If you think things cannot become anymore bizarre in Jan Britton's Sandwell Circus prepare yourself to be amazed.....
Some background for the benefit of newer readers:
1. The corrupt Labour regime in "Sadwell" have been assiduous in appointing people of low talent/cronies/Labour supporters/those prepared to look away etc so as to ensure a "no questions asked" policy from staff. Talent has been got rid of in mass redundancies.
2. Hussain and Cooper deliberately hired low calibre people for the top jobs at Sandwell so as to accrue greater power to themselves (see many past posts). The recent "top team" of Britton, Dudley, and Sharma (plus Bubalo and the likes of Scarrott) have presided over one disaster after another (BT/Providence Place. Children's Services, allegations of bullying) plus widespread corruption in respect of council house allocations, land sales etc etc ad nauseum..... These people have been very highly-paid to exercise this level of incompetence and to either turn the Nelsonian blind eye or to do as they are told - as with The Public. Perhaps they are also genuinely too incompetent themselves to actually
DO what they are paid for?
3. A number of senior staff have been "let go" with huge payments of our, taxpayers', money having also signed confidentiality agreements to prevent them whistleblowing. These deals are kept secret and are immune in individual cases from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. All very cosy! There have been a number of these very expensive deals agreed under the Jan Britton - the joke "Chief Executive's" - regime and we need to know why and how much has been spent? Of course, the top management approve these shoddy transactions in the hope that they will also receive favourable deals above and beyond their contractual rights when they themselves depart....
Let us look generally at point 3 above. I am not au fait with the details of local government contracts but I am sure there must be a clause therein insisting on confidentiality in any event. There is always a degree of uncertainty with such clauses as to what happens when someone leaves. If this cannot be dealt with by current local government legislation and/or better drawing-up of contractual terms then the law needs to be changed (and, incidentally, I am sending a copy of this post to the new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in the hope that he will intervene in the bent deal set out below as well as looking at the wider payments by Sandwell).
If any of us get a job there are generally only a limited number of ways we can leave it. We might be dismissed which, if done fairly, leads to almost no compensation. We might leave of our own accord - perhaps to a new job - again without compensation. If we have been in the job for sometime we might be made redundant. This is slightly more complicated since redundancy should not be used as an "excuse" to get rid of someone but is used to remove an actual job or post eg when a firm closes down or a council sheds costs due to restructuring. Finally there is retirement.
Generally speaking, council workers have much better contractual rights in a redundancy situation than other mere mortals and sometimes enjoy enhanced payments through voluntary redundancy schemes, early retirement etc. It is difficult, therefore, to see why it is in the public interest for us taxpayers to fork out yet further sums on top (which are then kept secret from us) and, again, I am asking the Secretary of State to look at this.
The pathetic Britton is supposed to be running the Council and only receives a package of £157k a year to do this. As the recent limited Wragge Report pointed out (after The Skidder had been banging on about it incessantly for two years) he has failed to do so as the top political leadership [sic] tried to run the show. Now this might just about be alright in a democracy with a leader such as a (wartime) Churchill or a Clement Attlee but when the leader is a yampy thick little c*nt like Cooper (on Hussain's strings) then things can only go downhill. Wragges reported that the politicians [sic] had taken power and clearly Britton was happy to permit this (we have seen previously how he has permitted lies in Council minutes, documents and FOI's to remain unamended, gave Hussain and Cooper "access all areas" security passes so that they could interfere with employees on a daily basis and permitted them to try and negotiate contracts and bent deals eg the ice rink). We saw in this blog how Hussain saw fit to offer inducements to my own wife from taxpayers money without recourse to top management.
There is also the question of who approves the deal if the political masters decide upon it and even if proper procedure has been ignored? We have seen how Dudley, Sharma and Bubalo nodded the bent Public deal through by signing documents which it seems incredible they did not know to be false or, in a more charitable view, simply failed and were reckless in checking whether the statements were true or not. Hardly a ringing endorsement of their competence at best!
But surely Britton must at least have been involved in contracts involving his own staff? Mustn't he......???????
Let me take you back, if I may, to November 2014. Dickhead Darren Cooper wanted to get rid of Britton's then second in command, John Garrett but being the bullying coward he was he couldn't take John on head to head. Thus a plan was formed for the top five management posts to be reduced from five to four. This is all for public view in the Cabinet minutes. The "interviews" were set for 3rd December, 2014 but a senior source confirmed that Garrett was a goner and it was well known that Melanie Dudley was, for some inexplicable reason given her track record, to be promoted and given extra responsibilities at a time when, so it was alleged, Sandwell faced an existential threat from "Tory cuts" (but whilst Labour continued to borrow and spend like drunken sailors). I was able to put this on social media two weeks before the interviews on 17th November, 2014.
I also posted here on 1st December, 2014 how one particular female candidate and groveller was so well-suited for promotion:
http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/how-to-succeed-at-sandwell-council-guide.html
Whether all this prompted the deranged Darren to play the big man or not I cannot say but, as with everything "Sadim" Cooper touched, it went horribly wrong. Long-term Finance Officer Stuart Kellas, who was meant to be staying on, was also axed amid recriminations. Garrett went too. It is said that cash deals were done although one of them is said
not to have signed the usual confidentiality agreements.
