John Hemming's Web Log

The following appear to be all the Administrative Court decisions relating to Local Government Standards Board cases. Murphy v the ESO [2004] EWHC 2377 (Admin) Macclesfield Councillor appeals against suspension of 1 year for involvement in a decision about the ombudsmans report about a planning decision where he had a prejudicial interest. Reduced to 4 months. This is an interesting one as it raises the complex question about the code and planning decisions. Adami v ESO [2005] EWHC 1577 (Admin) A North Dorset Case with a successful appeal against a 4 year disqualification where the decision was found to be insufficently well argued. Scrivens v ESO [2005] EWHC 529 (Admin) Farnham Town Council , Waverley, Surrey. Appeal dismissed because the question as to whether a Councillor has a personal interest in a matter is objective, not one of the opinion of the Councillor however reasonable that may be. Sanders v Kingston [2005] EWHC 1145 (Admin) Sacking of Tory Leader of Peterborough, who ...

Labour believes a powerful weapon in persuading working-class voters not to back the BNP is to label it as "Nazi" and now a landmark ruling by the Standards Board for England has allowed the description. It should not be a matter for the Standards Board to decide whether or not the BNP can be called Nazis. The reason this is the case is that the Standards Board actually regulate the words that Councillors use on leaflets.

I have difficulty understanding what the Standards Board for England is about. An individual in Moseley called Safdar Zaman owns a building on the Moseley Road. This building has been subject to a large number of planning disputes over time and is currently the subject of a retrospective planning application. Two Councillors (Mullaney and Hendricks) produced a video of the state of the building as part of campaigning to maintain the state of the building. At the end of the recording Mr Zaman assaulted the Councillors in an attempt to steal their camera. The standards machinery has sprung into action and after a long drawn out process called upon the councillors to apologise to Mr Zaman for disrespecting him or be suspended for a month each. This is a ludicrous thing for the Standards Board to Prosecute. There is a particular so called "Ethical Standards Officer" a mr Steven Kingston who seems to like having a go at ridiculous cases. He managed to almost bring to a halt Lo...

The Standards Board (or strictly the Adjudication Panel for England) showed the reason why they need to be abolished when they threw london's regional government into a mess for a month. The Standards Board fails to deal with the increasing corruption in public life, whilst undermining local government. The system has clearly brought itself into disrepute and should be scrapped.

The link is to the case where Ken Livingstone appealed the decision of the Adjudication Panel for England. The Standards Board and associated Adjudication Panel have done a lot of damage to democracy in the UK. The courts are, however, bringing them into more sanity. The point about Ken Livingstone's case is that it was high profile and he also could afford to appeal. The Standard Board has a problem in that those subject to its enquiries face substantial costs that they cannot claim back. This is an issue that needs further work. In essence the Judge found that what he said brought him into disrepute, but not the office of Mayor. We do need the machinery of the SBE and APE to concentrate on things that matter rather than people being rude to each other.

I will be interested to read the judgement whereby the suspension of Ken Livingstone for a comment he made when slightly tired and emotional by the Standards Board/Adjudication Panel is quashed. The APE and Standards Board have censored councillors for really silly reasons (such as baking a cake). I take the view that actually the courts should be used to enforce local government standards and all the silly cases should be thrown in the bin. It is up to the voters to decide who represents them. Only when there are serious abuses should the courts get involved.

The Graham Report has now been released. I welcome the publication of the 10th Report into Public Standards. This report recognises that the current procedures where councillors have been sacked for: - sitting in a meeting with a constituent without saying they are a councillor (Coleen Gill-East Riding-Lib Dem) - writing to an MP (Coleen Gill-East Riding-Lib Dem) - taking the wrong route out of a dinner (Blackpool-Labour) - agreeing to the erection of gates (Tameside-Labour) - representing a constituent as a solicitor (Tory) - saying F**k - amongst other things (Peterborough-Tory) - issuing a leaflet complaining about lack of action on anti social behaviour (Hull-Independent) - revealing an officer's salary (Yorkshire somewhere - SDP) - revealing an unlawful payment to a nuclear power company (Lancaster-Green) are wrong. It is important, however, that any changes fully recognise that the role of the councillor is to hold the system to account. If people ar...

resistance is futile, Birmingham City Council is the largest local authority in Western Europe. It has a gross budget of about £2,400,000,000 and employs (including teachers and school staff) over 55,000 people. When I became Deputy Leader of The Council in June 2004 I had already been a City Councillor since 1990. I had a reasonably wide experience of organisations including the company I founded in 1983 jhc plc (Aka John Hemming and Company) which now has around 100 staff (including partners) and turns over about £6 Million. The organisational dynamic is quite interesting. For those people who liked "Yes minister" being a fly on the wall during some of the internal meetings in the City Council would be quite entertaining. The Standards Board for England prevents me from telling all the truth about the city council. It is quite clear that the previous administration did not try to manage the authority. The leader Cllr Sir Albert Bore did manage to contr...

