Brent Council to out-source leaks service

I understand that the Cabinet will be discussing a proposal to out-source the Council's Leak Service at its next meeting.

Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt consulted widely with his cabinet colleagues who all felt that the service was far too efficient.

Cllr Butt said:

Going forward we must learn from the inefficiency gains we have made when out-sourcing other services such as street cleaning and parks maintenance.  The problem with the current in-house service is that it is far too effective and producing more leaks that Affinity.  We owe it to the residents of Brent, especially those who don't know what is going on, to protect them and  make things as opaque as possible.

A public consultation event will be held on February 29th in the Dalliance Suite at the Civic Centre.

Leeks the most interesting item at Brent Council meeting

A satirical local activist presented Brent Council's Cabinet members with a leak each just before the formal start of last night's Full Council meeting at Brent Civic Centre.

The presentation followed mounting concern in Brent Labour Party over leaks from the Labour Group and meetings of the party to Wembley Matters.

The councillors instantly realised what was meant by the gesture and took it in good part, appearing to laugh it off:

Most of the meeting went according to the script published in my previous blog LINK with planted questions from backbench Labour councillors and pre-prepared answers from Cabinet members. There was what appeared to be a genuine question from Cllr Neil Nerva asking about the extent and quality of consultation over the Constitutional Amendments that had been tabled.  He was concerned about the impact on whistleblowers. One of the amendments, as Cllr John Warren pointed out for the Brondesbury Park Tories, bars council workers from talking to councillors about employment issues.

The report of the chair of Scrutiny Committee was noteworthy for its almost complete lack of content.

The Council approved without discussion a report on Council Tax Support. Although this put put forward only minor changes it proposed a full review before the 2016-17 financial year.

This follows a report on the same day that revealed that Brent Council had only spent 20% of its local welfare assistance fund which is meant to be crisis support for vulnerable families.

Whistles, leaks and the public interest

In its 'Council at War' front page story on September 6th the Brent and Kilburn Times, LINK apart from  reporting the proceedings of the Brent Labour Group regarding the relationship between Muhammed Butt, the current Brent Council leader, and Gareth Daniel, then the Chief Executive, also published extracts from a series of e-mails.

The content of the e-mails vividly illustrated how the relationship was at breaking point. Daniel accused Butt of writing in a 'vitriolic and accusatory tone' and Butt described Daniel's e-mail as 'aggressive' and doubted whether they could continue to work together.

The Council's whistle blowing policy  is mainly aimed at uncovering fraud and offers protection to the whistleblower.. The most prominent local case has been Hank Roberts' reporting of alleged fraud over bonuses at Copland High School in a case which is ongoing. He has received official recognition for his whistleblowing.

In the case of community  schools the whistleblower can go to the chair of governors or the local authority. As far as academies go it is not quite so clear, particularly if the alleged fraud involves the chair of governors. In that case it goes straight to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State, who has an increasing number of such schools under his direct management.

What happens in the case of the council when the whistle blower is confronted with evidence of a major bust-up between the two most senior people on the council?  It is not fraud or even unlawful but surely it is in the public interest that residents should know about a matter that directly impacts on the efficient running of their public services. Surely council employees have a right to know that their employers are at war with each other?

So someone leaked the e-mails to the press; perhaps a council employee with access to the e-mail accounts of both men, or a councillor with similar access. Either way I imagine they would have to have been quite senior.  It seems unlikely that Butt or Daniel themselves may have done the leaking - but these are the strangest of times. The central question for me is: does this leak constitute a form of whistle blowing? Some might argue it was all just tittle tattle.

If the leaker was an employee, their union representatives may well be able to mount quite a strong case that the leak was in the public interest and so he or she should be protected. 

Policies are derived from the Public Interest Disclosures Act 1998 and this section seems relevant:

Disclosure of exceptionally serious failure.(1)A qualifying disclosure is made in accordance with this section if—
(a)the worker makes the disclosure in good faith,
(b)he reasonably believes that the information disclosed, and any allegation contained in it, are substantially true,
(c)he does not make the disclosure for purposes of personal gain,
(d)the relevant failure is of an exceptionally serious nature, and
(e)in all the circumstances of the case, it is reasonable for him to make the disclosure.
(2)In determining for the purposes of subsection (1)(e) whether it is reasonable for the worker to make the disclosure, regard shall be had, in particular, to the identity of the person to whom the disclosure is made.

The last section looks a little dodgy and comes back to the question of whether there was anyone else, other than the press, to whom a disclosure could have been made. There is also the question of whether the employee is in breach of a duty of confidentiality that forms part of their contract.

From the trade union representative point of view this could be a fascinating case. When I was a Natsopa print union representative at Reuters back in the 1960s I found myself handling some bizarre cases. One involved defending a worker who was found lighting paper in the basement of the Reuters building, apparently to set fire to it, Another was a studious young man fresh from college who took a week's unauthorised leave without contacting the management. On his return they decided to sack him.  It turned out that he had used the time to come up with some ideas for automating the workplace  and reducing the workforce. I found myself negotiating to stop the sacking of a union member who wanted to do us out of our jobs!

On reflection this case may be more straightforward and I wish Unison or any other union involved the best of luck.

(By the way I 'won' both cases with appropriate help for the workers involved)