Is it any wonder that councils across the land - of all political stripes - fail when they employ so many absolutely useless staff? In the private sector employers tend to look at the record of interviewees, and do "due diligence" on their CV's, but local government is a law unto itself and failure (or worse) in one council usually results in (a) a substantial pay-off from taxpayers' funds, and (b) another well-paid post in another council.
Jan Britton didn't get (a) when he was kicked out of bent Sandwell Council (which was a rare triumph for the taxpayer). But now, despite his appalling record, he will be starting a new job in January at Dorset Council. Perhaps it is time to remind the good folk of Dorset of some of the highlights [sic] of this pathetic grovellers time as Chief Executive at Sandwell where, with others, he bears very considerable responsibility for that Borough currently being in Government 'special measures' due to serious governance issues (which has cost us taxpayers in excess of £2m).
Sandwell is a deeply corrupt "one-party" Council and the (former) political leadership - particularly Cllrs Cooper and Eling - deliberately employed senior staff who were weak and prepared to do their bidding (with disastrous results). Britton was a senior manager but was mysteriously elevated to the position of Chief Executive when this was not warranted by his record nor his ability (if such he had). He had previously been head of parks, and when he got the top job some staff christened him, "the big xxx Parkie". This was not meant to be complimentary.
This blog had frequently publicised Britton's behaviour including the infamous email he sent to staff very early on in the top job. Here he trashed any hope of professionalism and independence in the paid service by telling employees that they must always do the bidding of their political masters. Incredibly he added that if the politicians got things wrong the employees were at fault for failing to advise them correctly!
Many councillors were given "access all areas" security passes which they used to roam the council offices demanding sight of confidential documentation, interfering with the work of staff and even molesting them. One female employee reported how the monstrous Cooper would frequently hug women (though not men) in the offices but "what started as a hug always ended with his hands sliding down over my arse".
Britton had his own female favourites, notably Tara Malik and Liz O'nions, and he would meet the latter (at least) off-site. It is very important to note that this is explicitly NOT an imputation of any sexual misconduct. The opposite is true as Britton told this blog himself and this was confirmed by the disgraced former Leader, Eling, and his - yes, disgraced - sidekick Cllr Marshall when they informed me in a notorious series of WhatsApp messages that Britton is "not Lothario material". Nevertheless he used his female chums to do his bidding. Malik was used to investigate the writer and O'nions appears to have acted as a conduit for information about staff to the hapless Britton. All this was off the record as was much else in the disastrous Britton-era. Although he had a Council-supplied iPhone he regularly used a Blackberry encrypted service to conceal what he was doing. Campaigners have found evidence of him using the Blackberry (as shown previously on this blog) when dealing with information concerning an investigation and subsequent Court case. And here is an email showing Eling giving this pathetic crawler orders - on a Sunday - to deal with communications in secret about an investigation of a Councillor (and see further below):
This toady would do anything he was told by Cooper and Eling. At one point West Midlands Police wanted to interview Cooper under caution in respect of his use of Twitter to harass a Birmingham woman, and they "invited" him to attend a police station in Central Birmingham. This was a private matter and nothing to do with the Council but - astonishingly - Britton arranged for a senior Solicitor, Maria Price, to represent Cooper at the interview and, even more incredibly, he organised the Council's chauffeur-driven limousine to take Cooper and Price into Birmingham, wait for them, and take them back to Sandwell! Here they are - in a very fuzzy photo - arriving at the nick:
Although this happened years ago it is still a live issue since there is an ongoing third party complaint. It is alleged that Britton and Price (who is now head of legal at Devon Council) conspired to keep Price's involvement secret by claiming she was 'on holiday' on the day in question but had agreed to forgo her break to help her beloved political leader. As if this rot isn't bad enough, the allegation is that "someone" ordered Price's holiday records to be doctored (with her knowledge) to show that she was indeed on holiday!