Child Protection Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children have been placed on the child protection registers by child protection committees as a result of an allegation of Munchhausen Syndrome by Proxy in each year since 2002; and how many of those children were taken into care. (John Hemming) A: The Department for Education and Skills does not collect this information, as 'Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy' is not a recommended category for registration on child protection registers, nor is it a ground for the making of care orders under section 31 of the Children Act 1989. (Maria Eagle, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Children and Families) Department for Education and Skills) Silent Telephone Calls Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in what circumstances those making silent telephone calls will not be subject to action from Ofcom following Ofcom's publication of a new policy on silent calls. (John Hemming) A: The...

I have been having a debate with various Family Court barristers as to what the rules are in respect of a barrister taking on a case for a parent when they previously have taken on a case for the local authority the parent is facing in the court. The rules on the Bar Standards Board website are difficult to link to clearly. The basic rules can be found from here . The relevant rule is: rC21 You must not accept instructions to act in a particular matter if: -3. there is a conflict of interest between the prospective client and one or more of your former or existing clients in respect of the particular matter unless all of the clients who have an interest in the particular matter give their informed consent to your acting in such circumstances; or If, therefore, we consider the case of a barrister considering whether they should accept instructions to act for a parent Mr Smith against the Huntingdonshire County Council. This particular barrister had earlier acted for Huntingdon...

This dispute in Liverpool is interesting because it it not unique. I have heard of a large number of instances when Council Officers (and particularly senior council officers) have used the Standards Board as a threat against Councillors. In at least three authorities the leader of the council has been removed from office for things which vary, but would not normally be judged as being corrupt. In practise the whole system which involved sacking a Labour councillor for going out of the wrong door, sacking a Lib Dem Councillor for writing to an MP and suspending an independent councillor for being rude about officers undermines democracy. Oddly enough MPs are allowed to be rude whilst councillors are not supposed to be rude however upset they are. With the Audit Commission applying tight constraints and targets on local authorities this government has massively undermined local democracy. In a number of local authorities you end up with a situation in which there is a tension between ...

Planning and Paintball I have just washed the pink paint out of my hair. For my now 12 year old's 12th Birthday we took him and 10 of his friends to paintball in Thornbury. Much that headshots did not count that did not prevent me being splattered on my head by 150 mph paintballs which went through the visor into my hair. Good fun for the kids much that it is ironic how much effort goes into warning people in a war game not to slip in the mud and hurt themselves. Being one to see these things I noted that they had set up in business and then applied for planning permission - with the argument that now people know what it is if they object. It seems that if they don't get permission then it won't cost them that much just to close down after 2 years trading. The planning laws can be quite complex and challenging in those situations. I am still having a bit of a discussion with the Council following the local elections as to whether or not I have planning permis...

Prague Mayor Breaks Code of Conduct In Prage the mayor did a "mystery customer" job on the taxi drivers and was feted internationally. According to the Coleen Gill conclusion of the Standards Board of England he would have been disqualified as a Mayor. See my other posts about this.

A surreal court hearing One thing that tends to happen with politics is that things go down totally irrelevant routes. The court case today was something like that. The nub of the case relates to exactly what happened in the Prince of Wales public house on a day in May. Facts that are accepted. There was a dispute involving TK and JP. JP ended up bleeding and concussed. TK was later attacked by person or persons unknown thought to be in retaliation. TK was arrested and bailed by the police. TK was banned from the Prince of Wales pub and is still banned. The police are no longer prosecuting. JP is taking out a civil action for damages, but proceedings have not been issued. TK has no legal advisors (nor does Martin, I was acting as his advisor). At one stage TK asked for a court order to prevent "BarryTheOtter" and 3 others from trolling*. We also had a discussion about mice. Whereas the previous case only had one journalist, this one had three - and it is only a...

