South Cambs District Councillor Lentell’s April Report.
On 27 March South Cambs met to deal with the single item – South Cambridgeshire Investment Partnership Investment at Cambourne – in a separate extraordinary meeting rather than as part of the already lengthy annual budget session previously reported to you with wit and objectivity by your not especially humble correspondent.
Much of the meeting was held in closed session with the press and public excluded. What can just about still be seen in the public video record makes for eye-rolling viewing. The Council (i) failed to anticipate an entirely anticipatable conflict of interest; (ii) continued with the meeting; (iii) bent (and possibly broke) the rules in order to do so.
The Council’s finance officer declared that he is a director of a company that stands to benefit from resolutions placed before us. That’s a conflict of interest, even though he is only a director of the company as a result of his professional role at the Council. I am making zero allegations of actual wrongdoing. Along with others, I am simply pointing out that the rules which ensure that Caesar’s wife is above suspicion are being ignored.
“Being a director of a local authority controlled company requires officers and elected members appointed to those roles to operate in a completely different legal and philosophical framework to that they are used to inside their local authority … Too often, this is not understood until problems arise, resulting in reputational and financial damage and in some cases, external intervention directly impacting on your authority.” – ‘Local Authority Company Review Guidance’ 2023
The problem here arose because ONLY the relevant officer was in a position to explain the business on the agenda paper. The meeting could not go ahead if he had to leave the room. In a well-run and well-ordered Council, this conflict would have been anticipated and another officer would have been thoroughly briefed in order to allow regular proceedings to continue. That did not happen. This is EXACTLY the kind of situation warned of in the guidance which discourages councils from appointing senior officers to such roles.
I have been saying for some time that South Cambridgeshire’s handling of the CEO’s undeclared conflict of interest – in re. their own PhD on the topic of the Four Day Week – has been shoddy, shocking, and self-defeating. Here is another example – entirely unrelated and entirely avoidable – in which the actions taken by the Council do not follow the letter or the spirit of the rules.
If the game is not being played at the highest level with the highest levels of scrutiny and oversight – something the independent apolitical local government peer review of South Cambs says it’s not – then what confidence can other stakeholders have?
Cllr. Dan Lentell, Over & Willingham
South Cambridgeshire District Council
