The Secretary of State for Levelling-Up, Michael Gove, is currently considering whether to put bent Labour Sandwell Council into "special measures". Local community activist Darryl Magher and I sent him over 100-pages of submissions in favour of an urgent intervention. As part of our comments we included information about the corrupt subversion of the Standards process. Here is another episode where there has been no appropriate investigation and a Councillor is yet again absolved from any misconduct.
It is to be hoped that Government Commissioners will soon be appointed and this bent Labour Council sorted out once and for all.
This is the standards complaint I submitted concerning the comments of the current Labour "leader", Kerrie Carmichael, at a full Council meeting (which you can still see on the video via the SMBC website). Please note the detail in my original complaint.
Carmichael is a rough, mouthy, person (and we have seen elsewhere in this blog how she was incapable of controlling herself at the election count). She was a Cabinet member at a time of shocking corruption and a rimmer of the appalling tyrant "Squealing" Eling but never called-out his grotesque behaviour. In the incestuous world of bent Sandwell Council her husband also works for the corrupt authority. She has been described by a Sandwell figure as "defensive, brainless and shockingly ignorant". Now, according to the below, she is also too lazy or thick to read her emails. She should fit in well in this crap, dysfunctional, Authority!
Mind you, she looked very nervous and continously "fingered" around her mouth at the recent Council meeting when Grant Thornton gave bent Labour a massive, and humiliating, dressing-down. Perhaps she does at least have the insight that her limitations will be cruelly exposed if the Commissioners do come in:
Standards Complaint - Cllr Kerrie Carmichael - MC/171221 - 17/12/21
Cllr Carmichael has breached the Nolan Principles of, at least, honesty, objectivity (as she has a clear bias against ex-Cllr Hussain and for former “Leader” ex-Cllr Eling), integrity, openness (in attempting to conceal a Review which discloses racism and serious wrongdoing at SMBC) and leadership (having lied to a full Council and the public at large within approximately 20 minutes of becoming SMBC’s political leader).
Allegation 1:
At the Labour Group Online meeting preceding the December full Council meeting she advised Labour Councillors that she would suppress publication of the Cox Review and an accompanying Opinion of Jenni Richards QC. This is a clear dereliction of her duties of objectivity, integrity and openness before she actually became “leader”. It is also a breach of honesty and integrity given that she claims not to know anything about the Cox Review and Opinion. (It may also be unlawful.)
Allegation 2:
The facts here speak for themselves. At the Full Council meeting on 7th December, 2021, within approximately 20 minutes of becoming “leader”, Cllr Carmichael answered a question from Cllr Yvonne Davies. She said - direct quote - “I don’t know what the Cox Report is. I haven’t read it.”
This is, quite simply, an appalling lie to the full Council, the people of Sandwell and the public at large.
Cllr Carmichael was well aware of the Cox Review and so openly mocked Cllr Davies and the democratic process.
On the balance of probabilities, Cllr Carmichael knew of the Cox Review for some time before she lied at the meeting - probably several months. But, in particular, the Cox Review and QC’s Opinion were sent to her on 28th September, 2021 at 10.28pm:
“Date: Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 10:28 PM
Subject: Fwd: URGENT RELEASE OF (MAHBOOB HUSSAIN) SANDWELL COUNCIL DOCUMENTS - WRAGGE REVIEW, COX,RICHARDS
To: <rajbir_singh@sandwell.gov.uk>, <ahmad_bostan@sandwell.gov.uk>, <kerrie_carmichael@sandwell.gov.uk>, <Maria_Crompton@sandwell.gov.uk>, (and other Cabinet members).
I am informed that further copies were sent to her on:
29th September, 2021;
1st October, 2021;
8th October, 2021;
23rd October, 2021;
6th November, 2021;
17th November, 2021;
20th November, 2021; and
30th November, 2021.
I am informed that none of these emails were “returned” and so she did receive them.
Further, on 30th November, 2021 at 3.39pm, I wrote to her myself given the allegation of what she said at the Labour Group meeting:
“Dear Cllr Carmichael,
THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION - PRESS ENQUIRY
I have just been copied into an email to all Councillors concerning the Cox Review. I have also been informed, rightly or wrongly, that you told the Labour Group last night that the Cox Review will never be published.
Do you agree that you made those comments?
If yes, is this matter not still within the remit of the Audit Committee? What is your legal power to intervene at this stage?
And why do you personally wish to prevent the public from seeing a Review which shows bias, incompetence and racism?
If you did not say that you will suppress the Review what in the current process and it's timescale for its release?”
I did not receive the courtesy of a reply.
Following her brazen lie at the full Council meeting I wrote to Cllr Davies again with a copy to Cllr Carmichael (14.12.21 at 3.50pm) giving Cllr Carmichael the opportunity to explain her misconduct:
Email to Cllr Davies copied to Cllr Carmichael:
“THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION - PRESS ENQUIRY
“Like you, I was stunned by the comments of Cllr Carmichael at the full Council meeting last week in respect of the Cox Review/Report.
“You may be aware of a recent post on The Skidder where it was put to Cllr Carmichael via email dated 30th November, 2021 that she was purported to have told the Labour Group meeting that the Cox Review would never see the light of day. If that is true, then her comments at full Council raise very serious issues as she specifically stated, "I don't know what the Cox Report is. I haven't read it."
