Castle Point Council - An Administration without opposition!

 

I commented a while back on how Castle Point Borough Council, an authority without any opposition presence, would be able to function in an open, democratic and accountable manner and thought that I would test the water by viewing the latest council meeting held on 9^th October 2024.

I was particularly interested to see how the Administration would deal with a claim for restitution against certain specific former staff who apparently made unlawful decisions relating to their own financial position resulting in potentially unlawful payments.

This issue has been dragging on from some time and was previously considered by the council in March of this year when it was decided to obtain further legal and professional advice.

At the meeting it was explained that the allegedly unlawful payments totalled over £1,100,000 and the question was whether to effectively write the money off or to pursue recovery through the courts or otherwise.

Clearly the legal advice received was confidential and this resulted, quite reasonably, in the meeting moving into private to discuss the detail of the advice before moving back into public to discuss the recommendations and to decide on the way forward.

On the resumption of the open meeting the Leader proposed pursuing recovery of £218,155 with a decision to write off the remainder. His comments then sought to criticise the previous administration (albeit that I am not aware that any elected member was in any way liable for the relevant decisions) but did not seek to in any way explain or justify a decision to write off nearly £900,000 of public funds excluding accrued interest. The Deputy Leader seconded the motion and 3 other councillors spoke briefly in support but concentrating on the deplorable loss of public funds rather than seeking to justify why the balance was being written off. The proposal was passed unanimously.

Now having undertaken civil litigation for over 40 years I know all about its cost implications and risks and we do not know what the specialist lawyers had advised, however as far as the public meeting was concerned there was no challenge to the decision or attempt to justify that the council was being driven by its duty to protect the public purse. All we know is that nearly £900,000 has been written off. The decision was in my view a very good example of why a lack of vibrant opposition is not in the interests of accountable democracy..