Linda had over 30 years service in local government service. Ironically she began her career at SMBC and, after spells with other authorities, she returned to SMBC as Chief Librarian before being asked BY THEM to go on secondment to Sandwell Arts Trust, a charity, to head up the team running The Public. By the 25 year contract drawn up by SMBC, workers at The Public had the benefit of the local government redundancy scheme as operated by Sandwell Council. Later, Linda's secondment ended and she became the Managing Director on a, er, "permanent" basis.
The clever [sic] people at SMBC have form for agreeing long-term contracts and then trying to pull out of them eg Sandwell Homes, Transform Sandwell etc and most readers will be aware that the political leadership soon decided it didn't like its own agreement and that it would shaft Sandwell Arts Trust and The Public. The Turdmeister himself chaired the "cabinet" meeting of 16th October, 2013 when the "decision" was laughably "confirmed" and it was specifically noted that SMBC would meet its own contractual obligations for the 60 folk they were about to throw out of work (Para 1.7). Accordingly, Linda received her redundancy payment - not a penny more, not a penny less.
In early March, 2014 Turdy finally worked out my identity and besides savaging me, he decided that Linda was also "fair game" for attack. It has been suggested that because she is married to me, she is somehow jointly responsible for what I tweet. This is factually incorrect but that matters not to Turdy & Co. He specifically threatened to go and confront her at her new place of work (for reasons he has not explained - maybe as a "mental health nurse" he wished to offer her counselling......).
Even though Linda was not, at the time of redundancy, an employee of SMBC The Turdmeister threatened to make public details of her redundancy pay (ironic as he is fighting so hard to keep the details of the Sandwell College "Con"cordat secret). He changed tack and then suggested he would do a Freedom of Information Act request as to her redundancy pay. Curiously, just such a request was then made by a mysterious "Mr J. Shephard".
Linda made a formal complaint about this to SMBC - see "Part One" below for the full text. She was of the view that Cooper was trying to bully and intimidate her. There was an initial suggestion that the complaint would be dealt with by an independent person but it was then considered by SMBC's own Head of Legal, £124,251 per annum N. Sharma. The complaint was dismissed for the following reasons:
1. Turdy was tweeting in a purely personal capacity;
2. In any event nothing in the tweets constituted bullying or bringing his office into disrepute;
3. The tweets do not constitute the "meanings" Linda ascribed to them and she was "making assumptions" (whatever that means!);
4. People reading the tweets would not know they referred to Linda (nor to me although I had made no
complaint!);
5. Again referring to MY tweets (Linda had not attacked SMBC via twitter) - Ms Sharma opined "I am
bemused.....that it feels so personal or unfair to you that the Leader should make some minor "teasing"
remarks in comparison to the tweets coming the other way.";
6. The tweets were not serious enough to merit further investigation.
As above, the full text is set out below and you can form your own judgment.
This dismissal was sent to Linda by e-mail on 26th March, 2014. Cooper was clearly delighted since on 29th March he sent TWO further tweets to me falsely claiming that Linda's redundancy constituted "a six-figure sum" and gloating "Tweeting in a personal capacity. Lol" (full texts in Part 2 below).
(One might have thought, given the complaint, that proceeding with further attacks on this subject shows a gross lack of judgment from someone "in charge" of a huge budget but, again, you can decide).
In view of the ongoing attacks, Linda put in an appeal on 30th March, 2014 (full text in Part 2 below) and the matter was listed to go before three councillors of the Standards Sub-Committee on 14th April, 2014. I assume that the all-powerful Cooper was informed but whatever the position he was clearly confident that he would face no sanction as he continued his attacks, addressed to me and now implying that I had in some way financially "benefitted" from Linda's redundancy pay:
03/04 "....How's the cashflow after the big pay-off. Could do with some cash to help the college"
04/05 "....The Public Jules u did ok"
05/04 "....Talking of rich how much went into your house recently"
09/04 "...on the pop aagain Jules - spending all that taxpayers money"
The matter went to three councillors on the Standards Sub-Committee who upheld the original decision. They decided:
1. Turdy was tweeting in a personal capacity;
2. Even if he was not acting in a personal capacity there would not have been a potential breach of the Members's Code of conduct (!);