ZWAS The "Zero Waste" Achievement Strategy One of the changes implemented by the concordat has been for Birmingham City Council to aim for Zero Waste. Zero Waste is a concept initially developed in New Zealand that aims to see used resources as a resource rather than waste. After a tussle with the bureaucracy* Birmingham's Municipal Waste Management Strategy is now the Zero Waste Achievement Strategy. Birmingham has historically been an authority that is difficult to change. The new administration has now, however, got its hands on the levers of power and is starting to manipulate them. Birmingham used to be quite good on dealing with rubbish. The department was called the "Salvage" department - which is the right attitude. However, after the Heath Government created the West Midlands County Council one of the County's first actions was to say "landfill is cheap - lets fill up the landfill sites". This undermined what was actually a ...

Labour's destruction of democracy One thing that has not had much public comment is the way in which the Labour government have been whittling away at democracy. There are number of areas in which they have done this: Corporatism One of Labour's Third Way Ideas is to bring in traditional Corporatism as part of their agenda of governmental reform. I think wikipedia's definition of this is actually quite good. To quote an element from wikipedia "certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process" The introduction of Local Strategic Partnerships is entirely this. Unless the LSP is clearly defined as having an advisory function it starts taking away the discretion primarily of the local authorities, but also starts interfering in parliamentary matters. I will post more about the problems with Birmingham's own citywide LSP which I happen to chair. Constraining politicians Local Councillors have been disqualified from being e...

Why does the NHS need updating? The NHS is a national treasure. But despite the best efforts of staff, the NHS could deliver better care for patients. Right now around one in four cancer patients are only diagnosed when they turn up as emergencies. So although the NHS is good, it could be better still. What is the purpose of the bill? To update the NHS to give every patient the best possible health care by trusting family doctors, nurses, and other health experts to work with local people to decide, design and deliver the right health services to meet local need and deliver world class healthcare. The Health and Social Care Bill is designed to give every patient the best chance of surviving an illness like cancer, and the best quality of life if they have a long-term condition like diabetes. It is basically about more control for patients, greater power for doctors and nurses and less central bureaucracy. The Coalition’s plans to update the NHS will give patients the best...

Yesterday's finance bill. John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): I have found it odd recently that some private health insurers will pay those whom they insure to use the NHS. If that is the habit of private health insurance, where does the hon. Gentleman think the saving to the taxpayer is in allowing this tax relief? Michael Connarty: I did not want to cite that example, although it is a good example of what happens when people use private health care and take resources away ---- John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): I have found it odd recently that some private health insurers will pay those whom they insure to use the NHS. If that is the habit of private health insurance, where does the hon. Gentleman think the saving to the taxpayer is in allowing this tax relief? Jonathan Edwards: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I am in a different party from those on the shadow Front Bench and we do not normally negotiate on the clauses we table. I can only assume that my staff a...

The link is to the debate on litigation friends yesterday. I will copy the whole of the debate here: John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): I thank Mr Speaker for allowing this debate. If somebody is in an accident and ends up in a coma, they need a litigation friend to instruct a solicitor to sue for damages. A litigation friend, or next friend, is very different from a Mackenzie friend. A litigation friend makes decisions for the person who does not have capacity. If somebody is not in a coma, there is a question of what threshold is required before appointing such a litigation friend or guardian. Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, recently stated: “Persons with intellectual and psycho-social disabilities are today routinely placed under a guardianship regime in several European countries—they are deprived of their ‘legal capacity’. In the eyes of the law they are seen as non-persons and their decisions have no legal relevance. This policy vi...

Social Capital I don't have a lot of time for governmental buzzwords as they often have little relevance on the ground. However, I make an exception for "social capital". Social Capital is well described in Robert Puttnam's book Bowling Alone it is a measure of the values in society beyond those which are purely financial. The statistic used to measure Social Capital is generally that proportion of people who trust strangers in different circumstances. It is important as a society in which people can trust each other is one in which people don't have to spend too much time protecting their backs. That means that people can work for a good quality of life for a higher proportion of their time/effort. It is the concept of Social Capital that exists behind civil renewal (one of ODPM's buzzwords). Like many things, however, ODPM then through organisations such as the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit often work against their defined objectives. The NRU has gone ...