Morpeth managed excellently along with the four main functions of the old county council.

His failures since his party’s former leader, Peter Jackson was ousted from power has been a series of underwhelming failures coupled with an innate ability to quickly misunderstand and forget the very expensive work undertaken at great cost by the myriad of consultants he has engaged to improve things whilst borrowing millions to deliver sparkly and glittery new items not wanted by the public he’s meant to serve.

Glen, you need to grasp the nettle and realise that people need their Council to improve lives year on year, not improve a few lives and leave everyone else ‘wishing they weren’t here’. Particular the homeless, elderly, jobless, poverty stricken not in work or education young people and needy that you have turned the other cheek against for years.

Why has court action not been taken against this resident to recover the council tax by NCC

 

A recent reply to an FOI asking if Councillor Barry Elliott, Reform UK has paid anything towards his outstanding council tax, states that his Council Tax debt exposed on social media in May 25 has still not been cleared or reduced.
Councillor Elliott has received and will continue to receive a very good allowance from NCC yet hasn’t cleared or reduced this debt to his new employer.
This local authority has just released new Council Tax debt information stating in the regional press that it is the highest it has ever been.

Councillor Elliott needs to set a good example and encourage others not to follow his current standing as non payment on a large scale can only lead to lower service provision to those who follow the rules of society and ‘ render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s’. 

My officers earn far too much to speak to democratically elected Councillors.

 

A core promise to get re-elected Councillor Glen Sanderson the autocratic leader of Northumberland County Council regularly promised to cut staff numbers and lessen the amount who earn £100,000 plus. He either failed to deliver his promise or Boris Johnsoned the Council Tax payers of the County as a huge increase in those numbers has taken place since his declaration was made.

So to clamp down on opposition members of the council seeking clarifications of the autocratic leaders' decision making from officers of the Council, new rules have been brought in. Councillors in Northumberland have branded those new rules around contacting council officers "crackers". 

Under the new policy, elected members are being forced to use the online members' enquiry system powered by an AI bot rather than getting in touch with officers directly to talk through on the ground problems. It is believed that in private, opposition members have told Leader Glenn Sanderson to ‘BOT OFF’ but as usual he has taken no notice of them at all.

That's not the only secret he’s been hiding (as you know the Cabinet at County Hall hide most of their decisions from the public), but two prime unanswered secrets are ‘what did the Tory fiasco over BRITVOLT cost you as a Council Tax payer’ and the denial by Gordon Castle a top Tory from Alnwick that the Tory Party stopped the dualling of the A1 through Northumberland in 2021 complete with a decision to suppress the information and hide it from public view.

Most readers of local politics in Northumberland will remember that when Ian Lavery MP asked Boris Johnson MP about the funding to kickstart the 8,000 promised jobs for Blyth, Johnson said “The cheques in the post”.

Google AI tells us all : The statement "The cheques in the post for BRITVOLT" refers to the failed attempt to secure funding for the Britishvolt gigafactory project in Northumberland. Britishvolt had planned to build a large-scale battery plant for electric cars but ultimately went into administration. The project faced numerous funding challenges, including delays and non-payments from investors. The factory site was eventually sold to a data center developer. Local press reporters exclusively told us that in 2022.

But the no cash for the A1 secrets were suppressed by Northumberland Tories who sneakily asked the public why Labour hadn’t coughed up the cash prior to the May elections according to information released from Parliament and published in our regional press.

Those sneaky Tories knew the project had been spiked by their Government and that no plan to fund had been put in place yet they still bought properties through compulsory purchase powers without a chosen Government route in place and work stopped on the project, with the floundering Councillor Gordon Castle pushing out a denial on social media as his Tory group ploughed on and paid out £68m of council tax payers money after the DfT reported that government analysis of the scheme in 2021 found the costs of the project would outweigh its benefits. An investigation is now needed to find out why cash was spent after that date.

The utter hypocrisy of surprise from Northumberland Conservatives was shown to be active again this week when they issued a sharp intake of breath fairy tale supposedly finding out that a new roof for concordia leisure centre was going to cost them half a million pound?