3. If they had felt there was a potential breach, the matter was not serious enough to merit an investigation; &
4. That because of MY tweets "it was tit for tat"!
Completely, er, vindicated Turdy returned to the theme on the very next day ( before Linda had been advised on the outcome of her appeal) and despite the fact that he has blocked me via twitter:
15/04 "...be public soon Humpty (ie me). Then we can talk taxpayers money can't we"
02/05 (re attending arts events & ignoring for example, price of tickets at The Hawthorns) "Indeed most can't afford to I'm afraid #nothadafatpayoff for #failure"
Cooper is about to preside over a cull of 36% of SMBC's workforce. I hope he is not going to use social media to attack them in respect of their redundancy payments!
The full complaints are set out below. I have not redacted the other names for sinister reasons but simply because I do not have time to ask permission from the authors. Linda has given me permission to disclose the complaint documents. Turdy has removed the offending tweets.
PART ONE
COMPLAINT FORM – Linda Saunders – continuation sheet
Please provide us with the details of your complaint. Please identify, if possible, which part of the Members Code of Conduct you consider has not been complied with.
My complaint is against Councillor Darren Cooper and specifically a series of tweets on 5th, 6th and 7th March 2014. These tweets were potentially seen by all of his followers and were re-tweeted/commented on by several individuals. I attach screenshots of the tweets below.
In terms of the Rules of Conduct, I am alleging that he has not complied with the following rules:
12 (2) b Do not bully
The tone and implication of the tweets is threatening and intimidating – he direct mailed my husband with our address, threatened to come to my new place of work (Birmingham xxxxxxxxxxx), implied that I could be in breach of a settlement agreement and threatened to disclose my redundancy and pension settlements. He is not entitled to information relating to my redundancy – I was not an employee of SMBC at the time. Details of my redundancy are a private matter and there is no requirement for them to be in the public domain. If he has it, then there has been a breach of the Data Protection rules and I specifically reserve the right to take further action if that is the case. If he does not have it, then he is simply making threats and harassing me.
12 (6) Do not conduct yourself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing your office or authority into disrepute
His intemperate reactions to the twitter conversations that day and bullying of myself using a twitter account @sandwellleader bring both the Office of Leader and Sandwell MBC into disrepute. These are not one-off instances as investigation of his twitter account would show but I specifically draw your attention to the following.
(I have not copied one further disreputable tweet wherein he also used sexist language to refer to me as my husband’s “wifey”).
Screen shots
March 5th
“Really! Would you like me under FOI, 2 release what your wife got.” Threatening a misuse of confidential information relating to my redundancy that he has no right to know or to release and attempting to damage my reputation.March 6th
“Did the wife get a good pay off.” As above.
March 6th
“Indeed Do you know what a compromise agreement is” Attempting to intimidate me by implying that I am in some way breaching the terms of my redundancy which I am not.
March 7th
“For public information @sandwellleader has just sent me a DM checking my private address.” This is not public information. Contacting re my home address is bullying and intimidating.
“I will have a ride down to the (named new place of work) later.” Threatening to come to my new place of work is intimidating and constitutes harassment. Should he attempt to harass me at my workplace I shall contact the police forthwith.
PART 2
Thank you for your response to my complaint about Councillor
Darren Cooper dated 26th March. I hereby formally request a review
of your decision for the reasons set out below.
You state, inter alia, that you “consider the Leader was
acting in his personal capacity, that his actions did not breach the Code of
Conduct and, even if they had done so, they are not so serious as to merit
investigation.”
1) “The Leader was acting in his personal capacity”. The
very use of the twitter name @sandwellleader suggests that this is not the case
and even a cursory inspection of his twitter feed shows that he habitually uses
that medium to promote himself as Leader, the Labour Group within Sandwell
Council, prospective Labour candidates for the Council and the activities of
the Council itself. Occasionally he cross references to his official blog. He
also promotes his personal SMBC projects eg “Having an ice rink is popular with
people in Sandwell” or “3D view of West Brom’s new leisure centre…#Labour
investing in services”.
