Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Councillor suspended; minor Lottery-sized win for ex-Haringey employee. Why?
I SEE the Haringey Independent carried stories here and here last week concerning the suspension of a local councillor over the leaking of secret council documents. The councillor admits leaking the documents but says he was motivated only by public interest.
There are worrying aspects to this case.
In particular, why was the council prepared to pay out an enormous sum of money in order to prevent a disgruntled employee’s claims being aired in an open forum?
The reasons must have been embarrassing indeed for a sum rumoured to be greater than £300,000 of council taxes to have been handed over. It seems that the council is free-spending with other people’s money where their own embarrassment is involved. Is there any practical limit to the cash the council is prepared to spend in In order to keep scrutiny and attention away from their dirty laundry?
The council, in the form of the deputy leader, seems remarkably sensitive about this case. Was there any involvement by other councillors in this case? What was the nature of their involvement?
This case appears to have all the hallmarks of cover-up of corruption and the punishment for the whistleblower sends the wrong signal to would-be whistle-blowers.
Don’t expect in-depth investigation about this in Haringey People, but I think we should be told.
There are worrying aspects to this case.
In particular, why was the council prepared to pay out an enormous sum of money in order to prevent a disgruntled employee’s claims being aired in an open forum?
The reasons must have been embarrassing indeed for a sum rumoured to be greater than £300,000 of council taxes to have been handed over. It seems that the council is free-spending with other people’s money where their own embarrassment is involved. Is there any practical limit to the cash the council is prepared to spend in In order to keep scrutiny and attention away from their dirty laundry?
The council, in the form of the deputy leader, seems remarkably sensitive about this case. Was there any involvement by other councillors in this case? What was the nature of their involvement?
This case appears to have all the hallmarks of cover-up of corruption and the punishment for the whistleblower sends the wrong signal to would-be whistle-blowers.
Don’t expect in-depth investigation about this in Haringey People, but I think we should be told.
Tags for Forum Posts: corrupt, cover-up, employee, employment, pay-off, secrecy, sleaze
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Alan, that, along with the story about the monkeys in the cage and the hose is one of my all time favourites.
There's a link to the monkey one here.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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More caged monkeys from the Swedish Scientist, Anders Sandberg.
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Permalink Reply by Julie on
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John Oakes had other avenues of complaining, if he thought there had been wrongdoing, rather than sending the document to a tabloid newspaper. He was obliged to do this, since he signed the Code of Conduct.
One technical point here: a compromise agreement binds both sides into maintaining confidentiality. I don't know who this employee was, but he or she can probably now sue Haringey Council as a result of John Oakes's grand gesture in the name of press freedom and public interest. Shouldn't John Oakes have considered this before leaking an exempt report? It's likely to result in another payout.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Hinchcliffe on
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Does anyone know if John Oakes sought payment when he "leaked" the story to the Standard and Mail on Sunday?
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Well I would guess no. If you email something to someone there is no "proper" way for them to pay you for it. As Mr MPs expenses has shown us, you burn this stuff onto a disc or copy it onto a usb stick which you can hand over for payment. Email is neither safe nor reliable.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Seems clear enough:-
" He told a standards committee hearing on Wednesday that he received no payment for the information "
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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The Public Interest Test.
This question is central to the whole case but has received little comment. It deserves attention.
In this wholly unusual case, a councillor has been suspended for leaking information. By way of mitigation, he did not say that his actions were caused by drink, drugs, a deprived childhood, were out of character or it was a crime of passion.
He said he was motivated by public interest.
In other words, he wanted the general public to know more about what lay behind the massive hush-money pay-off with public funds. The public could then form their own view as to whether or not it was justified. Cllr Stanton (unconnected with this case) has previously quoted approvingly that “sunlight is the best disinfectant” and I agree.
The “public interest” defence was dismissed out of hand. But the “public interest test” casts the council as prosecutor, judge, jury and warder. Did the council know all the facts? Perhaps they did, but how can we be sure that the so-called “public interest” test, is not in fact a “political interest” test, or even a "politicians' interest" test? This would not the first time the council has acted to conceal matters that were the truth to be known, would cause embarrassment to the council (and in this case, far more to the council than to the employee).
