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Standards in (Welsh) Public Life?

Chris Clode

Text of address of FtC National Coordinator, Chris Clode, to 9th AGM, London (23-11-02)

There has been much attention on the FtC website to Flintshire this year (2002), because the problems there have been an ethical touchstone for the UK. It is now five years since the Nolan Report, "Standards in Public Life" and five years since the New Labour Government made its commitment to "open government". It is time to review progress with these commitments.

Have we already forgotten the Seven Principles of Public Life from Lord Nolan: Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership. In a 1998 article Tony Blair wrote, "Corruption must be banished from rotten boroughs". He said he would not accept "poor behaviour and corruption" in local government and that "today I will be setting out how we intend to crack down on council corruption. We will bring forward proposals, based on Lord Nolan's report, for a new framework of standards for local authorities … all serious allegations of malpractice will be investigated - promptly, thoroughly and independently. And the findings of any investigation will be implemented."

Flintshire’s miserable ethical performance has not been alone among Public Bodies. FtC has been working with whistleblowers in Coventry, Somerset, Ealing, Suffolk, Wrexham, Cardiff and Swansea, as well as DEFRA (the governments’ agriculture department). Flintshire, we believe, is a touchstone for the state of public conduct five years on.

The story of Flintshire predates the whistleblowing by Andy Sutton, their own Head of Internal Audit. From when it was created in the Local Government Reorganisation in 1996, there were concerns about abuse of children and elderly in Flintshire's care. Those raising concerns lost their jobs. Ten staff witnesses went to the Waterhouse Tribunal investigation into child abuse with criticisms of the council and all lost their jobs following harassment, sickness and constructive dismissal. Sutton arrived in Flintshire in 1997 and immediately identified concerns; three examples were:

The purchase of a farm using forged documents to get Welsh Office money to support a development scheme that collapsed, costing the County £600,000.

Re-employing a manager for an old people's home and forging documents to cover the wrongful granting of £22,000 to her;

Huge and dubious overtime payments paid to an administrator who was alleged to have been involved in withholding files from Waterhouse - and was now threatening to tell all. (further details on these and other Sutton evidence: www. freedomtocare.org ).

What were the reactions to Sutton's inquiries?

The result was the familiar pattern of whistleblower harassment: Sutton was isolated, went off sick, but had to battle over the denial of sick pay rights- already granted to some COs who went off sick following his investigations! Finally, he was constructively dismissed, went to an Employment Tribunal this January, won unanimously on all points and awaits the results of Flintshire's Appeal next January (2003).

FtC has demanded the suspension of the COs named in the Employment Tribunal Report, fearing more disappearance of files. Both Welsh Assembly and Central Government say they cannot intervene - as it would undermine local democracy! It is up to local authorities to manage themselves - when the Leader of this heavily Labour majority Council had the investigation into his own malpractices taken out of Sutton's hands and smoothed away by the then Head of Finance. There was then no Elected Member Audit Committee; there is now and one of its first actions was to propose harsher penalties for "malicious whistleblowers"!

From his experience, Sutton draws parallels with the global crisis in auditing (Cf. Enron and Andersen.) He says that being managed by COs that he may have to investigate, taints the independence of Internal Auditors. They should not be employed by a local authority and should always report to a properly constituted Audit Committee.

What then is the current Flintshire situation?

The old Head of Fraud Squad suddenly took early retirement when FtC called for an external Police Force investigation into his cases and published evidence on the Internet.

The Fraud Squad Head is investigating matters, but FtC is keeping a sceptical watch; the Prime Minister's Office recently replied to a letter sent about Flintshire by FtC. It read, "Mr Blair has taken careful note of the contents." Yes? And?

See the other pages on this site about unacountable local government in Wales and elsewhere

Nov/Dec 2002