Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tim Godsmark on May 28, 2019 at 10:07

Dear All,

In response to this letter Jane Smith, Chair of the Barbican Association, and myself, on behalf of GLERA have sent the letter below. I have asked that it be posted on Estate notice boards next to the letter from the Chair of the Standards Committee.

Tim Godsmark

Dear Ann

We were surprised to get your letter to residents who signed the petition of no confidence in the Standards regime of the City. 

We appreciate that you have just become chair of the Standards Committee – and presumably want to set a new tone – but a wiser response might have been to acknowledge that there is unhappiness about this issue and open up a dialogue with the petitioners.

As it is, your letter suggests that the City is failing to acknowledge that there might be reasons why people feel disenfranchised. You think we have misunderstood. 

But we haven’t. People understand the Localism Act quite well and the need for councillors to declare their pecuniary interests – and have absolutely no desire to see any councillor acting corruptly in making money out of City decisions. 

But we do want our elected representatives to be able to represent our interests by engaging fully in City decisions that affect their constituents – ie by speaking and voting. We understand the provisions of the Localism Act and that councillors must seek a dispensation to speak and vote if they have a disclosable pecuniary interest (“dpi") in a matter. And one of the laid down reasons for the dispensation is that “granting the dispensation is in the interests of persons living in the authority’s area.” The standards committee has seemed to ignore that provision in favour of a wider interpretation of what you call "selflessness", yet the effect is to disenfranchise the City's residents.

 

It is notable that another reason the legislation gives for granting a dispensation is that so many members of the council share that interest that if the dispensation was not granted nobody would be able to make a decision (”business would be impeded”). The Act has a spirit of pragmatism that the City is choosing not to adopt.

Instead part of the problem is that the City has put a very broad interpretation on whether a dpi is engaged “in a matter.” The decision rests with individual members whether they think they have a dpi in a matter, but the atmosphere has been chilled by Standards Committee actions that imply that dpis are engaged when in fact they have not been proved to be so. 

Indeed, your own letter suggests a very broad interpretation. You say the legislation is to ensure that members behave selflessly. That is a very broad test –much broader than the legislation. Arguably, if councillors were to behave selflessly, there would be no members on the planning committee who worked in any business to do with property development – because in general promoting development will promote the businesses of those who develop property, construct buildings, and provide legal and financial services to those who develop property, etc.

I believe that  the approach taken to members having those sorts of interests (so long as the planning application does not relate to that individual’s own property company or supporting services) is that they do not have to seek dispensations to speak or vote on such matters. Yet the activity is not entirely selfless.

So what applies to business should apply also to residents. You say that the working party has given a great deal of attention to the position where members live in the ward they represent. 

But that “great deal of attention” is precisely why we have lost confidence in the system. The situation the working party has paid a great deal of attention to is in fact a very common situation – most ward councillors throughout the UK live in the ward they represent (it is the City that is odd in having a majority of councillors who do not live in the ward they represent), and it does not cause problems. Dispensations are routinely and widely granted (in some cases en bloc at the beginning of a councillors' terms of office). Of course, if a member’s specific property is particularly affected, they have a “dpi in a matter” – but if it the matter is one that affects a generality of their constituents and not them particularly, and their interest is declared – then they can and should be able to represent their members by speaking and voting on the matter.

You refer also to section 618 of the Housing Act 1985, which does specifically exclude our members from voting on housing matters. As we understand it, this was introduced to soften a more draconian prohibtion that existed at the time under the legislation that preceded the Localism Act 2011. The Localism Act 2011 should have made this section redundant, but repealing it seems to been overlooked. Thus a more receptive response from your committee would be to undertake to seek to repeal that section. It is redundant legislation and uniquely affects City residents – and does constitute disenfranchisement compared with the rest of the country. An undertaking from your committee that it would explore how to get section 618 repealed would go some way toward restoring the confidence your committee has lost among residential voters.

In the meantime, the actions and words of your committee still sound to us like “resident bashing.” Your committee has a long way to go to restore confidence. We are willing to explore further ways in which that confidence could be restored. 