Would the council ever decide that a leak was in the public interest? The Public Interest/Political Interest test can be a sham.
You can’t trump public opinion. In the long run in a democracy, only the public can judge what is truly in their interests. They exercise that judgement by buying and reading a free press and in elections – and paying for a court system.
Having a tiny number of people judge what is in the public’s interest is an oxymoron.
I can understand there are legitimate reasons why council might want to keep employee disputes secret. But not in this case with LBH, which stinks. I cannot believe the council will succeed in containing the stench.
That the public interest test was said not to obtain here, says to me that there is something fundamentally wrong.
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It seems little weight was attached to the only reported motivation: public interest. It’s remarkable that this frequent justification for whistle-blowers was dismissed out-of-hand. How independent is the Standards Committee? We get into shady ground if the interests of the council bureaucracy parallel the political interests of the elected council. This has long been a grey area for this council.
The council used injunctions to silence two newspapers to which the secret documents were sent which may explain why there's been little reporting beyond the Haringey Independent report. Residents may have to rely on the grapevine for information, in the same way that half-way through last year, I heard rumours that the council had a child protection case worse than Victoria Climbié, but staff were threatened with the sack if they breathed a word.
The minor-Lottery-win appears to be in addition to possibly a year’s worth of “gardening leave”. I am struggling to imagine what could lead to an award enough to buy outright a freehold flat.
The £300,000+ (equivalent to an extra £15,000 to £20,000 for Harringay Ward and for each Ward in the Borough): who authorised such a lump sum? Are pay-offs subject to tax? Under what heading in the council’s accounts would come and how will it be audited?
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"It seems little weight was attached to the only reported motivation: public interest."
It seems to whom, Clive? To you? To Cllr Oakes? You and I agree that the Public Interest issue is a vital one. But sweeping assertions lacking evidence don't serve that public interest.
The published report is 287 pages long. It includes transcripts of recorded investigative interviews with Cllr John Oakes. I gather that members of the Standards Committee then sat for over eight hours to consider the case; and that Cllr Oakes was legally represented. The hearing was largely in public.
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If he was serious about 'public interest' John Oakes, (or Cllr Aitken who appears to have legitimately had a copy of the report that went to General Purposes Committee,) would have reported it to the Audit Commission. They scrutinise these deals very closely. If there's anything wrong with the exit package, it'll be picked up, I would have thought, if it hasn't been already.
'Public interest' seems like a very lofty way to refer to passing confidential personal stuff about one of your employees to a mate who works for a freesheet. And he didn't print it anyway! The public wasn't interested after all and just left the councillor looking like a sneak.
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The Whistleblower’s dilemma: speak out or keep quiet?
Recently we have seen a Haringey Councillor punished for attempting to leak top secret council documents to the press. The only motive for the attempted leak, we were told, was the public interest (yes Alan, it certainly seems to me that little weight was attached to this claimed motivation).
If all the facts relating to the massive hush-money pay-off come to be known, might it expose a moral vacuum close to the heart of this local authority?
What kind of calculations go through the minds of would-be whistle-blowers?
Tomorrow morning, another whistle-blower in a different field is put under scrutiny. An associate of mine, Paul Moore, is interviewed on Radio 4’s programme The Choice (9:00 AM).
Paul Moore's revelations led to the resignation of Sir James Crosbie, then Deputy Director of the Financial Services Authority, a key economic adviser to the Prime Minister and ... Paul’s ex-boss.
Paul had tried to warn his employer about the risks that HBOS was taking ... and he was dismissed by Crosby for his pains. The lessons apply to the entire banking mess in which we now live and work and help to illustrate how the government was indirectly part of that culture.
HBOS Whistleblower Statement
A tale for our times
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Permalink Reply by PeterPiper on
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Mr Justice Cranston recently overturned injunctions at a judicial review of a PFI contract preventing a council from giving documents to an elector with the following statement...
"The obligation to pay local taxation through the rates was matched by the right given to rate-payers to an involvement in the process of ensuring the money was well spent"
To my mind this seems applicable in this case.
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