“It strains everyone's credulity to suggest that she has not heard of it and even if she did not make the comments attributed to her at Labour Group, is she now also saying that she did not read my email of 30th November sent to her (and then placed in the public domain)? Some sort of explanation is required here, and I am copying her to this email to, once again, give her the chance to explain herself.
“Another matter arises. Cllr Carmichael stated that Surjit Tour would be asked to provide you with a briefing paper on this. Leaving aside my view - which I have expressed to you - that Surjit Tour should not still be in the employ of SMBC, my understanding is that Tour was directly involved in the commissioning of the Cox Review and also in respect of briefing Jenni Richards QC. Surely there is a clear conflict of interest in one of the same people involved in trying to shine a light on this scandal being involved in suppressing its release?
“You were right in describing the comments of Cllr Carmichael concerning "personal data" as the reason for suppression of the Review, as "ridiculous". This was an issue raised in ex-Cllr Mahboob Hussain's objections to the publication of the Wragge Report and was given very short shrift by SMBC's QC, James Goudie (employed at colossal expense to the taxpayer). It would seem that this is another document that Cllr Carmichael hasn't read. Further, it is clearly a matter of intense public interest if Tour is saying that the Opinion of James Goudie - which is proudly displayed on the SMBC website - was wrong.
“If you have received Tour's briefing paper can you please send me a copy (and I am sure Cllr Carmichael can have no objection to that).”
Once again, Cllr Carmichael has chosen not to respond.
Julian Saunders
17th December, 2021
Standards Complaint re Cllr Kerrie Carmichael
Sheet B
In Sheet A I set out a standards complaint against Cllr Kerrie Carmichael in respect of her lies to a full Council meeting concerning the Cox Review.
It has now come to my attention that she lied again in the very same meeting and so make this additional complaint which I assume will be dealt with together with the original one. Once again the facts show clear - further - breaches of the duties of honesty and integrity.
Complaint 2
At the full Council meeting of 7th December, 2021, Cllr David Fisher asked a written question (of which Cllr Carmichael had notice) concerning SMBC’s unlawful payment of an employee, Lisa McNally’s, legal costs.
Cllr Carmichael stated that she was unable to comment as the matter was subject to an “independent review”.
I have had correspondence with SMBC’s Interim Chief Executive, Kim Bromley-Derry and he has confirmed that there is no “independent review”. In fact there is a supposed review by Messrs Grant Thornton who are (a) not independent by reason of their relationship with SMBC; (b) non-lawyers and, most importantly, (c) were directly involved when McNally’s failed case was live and when they refused to stop the unlawful funding.
In the premises, Cllr Carmichael’s response to an official written question was a second blatant lie to Councillors and to the public.
20/02/22 Julian Saunders
SMBC legal team exonerate Carmichael
Surjit Tour, SMBC's highly controversial Head of Legal and its Monitoring Officer, handed this matter over to a Deputy Monitoring Officer, the equally controversial Maria Price.
Even though Price was supposed to be making finding based on the evidence she reported that:
"The subject member [Carmichael] was provided with a copy of the complaints. She does not accept that she has been dishonest … at the time of [the full Council meeting] she had not been provided with a copy of the Cox Report from the council and states that she has not read it."
As will be seen from the complaint itself set out above, multiple emails were sent to Carmichael enclosing the Cox Review. These were all sent to her official SMBC email address and none of them were apparently returned. Note the words that she was not provided with a copy "from the Council". Leaving aside the question of whether she made the comments that she did at a Labour group meeting, this is her "get-out" excuse - and a very feeble one it is.
Price quoted Carmichael as saying that she could not release"personal information" since this would leave SMBC "open to legal action". If she had never read the Cox Review, how could she know this?
Price stated that any comment made at the Labour Group Meeting about the Cox Review was not a matter for her as it was a purely party political matter. The problem with this is that Carmichael has not officially denied making these comments which are clear evidence, if found to be correct, that she was lying at the full Council Meeting on a later date.
The laughable Price decided that the statement that Carmichael had not read the Cox Review was not dishonest, and therefore not a breach of the Members Code of Conduct. In the circumstances she would not refer it for formal investigation.
In the most ludicrous section of Price's findings she states that the email referred to in the complaints was not provided to Carmichael from an official Council email. The email was, of course, sent from an anonymous leaker of the Cox Review (not me I should add!) Price states that there is no evidence that Carmichael read the email or any information reportedly attached to it. But equally there is no evidence that Price actually asked Carmichael whether she read the email or not - or indeed the other emails listed in the complaint, also sending the documentation to her. Price hasn't even made elementary enquiries before coming to a decision which is unappealable and to which the Independent Member agreed.
With regard to the second part of the complaint, Price says that Carmichael's "inaccurate"comments that the McNally costs indemnity was being looked at by an "independent review team" was not dishonest. This is even though Grant Thornton were involved in the question of the indemnity at the time the McNally case was live and refused to take any action. Appropriate action by them could have saved taxpayers a considerable amount of money and so Grant Thornton are neither independent not in a position to "review" a matter in which they were directly involved themselves. Furthermore Grant Thornton are not lawyers and so it is a mystery why Carmichael thinks they should be reviewing the question of a legal indemnity.
Incidentally, Price herself was directly involved, with Tour and two other SMBC solicitors, in the McNally litigation and fully supported the unlawful use of taxpayers' money to provide the so-called indemnity. Quite why she was involved in this aspect of the matter when there is a clear conflict of interest is not explained.
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