Sandwell's Stasi

Some of you will be watching the Deutschland 83 TV series about the activities of the old East German secret police, The Stasi, but here is an odd tale a little closer to home with a hint of Franz Kafka too. Or, at least, half a tale since part of the story involves third parties and, alas, cannot be told at this moment in time.....

Sandwell Council have long-taken an interest in my doings even though I am not a resident of Sandwell, not a member of any political party and just a humble scribbler. First, there was a highly paid senior press-officer screaming at people to give him my mobile phone number and then there was the Labour "leader", Darren Cooper, and his associated troll "Odgen", putting covertly-obtained photos of me on Twitter.

It seemed obvious from certain conduct which I cannot go into here that Sandwell Council itself was investigating me and I put in a first Freedom of Information about this but, effectively, received a denial from SMBC.

But then either a third party or Sandwell Council itself  most definitely reviewed my social media and Jan Britton, the man who purports to be SMBC's "Chief Executive", authorised a letter to be sent by the Council to a third party using selected information (some of it wrong) from twitter and this blog and other information received.

 I duly put in another Freedom of Information request since I was curious to know why a public body - a local authority - should be using staff to investigate me and to obtain information about me for its own unspecified and, possibly illegal, use. I asked:

"It is now absolutely clear that I was under investigation by SMBC from, at the latest, early January, 2015 including the monitoring of my Twitter account and the harvesting by SMBC of information therefrom.

This new request covers the period from the date of your initial (false) response dated 5th February, 2015.

1. Please confirm whether I have been under investigation by officials of SMBC at any time since 5th February, 2015 to the present date whether pursuant to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) or otherwise;

2. Please confirm whether SMBC have received information - unsolicited or otherwise - concerning myself from Third Parties (including members) and what use was made of that information by SMBC?"

You will see that the request was for a period from 2nd February, 2015 to the date of the request which was 17th July, 2015 and this date range is relevant to what comes below.

No less than three members of SMBC staff have been in communication with me since including one of their solicitors and some correspondence has, strangely, been sent under the Sadwell Stasi's own "top security" rating. The initial correspondence cannot be gone into here save to say that I was assured that SMBC that I had not been investigated under the RIPA legislation. But you will see that my query was wider than just a RIPA investigation and that I had added the words "or otherwise". As the Stasi were obviously refusing to properly answer my request I appealed to the Office of the Information Commissioner (ICO). Clearly Sandwell Council cannot have obtained the information by "magic" and it had come from somewhere or someone. Leaving aside some technical issues, "Sadwell" Council have confirmed "we believe" information WAS lifted from my social media accounts (which are open to public view) but they did not say by whom ie was this done by a third party or by taxpayer-funded staff duly authorised to do this by senior management, nor why (although that last is pretty obvious given the use Jan Britton seemingly authorised his staff to put it to). They have also failed to say whether a third party has been "interpreting" the raw "data" first before supplying it to SMBC or if the taxpayer is paying staff to do this. Again, this will become relevant below.

Is this what it is like?

Please bear with me whilst I go off on a tangent for a minute. Readers will know that I reported five Labour Councillors to Sandwell Police for making false declarations in the Council's Register of Members' Interests ie Hussain, Rouf, Frear, Meehan and Cashmore. It came to my attention that the Council itself had mysteriously referred the cases of Meehan and Cashmore to its own Standards Committee. They took no such action against Rouf and Frear for reasons that are unclear. As we shall see, Meehan and Cashmore claimed to the Standards Committee that their false declarations had merely been "mistakes" and they were duly "let off" by their comrades, Cllrs Lewis, S. Crumpton, Ahmed, Dhallu, A. Hughes (Tory), Underhill and Sandars (see below). But this is odd in itself since Mahboob Hussain had already publicly told The Halesowen News that his false declaration (which led to a company he and his wife own half of netting over £100,000 in a taxi deal) was also just a "mistake" but the comrades kindly decided this mea culpa was enough and that it would be unseemly to also drag the poor old thing before the Standards Committee as well!

As of yesterday, and despite the intervention of the ICO, Sandwell were still refusing to say how they had come by the information from my twitter and social media and what specific information had been extracted therefrom (which they subsequently used for their own purposes). Whilst this further investigation was ongoing the facts about  the Standards Committee whitewash came fully to my attention and, as the date was within the date range set out above in my original FOI request, I also referred this to the ICO. Alas, thanks to Sandwell, all this is ongoing and I will keep you informed of developments but let's have a look at what stunt Sandwell Labour tried to pull via the Standards Committee.

The Standards Committee "gave consideration to two allegations made via social media in relation to two members of the Council". Also,"The Police are aware of both allegations. A formal complaint had not been made to the Council and both matters had not been considered under the Council's arrangements for dealing with Standards matters".

It went on:

"Audit Services had investigated both issues and made the following recommendations....the non-declarations raised to be submitted to the Standards Committee...."