The same secret cabinet team in 2020 took a decision to plough ahead with a previous £3.5m scheme ground to a halt by the Peter Jackson led Cabinet made up only of Tories in 2017 to modernise and revamp the Council’s setup at Concordia based on a 2015 stock condition survey that illustrated the state of the roof at that time. 10 years on from that survey and surprise surprise as Cilla would say the secret has ‘leaked out’ as the rain soaks the interior of Concordia.

Isn’t it time the secret cabinet at County Hall was abandoned and a democratically split mixed cabinet installed so that all areas have access to the ‘state of the council’ thats deteriorating every day under the current mess and chaos at the half modernised County Hall in Morpeth another cost secret kept under autonomous leader Glenn Sanderson's teddy bear pillow.

 

Notes:

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/number-highly-paid-officer-positions-26779072

chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-councillors-warned-no-right-31988252#:~:text=Councillors%20in%20Northumberland%20have%20branded,in%20touch%20with%20officers%20directly.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9xp98pkr0o

 

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/leaked-report-shows-a1-dualling-in-northumberland-cancelled-in-2021-with-decision-kept-from-public-5224298

 

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/News/2020/Feb/Council-to-relocate-Cramlington-services.aspx

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gk4jp7k0go

Microsoft Word - TR010020_APP_1.1 - Introduction to the Application

Northumberland CC ignore 2010 Equality Act by fleeing their responsibilities

 

White Feather Council fails to act.

Local Social Media has once again uncovered that Pontius Pilate has an office in County Hall in Morpeth complete with a handbasin and by the look of things the officers responsible for sorting serious complaints can no longer be contacted except by a ‘bot’ according to a long serving Councillor from Rothbury.

Its a specifically designed ‘bot’ that may or may not relay messages to guys and gals grafting hard to support their bosses so that the stacks of officers paid more than £100,000 per year can sit back in their armchairs situated in London’s leafy suburbs and never be inconvenienced to turn up at work as it might be too much bother. The Council has a new all encompassing powerful Leader to sort things in Morpeth.

A complaint under the 2010 Equality Act has been submitted to the Council explaining the homophobic actions of a Councillor.

The Council’s response is in paraphrase “when is a councillor a councillor?”

Its the sort of unbelievable spin from sailors whose boats carry too much ballast and have become impossible to rock. Or have they put their telescope up to Nelson's blind eye.

The Council has shown that a huge yellow streak exists and public protection, something every taxpayer should expect has been tipped out with the baby and its bathwater. Children’s Services should begin a search immediately.

Our regulars should read on and see what a jolly mess their council has fallen into:

From Chris Curran Complainant.

The reply I received after reporting the councillor to the monitoring officer

We write in response to the standards complaint you have submitted relating to Councillor Natalie Rolls.

The first stage the Council has to undertake is to determine whether we have powers granted by statute to process the complaint. The issue in this respect is whether Councillor Rolls was acting in her capacity as a Councillor when she posted the messages in question online. If we determine that we do have power under the legislation (ie jurisdiction), we would then determine whether the evidence provided within the complaint reaches the required threshold for formal investigation.

We have now concluded our initial assessment and have determined that no further action should be taken because the Council does not have jurisdiction to consider the complaint.

The reasons for this decision are as follows:

Acting in the Capacity of a Councillor

The governing legislation, setting out the powers of local authorities to process complaints into Member behaviour are set out in the Localism Act 2011. Particularly s.27(2) of that Act states:

…a relevant authority must, in particular, adopt a code dealing with the conduct that is expected of Members and co-opted Members of the authority when they are acting in that capacity.

We have highlighted the pertinent wording in the above extract. This sets out the legislative provision that for a local authority to be able to process a complaint then the Councillor must have been acting in their capacity as a Councillor. The code of conduct will apply when a Councillor is carrying out their official duties, for example when they are considering or discussing council business, either as a Councillor or representing the council on an outside body. For something to fall within the code there must be a clear link to a local authority function or the role as a Councillor. For example, an argument with a neighbour which does not relate to local authority business would not engage the code, even if the neighbour happens to know that the person is a Councillor and therefore complains to the local authority about being treated disrespectfully.

It is also possible for someone to be given the impression that a person is engaged in local authority business. For example, if someone attempt to misuse their position as a Councillor to seek to gain an advantage for themselves someone close to them. A number of factors will need to be taken into account to determine whether or not you had used or attempted to use your position as a Councillor. Examples of this could be:

writing to someone on local authority headed paper or using a local authority email address may lead someone to assume you were writing in your capacity as a Councillor

handing out a business card where you describe yourself as a Councillor may also lead to that assumptionwearing official local authority regalia

There has been an amount of judicial consideration of this issue, and it is clear from decisions that the actions complained of must relate in some way to Council business, and that this is to be construed narrowly.