Thus Britton with his thin CV and poor track record kept the top job, Melanie Dudley was appointed to number two and the abysmal Sharma became number three (she, of course, had a dire record with Walsall Council but was taken on and highly paid by Sandwell Labour until she was once again exposed and hammered in an official report). She has finally been axed. I hear rumours that this is said to be "retirement" but, despite that and her appalling incompetence, she too has allegedly run-off with a large bag of our cash to help her along the way!
No doubt I will be accused of sexism if I say anything about Mel but here goes. SMBC's answer to Imelda Marcos is apparently attractive to some men and on the few occasions I have met her she has been all coyly "girly" and charming. She does get this "way" spectacularly wrong though as she once spent 15 minutes at the Kremlin cooing and fluttering her eyelashes at my old friend Bob Woods whilst seemingly unaware that he is a gay as a Mexican tablecloth! More importantly, however, is that she has also been involved in all the spectacular mismanagement during the crazed Cooper era and is unpopular with the staff if those I speak to are to be believed. She also told myself and Bob a couple a years ago that she was moving from her posh Sutton Coldfield address to live nearer the Great Helmsman in the socialist paradise of Sadwell but I have yet to trace any evidence of her doing so.....
The very highly-paid Dudley will be 55 in May, 2017 and may be able to claim her substantial Council pension at that date. But she only got the latest job in December, 2014 and the useless Britton can't last much longer under the new regime.... But yes, leaked documents show that she has chosen to leave of her own accord in early 2017
BUT DESPITE THIS ARRANGED A MASSIVE PAY-OFF WITH COOPER BEFORE HE DIED!!!! So just over 12 months after getting the job Mel can do a bit of eyelash fluttering at the libidinous Cooper and agree to bugger off nearly a year later with a shed load of our hard-earned!
NO WAY BRITTON!
A leaked Council document reads:
"The Assistant Chief Executive, Melanie Dudley, has also made a mutual agreement to leave the council's employment in February next year. This was agreed by the previous Leader of the Council, Cllr Darren Cooper."
Cooper died in March. What legal power did he have to make legally-binding agreements with anyone anyway? That is for the Borough of Sandwell not the imbecilic former "leader". This is now being put out as a done deal by Britton so where has this nonsense been "agreed"? Show us the documents which were presumably in existence before Cooper croaked? This deal is "ultra vires" the power of even the Great Helmsman and must be rescinded forthwith. As above, I am asking the Secretary of State to intervene here if the new, "apparently" more sensible, regime under Steve Eling won't.
I wrote to Melanie Dudley about this on Monday. Here is the email (copied in to Britton) but I have had no response to date:
Hi Melanie,
THIS IS NOT PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL
Can you please tell Skidder readers about the termination agreement you allegedly cooked up with Cooper. What legal authority did Cooper have to make such an offer? Does your contract of employment allow for additional payments of taxpayers' money to you? Is a confidentiality clause involved? Was Britton involved in any of this.
You should know I will be writing to the Secretary of State about this shocking "deal" in the hope he will intervene to block it.
Best wishes,
AND FINALLY - the Wragge Report singled out Cooper and Hussain's big mate, Dave Willetts, for mention when considering whether Sandwell could recover any monies lost through the bent land deals. (Britton was aware a very long time ago that Willetts lied to me in an FOI reply about the bogs but took no disciplinary action against him at that stage - nor of course, against Hussain's son). Of course, the disastrously inept/deliberately corrupt police enquiry has not helped here either since if there had been successful prosecutions then confiscatory/compensation orders could have been made. Further, the police had the power to crack open the confidentiality agreements Britton permits to protect his shambolic outfit so often as they only apply in civil law. Who knows what information would have come tumbling out if the police had interviewed key witnesses but, of course, the cowards in blue wanted to protect their mates so didn't bother.
We still do not know the circumstances of Willetts' departure from the Council and his statements to Wragge's (with his solicitor present) are confusing and do not appear to be wholly correct as recorded by Wragges. We do not yet know whether HE received a pay-off from SMBC though they have scapegoated him (excluding the really guilty parties higher up) and even suggested to the Express and Star that they might attempt to get some money back from his pension payments (highly unlikely in the legal circumstances)! Did they pay him off? Or did someone else? There are people around Oldbury who have done very well out of the Cooper/Britton regime at the expense of the taxpayer and who might be very pleased to protect their interests by buying silence. Come on Willetts we know you were only doing what you were told to do - man up and tell us what you really know!
(Of course, jailed Labour Sandwell Councillor Niwaz was widely rumoured not to but to have acted alone with his fraudulent activity so there is a precedent here for others in Sandwell "carrying the can".)
This blog has, for over two years disclosed much wrongdoing and corruption on Britton's watch. There were at least four very highly-paid people at the top who simply let all this happen and are culpable. Steve Eling, the new leader, should have sacked them on day one without anything other than their contractual entitlements. Indeed, lawyers and accountants should then have been brought in to investigate compensation claims against the wealthy four - not against minor people like Willetts. Any court cases for unfair dismissal should have been vigorously contested and the truth exposed. Yes this would have involved public money but the vile cancer of the Cooper/Britton regime has to be cut-out once and for all.
THE FOUR INDIVIDUALS ARE BRITTON, DUDLEY, SHARMA AND BUBALO.
Sharma has already been paid off and Dudley appears next in line. Steve Eling and Secretary of State - this just HAS TO STOP.
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