Posted on Sunday, 9th October 2016 | 2 Comments On Monday 10th October Melbourn Parish Council will discuss the Grievance Document as part of the agenda of the full council meeting held at Melbourn Village College at 7.15pm Why is the release of this document important? Bullying, intimidation and threats were the key words in this shameful episode and what is disturbing is that the person behind all these troubles held a ‘public position’ – as a member of Melbourn Parish Council. He was there supposedly representing ‘us’ the residents of Melbourn. Yes, it is important that we know who this person is and why he carried out such a cowardly act on two women who were working ‘for’ the council. But as important, we need to know how this person who held a significant position on the council, was able to treat people with such contempt and was not stopped by his fellow councillors. There were fourteen other members on the council who, it appears were unable to put a halt to this disturbing situation. Either they didn’t see it or they just closed their eyes and ignored it! Why? Whatever their reasons, the release of this important public document may shed light on the how the council was being run and hopefully prevent an occurrence of such disgraceful behavior in the future. 2425
Two other thoughts. One the agenda are working parties. Working parties meet in private not public. They report in private, and the only thing that is public is the recommendation and the councils agreement or not. No discussion on the working parties work is undertaken in public. And without a fixed remit and time scales at set up ,they are a good place to loose stuff / park stuff till its less of a concern. Not saying there are not places for a working party, but. Second: decision on grievance report publication. Thats a very wooley heading, Don’t get your hopes up. If the decions is no, then thats the end of it, noting more the public can do. Even if the decision is yes to publish, then for legal and contractual conditions, it will likely be very heavily redacted due to personal information thats likely to be in it. and it will have to be vetted I’d say by legal before publishing. Oh and the last vote was not to accept the report, so that has to be turned around first, then vote to accept it, ( which is not on the agenda ) then some sort of proposal on publishing .. I can see this also going off to a working party. Decision made. !! Fully open and transparent according to the rules, the way the PC used to run, and I’ve been fighting against for years… Will be interesting to see… Then Reply
Interesting article Peter, Your an X councillor, as am I. You know the procedures and rules the council work under. They are laid down and are very strict. what power do you know of that the council has to level against any one person in this situation. I certainly remember the council , and the south cambs. district councillors for melbourn being involved in looking in detail at this very question.. Reply