Best wishes

Jane Smith

Chair, Barbican Association

Tim Godsmark

Chair, Golden Lane Estate Residents Association

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by GLE Website Comms Team on May 29, 2019 at 10:38

This the text of the reply Cllr Graeme Harrower made to the Standards Chair:

"There was no “confusion" on the part of those who signed the petition. The implication of your letter - that the signatories didn’t understand what they were doing - is factually incorrect, and may be regarded as offensive. The issues raised in the petition were widely reported, including in two City A.M. articles (attached). These articles were provided to collectors to show residents who may not have already been aware of the issues, and who may have wanted more information before signing. Both articles contained statements by the Corporation about its position. Any residents who were persuaded by the Corporation’s statements (although I’m not aware of any) would obviously not have signed. 

Your letter fails to address squarely, or at all, the issues raised in the petition (attached). Specifically, your letter does not address the following: 

- the law does not provide for dispensations to vote to be granted “only in exceptional circumstances”;

 - the Standards Committee has a “broad discretion” to grant dispensations (according to the City Solicitor); and

- other local authorities do not adopt such a restrictive policy as the City (e.g. by their granting dispensations for up to four years).

The petition acknowledges that it would not be appropriate for resident councillors to participate in decisions on matters that uniquely or especially affect them, but those situations are likely to arise relatively rarely. The Corporations’ current policy goes well beyond this.

The restriction contained in section 618 of the Housing Act 1985 on resident councillors voting on certain housing matters needs to be observed for as long as it is on the statute book. It seems, though, that it shouldn’t be there. This provision, which applies uniquely to the Corporation, appears to be a relic of a statutory regime long since abolished, but its own repeal has been overlooked. The obvious solution is for the Corporation to seek its repeal.

It is true that “the working party gave a great deal of attention" to the dispensation policy, but it was attention of the wrong kind. The Court compelled the Standards Committee to abandon its proposal to prevent resident councillors from speaking on matters affecting their constituents. The rest of the working party’s restrictive proposals, however, were left largely untouched. I don’t believe residents will think it reasonable to wait a year to see how a policy which was devised by this working party and which is manifestly over restrictive will be implemented. I also don’t believe that residents will be satisfied with the Standards Committee waiting until October before considering an officers’ report, when the City Solicitor is on record as stating that “as a Member led authority, [the dispensations policy is] a political issue to be determined by members within the legal framework”.  

Your letter ignores entirely the issue raised in the petition in response to the case last year, in which a popular resident councillor lived under the threat of criminal prosecution for nine months for having successfully opposed one of the Corporation’s own projects that adversely affected her constituents, although the matter could not have resulted in any financial benefit to her. One does not need to be a lawyer to recognise that this was not a proper use of the criminal law. The police eventually declined even to investigate the matter. The threat of prosecution was compounded by blatantly unfair internal proceedings conducted by the Standards Committee. This case crossed a line in the minds of many residents, who look to their councillors to represent them without facing intimidation and prejudice. The strength of feeling expressed by residents on the doorstep, and again in the evening session of the annual residents’ meeting at the Guildhall a couple of weeks ago, was palpable. 

Your letter will not have the effect of the Corporation regaining control of these issues. Rather, it will have the effect of losing it further. Electors have expressed no confidence in certain policies and practices of their elected body. For the elected body to respond by expressing no confidence in its electors could be politically disastrous. A public debate about the democratic legitimacy of the business voting system may be just around the corner."  

For reference full text of letter from the Chair of the Standards Committee, dated 24 May 2019

Dear Resident

 A petition, requesting changes to our Standards regime, was received at the meeting of the Court of Common Council, held 25 April. This was referred to the Corporation’s Standards Committee which, at its meeting on 3 May, asked officers to bring a report to its next meeting, in October. Meanwhile, we felt it might be helpful if I were to write to signatories and clarify some of the issues around which confusion seems to have arisen.

The Corporation seeks to ensure the highest ethical standards of behaviour from its members. It has its own code of conduct, its local authority functions are subject to the Localism Act 2011 and its housing to section 618 of the Housing Act 1985, which prohibits voting on Corporation housing matters, where a member rents or leases a property from the Corporation. At the heart of code and legislation alike is a commitment to members behaving selflessly, which means acting in ways which are demonstrably not self serving. 