The crazed Cooper was deluded enough to think that he could become the Mayor of West Midlands when the new WM combined authority was created and Britton did what he could to assist the political Leader. Cooper toured Sandwell on a speaking tour to promote his possible candidacy and, once again, Britton laid on the Council's second chauffeur-driven vehicle to drive him about at taxpayers' expense:
Britton is keen on cars himself and enjoys off-roading (a suitable term for his own form of local authority governance). Council employees alleged that he was having his vehicles repaired advantageously at the Sandwell Council garage. He admitted this but stated that he was paying the "going rate" for any work done by employees, parts etc. Nevertheless employees then complained to this blog that on Monday's Britton would present them with a muddy vehicle after a bit of off-roading and make them clean it for him. What is definitely true is that Britton then used the garage for winter storage of two of his vehicles since staff bravely photographed this and leaked the picture:
Britton presided over a period when SMBC routinely destroyed documents e.g. when staff left the Authority, and subverted the Subject Access and Freedom of Information legal requirements (again, see the email above which appears to be an attempt to prevent full disclosure of documents to Cllr jones). Any wrongdoers or independent spirits were fired subject to signing confidentiality agreements and receiving a chunk of taxpayers' dosh. As above, he unlawfully managed to keep much business "off the record" as with his use of his Blackberry and the widespread use by others (at least) of WhatsApp. He presided over the spectacular failure of Sandwell's Children's Services Department so that the Government had to intervene there too, and set up a new Children's Trust to protect vulnerable kids. Britton had provided contracts to outside companies and is said to have enjoyed lavish lunches with their representatives. We are unlikely to establish the truth of this since he fought to conceal his own employee register of interest before his eventual disgrace. What is beyond doubt (and which, yet again has been available like much else about Britton for all to see on this blog) is that when Children's Services collapsed, Britton sought to exonerate himself and publicly blamed the Council's social workers for the debacle. Unsurprising ugly scenes ensued with the aggrieved workers being understandably outraged, but there you have the measure of the man.
A senior female employee at bent Sandwell once informed me that Britton loved, "men with big swinging d*cks". When I expressed total astonishment she explained that she did not mean this in a homoerotic sense but that he was totally "in thrall" to men he perceived to be powerful. She explained that this explains disasters at the Council such as the BT/Providence Place scandals where the taxpayer was shafted once again.
On the frequent occasions when things went wrong at his failing Council Britton (no doubt hugging his Blackberry to his chest) would let it be known via third parties that he, personally, knew nothing about what had happened. This shows his rank cowardice and penchant for blaming others for his manifest failures, but even if this was remotely true one would have to ask why the supposed Captain was asleep in his cabin as his ship bore down on the iceberg?
At the start of Britton's disastrous reign the Council was run by Cllrs Cooper, Eling and Hussain who were all close. Hussain was best-man at Eling's wedding. The thuggish Cooper died suddenly and Eling became Interim Leader. He faced a challenge from a senior Councillor (also close to Hussain), Ian Jones (see the Eling/Britton email pictured above). Before Cooper died there was a half-hearted Police investigation into corruption at the Council which Sandwell tried to nip in the bud (and which it eventually succeeded in doing) by setting up its own "independent investigation". Cooper hoped the whole thing would go away but after his death Eling decided to use the investigation to shaft both Cllrs Hussain and Jones (who were members, of course, of Eling's own Party in the local dictatorship). I should say that the whole "investigation" and subsequent standards hearing were fixed - whatever wrongdoing there may have been - and Eling "won". Hussain lost a High Court judicial review trying to stop the process. Mr Justice Green "believed" the evidence of Britton but a mountain of documentary and other evidence has subsequently come to light which casts considerable doubt on the way the Council presented its case.
Whatever the legal arguments surrounding all this there are now well-documented examples (some of which the current Leader of Sandwell Council is still trying to suppress) of Britton's dubious involvement in the affair. Firstly, he did not instruct the firm of Solicitors who had the main contract to do Sandwell's legal work but instructed a local crony firm and solicitor to do the job. This was the firm now known as Gowling WLG but which was known locally at the time simply as Wragges (and that name will apply in the rest of this post). Hussain was/is a prominent local Muslim but Britton picked a crony and self-proclaimed "Zionist", Mark Greenburgh, to lead the attack with, as we shall see, a very poor outcome.