I attach an article that appeared in the Birmingham Mail on
February 23rd 2014 that contains quotes from Cllr Cooper that
indicate that he considers his use of it to be very much about his role as
Leader of Sandwell Council, summarised as “Councillor Cooper says twitter gives him
direct contact with about 200 constituents in his local ward, Soho and
Victoria, and enables him to pursue political campaigns, such as his current
anti-UKIP agenda.” Despite your assertion, his own contradictory statements and
the external evidence show that his use of the @sandwellleader name is not
purely personal.
2) “The people reading the tweets would not know that they
refer to you or your husband.”
This is ridiculous and, just by way of example, see the
objections made to Cllr Cooper’s behaviour at the time by, for example,
@xxxxxxxxx (a local Labour Party member), @xxxxxxxx (a former SMBC
employee) and @xxxxxxxxxxxb. In addition he boasts of over 2000 followers, all of
whom had access to his comments. By way of example:
"Seriously @sandwellleader are these responses to @bcrover appropriate for an elected councillor....."
"Seriously @sandwellleader are these responses to @bcrover appropriate for an elected councillor....."
And also “@sandwellleader -
I think that @bcrover attacks you and your fellow Cabinet Members
actions. I don’t recall him attacking your family”.
3) “That his actions did not breach the Code of Conduct”.
As demonstrated above, his behaviour on twitter breaches
12(6) by bringing his office and the authority into disrepute.
In addition, his behaviour continues to breach 12 (2) “Do not
bully”. As a result of my complaint, he should now be aware that I do not
regard his tweets as “minor, teasing remarks” and I note that he has removed
his original comments. However, on Saturday 29th March (ie after
your email) he posted the following offensive tweets which are, in the light of
the above, bullying and harassing towards me.
"@bcrover Vanity projects and 6 figure sums seem to feature in your life don't they. Don't hear you carping about taxpayers cash on that Mr S"
"@bcrover No self interest on the 6 figure some [sic] then on that is there. Tweeting in a personal capacity. Lol"
"@bcrover Vanity projects and 6 figure sums seem to feature in your life don't they. Don't hear you carping about taxpayers cash on that Mr S"
"@bcrover No self interest on the 6 figure some [sic] then on that is there. Tweeting in a personal capacity. Lol"
4) “They are not so serious as to merit an investigation”.
As you will know all bullying should be taken seriously
because of its potential impact on the victim. I have met Cllr Cooper less than
half a dozen times and always in a professional capacity. I do not believe that
this limited contact would lead me to think that his comments were teasing. The
fact that he continues to tweet offensively AFTER I have made it clear that I
find it intimidating is unacceptable and makes it even more serious than it was
before.
5) The sexist description of me as my husband’s “wifey” also
drew the tweet below from @xxxxxxxxx (female)
"It seems 'wifey' is now an appropriate term for @sandwellleader to call a female spouse. A condescending way of referring to a man's wife"
"It seems 'wifey' is now an appropriate term for @sandwellleader to call a female spouse. A condescending way of referring to a man's wife"
6) You have also completely failed to address the serious
issue of the potential breach of Data Protection rules. When I was made
redundant, I was not working for Sandwell MBC. Sandwell MBC and BT officers
will have processed data relating to my redundancy payment on behalf of
Sandwell Arts Trust, my employer. This means that neither Council officers nor
Members have any right to have seen the details except for the purposes of data
processing. If Councillor Cooper has seen the details, then this is a serious
matter and requires investigation. The Information Commissioner has produced advice
for local authorities on disclosing personal information to members but the key
points here are:
·
This was not Sandwell MBC’s information to
disclose;
·
And the advice states - “The elected member
should only be given access to the personal information they need to carry out
their duties.” Clearly Councillor Cooper has no need for any personal
information about me to carry out his duties.
·
My husband’s actions are entirely his own affair and have no
relevance whatsoever to this complaint.
Please acknowledge receipt of this review request and advise
me on the time line for further action.
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG
e thesandwellskidder@gmail.com t @bcrover (Vernon Grant)
Confidential phone line 7am to 8pm - 07599 983737
e thesandwellskidder@gmail.com t @bcrover (Vernon Grant)
Confidential phone line 7am to 8pm - 07599 983737
Take the Bugger to the Cleaners! - Sue his arse off!
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