Cllr Gary Taylor has written to the council’s Monitoring Officer, Davina Fiore, raising a complaint against Cllr Chris Welsford (The full letter is embedded below).
His objection is centred on the Cllr Welsford raising a question about the death of a child on the Island towards the end of last year, at this month’s Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel, which Cllr Taylor stood in to chair.
Concerns should be raised at a briefing
Of particular concern to him is distress that this could have brought to the parents of the child.
He claimed that rather than airing it at the meeting, Cllr Welsford should have requested a briefing or clarification from the relevant council director in private.
Taylor: Not in the public interest
Cllr Taylor says that Cllr Welsford’s actions could not “have been in the public interest to raise the specific circumstances of an individual child’s death during a public discussion into the IW Council’s inadequate safeguarding arrangements”.
These actions have “brought the office into disrepute”, claims Cllr Taylor and he requests that Cllr Welsford no longer be a ‘corporate parent’ and “steps should be taken to ensure that Councillor Welsford does not have continued access to confidential and sensitive information during this time”.
The letter closes by requesting that the council’s Monitoring Officer, Davina Fiore, “… investigate this matter, and take appropriate action if necessary, in order that the standards of our public life on the Island are kept at a level we would all expect …”
The letter
Below is the letter by Cllr Gray Taylor, reproduced in full to clarity. To see it full screen, click the icon in the bottom left corner of the document.
For the record
The October date was originally published in our article, and removed within minutes of the council request. It’s of note that the CP did the same with their online report, we learn from this letter also at the request of the council. The CP went on to print both incorrect and correct dates in their newspaper on Friday, despite them having removed it from their Website on the Wednesday.
We ask readers to respect the privacy of the family of the child who died last year and not comment about the child or the death on this article.
