Last week’s full council meeting, despite not having anything other than usual items on the agenda, ran on for over two and a half hours.
One subject that dominated the meeting was the defeat in the High Court of the case brought against the council by two severely disabled residents.
Rather than just report the events of the meeting as we usually do, this piece contains editorial opinion on how councillors conducted themselves. The behaviour of some councillors continues to amaze us each time we attend meetings at County Hall.
Public questions
The enquiries started during public question time, when university student (and Ventnor Town Councillor) Simon Haytack asked how much the failed legal action would cost the council.
The reply came from the Cabinet member responsible for Adult Social Care, Cllr Roger Mazillius, who agreed that it was a pertinent question and would be fully answered once all costs were known.
Mr Haytack followed up with a supplementary question, “If the council wants to show that it has really learnt from this, is it not time they actually started to listen to Cllr Lumley and wait to see if …..”
The questions trails off because we weren’t able to hear the rest of it due to Cllr Jones-Evans, who we were sat behind, suddenly bursting into laughter.
Appropriate response?
Sadly, this kind of response is one we come to expect when opposition councillors are speaking, but when a young member of the public – one who is concerned about his community and willing to give up his time as a councillor – asks a legitimate question, surely the response should be more respectful than an outburst of laughter?
It was Cllr Mazillius’ turn to answer again, but he didn’t really answer the question (not unusual in our experience), instead replying, “Cllr Lumley is a valued member of the authority, he is a sole Labour councillor and the reasons for this are due to the unpopularity of Labour.”
Will there be an inquiry?
The question of High Court costs was raised a little later in a written question from Cllr Jonathan Bacon, someone who knows a thing or two about the High Court, given he’s a barrister.
He asked who was responsible for the failure of provision of information identified by the High Court judgment? What actions have been or will be taken against those persons in light of the failures identified.
Finishing with, “Would it not be appropriate for there to be an inquiry to see who did what, why and stop it happening again?”
Cllr Pugh started by saying that the responsibility lay at a number of levels.
“The democratic and political accountability sits immediately with myself and the Cabinet,” he said, going on to add that the members in the chamber were also responsible.
Members disputed claims of responsibility
This claim was disputed by Independent councillors who reminded Cllr Pugh that they’d expressly rejected that part of the proposal (as shown in their alternative budget submitted in February).
Background and responses to this discussion are covered in previous articles submitted by Group of Independent councillors to VB.
Cllr Pugh summarised by saying that responsibility lay with members, the leader and the Cabinet in particular.
No action taken yet
He went on to add that no action had been taken yet, that a report would be delivered to the Scrutiny committee.
Going on to say that they’d made the right decision to fight the legal action, it was not waste of money, but unfortunate that there were costs involved.
Further questioning
The question of costs was raised again, this time by Independent councillor, Paul Fuller.
Cllr Pugh stated that indicative costs had been given to Cllr Mazillius.
Despite further questioning from Cllrs Churchman and Lumley these indicative figures were not revealed to members during the meeting, although it was suggested by Cllr Bacon that a figure of £100,000 (as suggested by Cllr Churchman) was a very conservative estimate of what the council would be liable for.
More inappropriate behaviour?
As we mentioned earlier, Cllr Bacon, we understand, is a well-respected barrister.
Despite this, when Cllr Mazillius was questioned by him on actual savings of the changes to Adult Social care (the council had claimed they would save £1.1million, but it was revealed in the papers from the Judge that the actual saving was just £54,000) Cllr Mazillius felt it necessary to say, “I am sure he is a lawyer, because he said so.”
In our view, this really is the kind of behaviour that we thought would be confined to a school playground and comes across as nothing more than an attempt at bitter, petty, point-scoring.
Image: Kevin Dooley under CC BY 2.0