With regards to messages on social media, if a Councillor describes themselves as such in a social media post or in their username or profile, it does not mean that every posting made would be covered by the Code. There must be a link within the individual posting or thread to the role as a Councillor or to local authority business. The converse is also true, just because a person may not describe themselves as a Councillor does not mean that a post cannot fall within the scope of the Code if local authority business is being discussed.

We are assisted here by guidance issued by the Local Government Association (LGA). The LGA produced a model code of conduct for elected Members which the Council’s code of conduct follows. Guidance was also issued to assist with interpretation of the mode code of conduct. The LGA guidance states the following:

Simply describing yourself as a Councillor in a social media posting or at the top of your page or in your username or profile, for example, does not of itself mean that every posting you make is covered by the Code. There must be a link within the individual posting or thread to your role as a Councillor or to local authority business. However, even if you do not describe yourself as a Councillor you may fall within the scope of the code if you are discussing local authority business.

For example, a posting which is simply discussing a recent football match is not covered by the code even if you have described yourself as a Councillor. However, if you make a posting threatening a fellow Councillor or officer that would fall within the code even if you have not described yourself as a Councillor as it relates to local authority business or your role as a Councillor.

In the circumstances, Councillor Rolls has described herself as a Councillor in her username for the account. However, the guidance stated above confirms that this is not enough. It does not mean that everything posted on this account relates to Council business. The subject of the posts is the RNLI and a flag that they are displaying. This is not on Council owned land, it is on private property and does not relate to council business or any business Councillor Rolls is undertaking on behalf of the Council. Accordingly on the evidence submitted, we must conclude that the Council does not have powers under the relevant legislation to process this matter through our arrangements and will take no further action in respect of it.

 

Please note that there is no right of appeal against this decision. If you consider that your complaint has not been properly considered properly, you may be able to complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or make an application to judicially review the decision.

Is it time bring Max Caller back in?

 

Northumberland, has had millions of pounds spent in seeking advice on how to work more publically, accept that opposition members of council should be heard without fear of oppression or ridicule and begin to listen to and deliver some of what its residents want and need.

Possibly the most expensive single spend was on the Tory Government’s red hot fixer, Max Caller who did a deep dive into Northumberland Conservatives and decided the Council was utterly multi dysfunctional.

Big promises from the Sandermouth leadership team have led the Council down the ‘road to nowhere’ as residents lose services at an alarming rate as the Conservatives ‘Never Ending Story’ of charging more each year while delivering less and less outside of Tory voting areas is never spoken about or questions answered about their NES even when pressured extremely hard.

At the last full council the often read parable from the Councils farming fraternity of treating opposition Councillors like dogs was once again revived at a televised meeting and the Council’s chairman sat on his backside and didn’t stop this disgraceful outburst. Watch the video and make your own mind up (link below).

The prime opposition ‘the dogs’ had been defeated at the same meeting in their totalitarian wish to become even more elitist than the Tories by wanting to break all community ties and rule godlike without regional mayors, police and crime commissioners, parish councils or town teams having any part in on the ground decision making. In fact their motion actually agreed with the Tories secret cabinet decision to have an all powerful leader in Northumberland to take the strain of delivering nothing people want.

The proof that closer ties across communities are essential sits within another costly report commissioned and not implemented using public cash by the Tories, that of the so laughably called the ‘Best Report’. It points towards those good things the Council should be doing but what isn’t included are the long promised powers that should be given to area committees.

The Tories haven’t even nodded agreement to that element of local government legislation and following Reforms motion on totalitarianism they are simply ignoring it. 

Instead the Sandermouth regime have slashed all spend on local area committees and in their usual secret way have decided to stop them even though they they have never empowered them at all over the last eight years,  they are instead going to have soft centred Community Committees and let the third parties Reform hate set the agenda for the County Council.

What a palaver, but the Never Ending Story rolls on and on.

https://youtube.com/live/xi5sxPcTWWI?si=mLxLw8O1lU8cV0-A