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Council leader reprimanded for blog
9:29am Friday 12th September 2008
Comments (3)The leader of Hounslow Council has had his knuckles rapped for linking his council blog to a political site.
Councillor Peter Thompson has been officially reprimanded by the national Standards’ Committee for the content of his blog on May 19, which it considered a breach of the members’ code of conduct as the website was used in a way that could be interpreted as political.
Coun Thompson’s link in his blog was to an essay by Chris Grayling, Shadow Minister for Works and Pensions, entitled ‘Why shameless parents must not become the norm’.
Colin Ellar, himself a former leader of the council, complained to the committee that the website was being used for party political purposes because of the link to the Conservative Party.
The committee warned Coun Thompson in writing to avoid party political material being included in council publications in the future and told Mr Ellar that “it was not considered sufficiently serious to warrant formal investigation by the monitoring officer”.
Mr Ellar did not, however, find the committee response satisfactory so he wrote requesting a further review by the Standards (Review) Sub-Committee.
He said he welcomed the judgement that Coun Thompson appeared to breach the code but was “surprised” that the monitoring officer has not been invited to carry out a formal investigation.
He said: “In addition, it seems that no direction has been given so far to Coun Thompson to remove the direct link between his blog on the Hounslow Council website and the Conservative Party website. After having being posted for three months, the link is still active as I write this letter.”
Mr Ellar called for disciplinary action such as a fine, warning or suspension when a “senior member disregards the members’ code of conduct over an extended period of time as is the case here”.
He urged Mr Thompson to apologise to the people of Hounslow for his “misuse” of the council’s resources.
Mr Ellar added: “In my opinion, it is a stupid thing to misuse council resources in this way.
“This is a blatant disregard of the rules which shows arrogance and he should be punished.
“It is a stubborn abuse of power and I will stubbornly attack it.”
A spokeswoman for Coun Thompson said: “The assessment sub-committee of the Standards’ Committee decided that it was not sufficiently serious to warrant formal investigation by the monitoring officer.
“Colin Ellar has exercised his right to appeal that decision. He and Coun Thompson await the outcome of that decision.
“The amount of resources that have been used to investigate this issue is a waste of public funds.”
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gertrude grendal, Barnes says...
5:36pm Sat 20 Sep 08
Radioactive Rissole, Hounslow says...
2:20pm Thu 25 Sep 08
Honestly Colin, if you've got nothing better to do, why not go over Lampton Park and count the dandelions.
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Fred1, Surbiton says...
11:36am Fri 12 Sep 08
So a councillor actually makes an effort to keep his ratepayers and his electorate informed, by keeping a blog? Brilliant! I think we should be encouraging that sort of thing. So they occasionally say something that's, ooh, a little bit political? Big deal!
I can't see how trying to silence councillors, and how trying to ensure that they only say the correct "approved" things, will encourage ordinary people to participate in local government.
Fair enough, it's okay for the Standards Committee to go "tut tut", like they have effectively already done, but to take any further action in this instance would just be an exercise in bureaucracy gone mad.