And so the comrades - aware that two of their number were in possible trouble with the police  - harvested unspecified information from my social media, allegedly investigated it and Jan Britton's staff itself decided to refer the matter to the Labour comrades for alleged "consideration".

Hang on a minute you might say, how do you know that the information was from your social media? Well I don't specifically which is why I submitted the FOI referred to above (and am also submitting a new one set out below) but there is a massive clue in the minutes themselves ie:

"Cllr Sandars sought advice in relation to whether he should declare a personal interest in Minute 9/15 on the basis that the complainant had previously made comments about him via social media".

(The Monitoring Officer - Neeraj Sharma - said it was OK for him to participate in the discussion but it is not clear from the minutes whether he did so or not).

Are we there yet? Long distance "lover", Sandars, specifically refers to a "complainant" and this is clearly me and yet the formal minutes specifically stated "a formal complaint had not been made". Get the feeling there is a stitch-up going on here, readers?

It goes without saying that neither the Monitoring Officer (Sharma), Audit Services nor anyone else at SMBC ever contacted me to ask whether I wished to be "the complainant", whether I wanted to give evidence to Audit Services and/or to the Standards Committee nor, indeed, that any of this was even going on! That's the new Sandwell Labour policy [sic] of openness and transparency for you!

It is also noteworthy that the Standards Committee has two allegedly "independent persons" (non-Councillors) co-opted to it so that this sort of grotesque charade cannot take place but, happily, it just so happens that, at this particular meeting, BOTH of them failed to attend. Thus only Councillors dealt with two of their own (all Labour apart from one Tory).

The Committee duly got the whitewash bucket out. Even though there is nothing in the actual minutes stating that the two members had admitted guilt and/or that the audit investigation had established guilt and/or that the Committee had established guilt, they were "let off". All that is recorded is that, er, "both members had...apologised..."?????

It was decided by the Councillors that:

"The Committee felt that it was not in the public interest to formally refer the matter to the Police for further action or have further internal investigation. The Committee agreed to take no further action against them [ie Meehan and Cashmore]."

But they didn't stop there! In a blatant attempt to interfere in my complaint to the Police they added:

"The Committee's decision in relation to the allegations would be reported to the Police for their information."

Leaving aside, for the minute, that Sandwell Police are up the a*se of the Labour Council, note the use of the word "decision". Although nothing has been publicly disclosed concerning the alleged "investigation", and the independent members were NOT at the Committee meeting, the clear implication being made to the Police is that there has been a full and open investigation and there was nothing untoward! Below the subscription I have set out a new FOI request to see what this "investigation" actually consisted of and the Kremlin junkies among you can take a look but, as it happens, all this was in vain anyway as Sandwell Police had in any event, er, totally failed to investigate any of the allegations against all five councillors AT ALL! My complaint about this has now been upheld by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and I am waiting to hear what further action will now be taken (don't hold your breath!)

Just to finish on the subject of Sandwell Police, regulars will know from this blog that a very senior officer there tweeted:

"Great day off today with colleague [at] Sandwell Council golf, spa, lunch and...relax...".

Unaware that West Midlands Police had "colleagues" at Labour Sandwell Council, I asked who the "colleague" was but the officer has declined to say. However, this very senior officer did provide me with this reassurance, "I have friendships with a number of employees at SMBC". Unfortunately, that is precisely what is scaring the sh*t out of the rest of us!!!!

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

email  thesandwellskidder@gmail.com            facebook  Julian Saunders

Confidential phone no: 07599 983737              twitter @bcrover (Vernon Grant)


Freedom of Information Request submitted 16th January, 2016

Freedom of Information Request - Standards Committee

The request (partly) follows on from my FOI/SAR of 17th July, 2015 which has yet to be fully answered by you and which, of course, is also now the subject of intervention by the ICO.

I refer specifically to the minutes of the Standards Committee of 17th March, 2015 including the preamble and minute 9/15.

1  Of “The Committee gave consideration to allegations made via social media in relation to two Members of the Council.” State each and every specific allegation and its social media source as “considered” by the Audit Service, any other SMBC employees and the Committee;

2  Of “Audit Services had investigated both issues”, state how Audit Service came to be aware of the allegations and which specific allegations they became aware of and which they actually investigated. State who within SMBC authorised the investigation and which members of staff undertook the actual investigation. Please disclose all written records, minutes, memoranda, notes of telephone calls made or received, correspondence and other records in whatever form relating to the investigation.

3   There is no reference to it in the minutes but I am assuming that a report from Audit Services was submitted either to the Monitoring Officer and/or to the Committee. Certainly “recommendations” were by your own admission. Please disclose the report and recommendations iin unredacted form.

4   Of “The Committee’s decision in relation to the allegations would be reported to the Police for their information”. Please disclose the report and any covering correspondence to the Police.

Julian Saunders