Enforcement of the provisions of the Localism Act 2011

Question

In late November 2022, 3 parish councillors were reported to both the Unitary Authority and the Police for non declaration of interests. Over six months a series of emails between the police and the unitary authority quite clearly show that the police were not interested in pursuing the matter. This information was received via a FOI. In the meantime the parish council published a minute in December 2022, stating that the police had dismissed the complaint. This had to be removed as the complaint was still being investigated. One of the councillors is an ex police officer. Other non declarations have not been raised as incidents as I am awaiting the result. These events are also with the IOPC at the moment in a complaint. The interesting thing is that a sister authority had the same problem with the same police force. What is going on? These councillors have also threatened myself and again the police are not interested. I have a meeting with my MP in the new year who is part of the Justice ministry and so I hope will be able to help. Any advice?

Answer 1

I had a similar experience.
Reported non submission of DoI direct to police since it was entirely anticipated as being a waste of time presenting to MO.
The police did take forward the investigation BUT referred it to the MO (local authority is a prosecuting authority (like the post office and we all know how that ended up))

MO wouldn’t proceed with prosecution - despite the subject Cllr making financial gain from a planning application in the parish for land he hadn’t declared and holding a contract with the PC - neither of which were declared.
When the omissions were highlighted - and the fact that they were ‘strict liability’ offences, the MO response was simply that “…since it has now been remedied, it wasn’t in the public interest to take formal action…”

And that outcome fully justified the original belief that any contact via MO is a complete waste of time.

Comments

I think we need to galvanise ourselves together on this. I am taking out parish council to a tribunal in the Summer of 2025 for irregularities in their accounts. They have refused an inspection under AGAR and lied to the Information Commissioner and the external auditors. This will be laid in front of a first tier tribunal. The council hold £40,000 in their balance sheet which is not theirs. All the legal and accounting work to arrange this was done by relatives of the chairman, who also had a controlling interest in the loan to a limited company of the £40K. A petition to highlight this to parishioners was ignored with police being called to stop it being presented. It really is like Russia.

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Hi

I wonder if you could say a bit more about "This will be laid in front of a first tier tribunal".  Which aspect of the transgressions you have described does this relate to.

I ask because, to be honest, I was not aware that a tribunal covered any aspect of parish council governance, and I would be interested to know.

Answer 2

I know of a serious breach which was papered over and I think there has only been one prosecution, as usually happens politicians are happy to churn out out laws but never bother to check if they are being enforced
As I walk round  my Parish I saw laws ignored on a daily basis for example obeying planning law seems to voluntary these days