26 January (Part 3) - Petition against excessive salaries
You
may remember that Bexley council said they had told Elwyn Bryant, the petition
organiser, “on a number of occasions that the Council’s Constitution and rules
would not allow your petition to be debated”. On the left you may read what they
said more than once and why it allegedly invalidates the petition.
Bexley council says it cannot debate “the circumstances of individual officers at a
public meeting” which is not a very sensible response given that the petition doesn’t
call for anyone’s salary to be discussed, but Bexley’s excuse for sticking its fingers
in its ears is more obviously ridiculous than that. The Standing Order 84 they quote in
their defence only says that if the subject arises at a public meeting the public may be
excluded. It doesn’t say that anything that could just possibly stray into that
area must be strangled at birth and not discussed at all.
The Scrutiny Committee is due to meet to debate the rejection of the petition next
Tuesday at 19:30. If it endorses the council’s decision the use of Standing Order
84 will be one of the things presented to the Local Government Ombudsman. Statutory
bodies such as Bexley council are not allowed to operate outside their own rules or
the law, Bexley council frequently fails to recognise that fact but the LGO may have
a view on that.