Members are required to register any disclosable pecuniary interest (DPI), including the ownership of leases or freeholds of property within the City. The Localism Act makes clear that a member may neither speak nor vote on any matter in which they have a DPI, unless they have obtained a dispensation to do so. The Corporation has chosen to apply the same rule to non local authority business, such as governing our independent schools.

It is only possible to grant a dispensation where the statutory grounds for doing so are met, but these are quite broad and the Standards Committee is able to exercise some discretion in deciding whether or not a dispensation should be granted. In order to ensure clear and consistent policy and practice in this regard, a working party was set up in July last year. Following extensive consultation, new policy and guidance on granting of dispensations was drawn up. This was received at the meeting of the Court of Common Council, held 7 March this year.

A matter which has proved problematic arises where members, like me, live in the ward they represent. It is almost inevitable that there will be times when a matter affecting the pecuniary interests of some of my constituents will also affect mine. As a result, there will be a conflict between my behaving selflessly and my speaking and/or voting on behalf of those I represent. In arguing their case, I will also be arguing my own. The working party gave a great deal of attention to this issue, and the Court made clear it favoured members being able to speak wherever possible. I believe our new policy means members with a DPI will usually be given dispensations to speak. The policy is, however, less than three months old; its implementation will be monitored very carefully over the coming year.

I hope this note will give you some measure of reassurance that, far from seeking to limit the representative role of members, the Corporation has sought to maximise this role, within the confines of the law and our own code of conduct.

With all good wishes

Ann Holmes

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tim Godsmark on June 5, 2019 at 10:58

Following Ann Holmes response to GLERA and the Barbican Association letter we have the following reply. Residents are encouraged to make their views known to the Standards Committee individually by sending emails to the Standards Chair (ann.holmes@cityoflondon.gov.uk) copied to the Town Clerk (john.barradell@cityoflondon.gov.uk). The more residents who do this, the more likely it is that we will achieve much needed reform and gain the same level of representation that residents in all other local authorities enjoy.

Our reply is:

Last Friday, on the eve of the bank holiday weekend, the Corporation distributed the Standards Chair’s letter (seen by members on 21 May) to the residents of the Barbican and Golden Lane by posting it online and on noticeboards.

The residents have already replied, rejecting the attempt in the letter to dismiss the petition on the ground that the 1,100 + residents who signed it were in a state of “confusion”. Here is the joint response made by the Chairs of the Barbican Association and Golden Lane Estate Residents’ Association: Response to chair of standards committee . It’s worth reading.

This joint response has been posted on those associations’ websites, and is being further distributed through residents’ online forums.

May we please ask those members who assisted with collecting signatures for the petition in wards other than Aldersgate and Cripplegate to distribute the petition, the Standards Chair’s letter and the joint response to residents in their wards by whatever means they consider appropriate. 

The essence of the joint response has already been distributed to all City residents through a short article that appeared in yesterday’s edition of City Matters: https://st1.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2736438077?profile=... . More detailed press coverage is likely to follow.

The Standards Chair yesterday sent a short reply to the joint response, in which she maintained her position that the Standards Committee would wait until its next meeting (on 4 October) to consider an officers’ report. She did not address the points made in the joint response. Rather, she claimed that:

-  the “new policy and guidance has been in operation for less than three months and is, therefore, untested” (incorrect: it was tested at the time it was introduced, and produced the absurd result that a councillor couldn’t vote on a matter concerning a tree owned by a local authority);

-  “deciding our new policy and guidance had been preceded by extensive consultation” (not with the residents - the Barbican Association’s attempt to engage with the Standards Committee last year was terminated by the Committee just before its special meeting on 15 November 2018, at which residents were not allowed to speak, and consultation in the “workshops” with councillors was restricted to points of process); and

-  by the next meeting “we will be in a position to include the results from monitoring the first six months of the new policy and guidance” (but why wait six months to find out that the policy is manifestly over restrictive? What about the issue raised in the petition concerning standards proceedings? etc).  

• ▶ Reply