This blog published the still-secret - as far as Sandwell council is concerned - "Cox Review" back in February, 2022 which found that Britton had run up £43,000 of legal costs with Wragges before obtaining the requisite internal authority to do so - a breach of the Council's Contract and Procurement Rules. He inexplicably chose Wragges ahead of the firm with the contract to do legal work and agreed a budget of £100,000 with them. Britton then "hid" payments to Wragges by failing to use the Council's normal payments system - this a breach of the Council's own financial regulations. Britton or occasionally his Assistant signed nine forms authorising payments without stating the reason for doing this and despite signing a declaration that the failure to follow the correct process could lead to disciplinary proceedings. (We shall see what Britton did to his Assistant below ...)
Having agreed a budget of £100,000 Britton paid Wragges £180,000 without securing any authority for the further £80,000. The Report was extremely poorly written and presented by Wragges (it is publicly available) and the Cox Review found numerous concerns relating to how the investigation, and in particular the interviews, were conducted.
With a Police investigation underway and Greenburgh anxious to dig up dirt on Hussain, Cooper began to lose control (if he ever had it) and then a strange episode occurred. Cooper was present when Greenburgh made an appalling racist comment about Cllr Hussain's disabled daughter, claiming that her disability was the outcome of "inbreeding" within the Muslim community. What happens next is opaque but Britton was involved and a QC (as was) was appointed to green light the publication of the Report irrespective of Greenburgh's apparent bias against Hussain. As above, the High Court became involved and Britton told it that Greenburgh's racist remark was just "an isolated quip". This is a vile downplaying by Britton of the awful comment and, as the Cox Review found, was false anyway as Greenburgh also made other demeaning comments about local Muslims.
Maria Price (see also above) was adamant that all was above board with the investigation but it transpires that Britton entered into very detailed secret correspondence with Greenburgh and his assistant at Wragges, Vivienne Reeves, specifically asking for revisions of the text. There are pages and pages of this stuff which clearly show that Britton was not dealing with this investigation at arms-length. Further, and more worrying still, is that there is now clear evidence that Britton was also communicating clandestinely with Greenburgh and Reeves "off the record", and this was something he specifically failed to mention to Mr Justice Green. This blog holds documentary proof of this and the Cox Review itself also states:
"It has not been possible to view the full exchanges between [Britton] and Mr Greenburgh during this time as the email trails suggest the former Chief Executive was at times using his personal email account to contact Mr Greenburgh, which is in itself a breach of the Council's established processes."
(The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) have refused to deal with a complaint concerning Greenburgh and Reeves knowingly communicating directly with Britton outwith the Council's normal channels of communication.)
The Wragge Report was leaked to the Labour Party. During the currency of the High Court proceedings either one or two Councillors close to Eling - and of Cabinet status - leaked the Wragge Report and the accompanying QC Opinion separately to two local tame journalists. Britton did not order any sort of inquiry into these incredibly serious leaks.
The Cox Review is available via this link and has, no doubt, been studied and ignored by the powers that be at Dorset Council:
https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2022/02/here-it-is-folks-cox-review-revealed.html
(Greenburgh was reprimanded for the vile "inbreeding" comment with no mention of its racist nature by the disciplinary panel. The SRA says that a further referral to it relating to the additional remarks disclosed in the Cox Review do not merit further sanction.)
A curious corollary to the whole Wragge and Standards process was that prior to one of the hearings the Monitoring Officer (himself a highly controversial figure) held a top secret briefing with the members of the Ethical sub-Committee hearing the case and this appalling behaviour was also leaked. A leading Councillor - identified by many as Eling (Skidders passim) - believed the leak had come from the long-serving secretaries to the Council's cabinet members and was heard - literally screaming - "I wan't the f*ckers out, and I don't want the f*ckers back!" Britton arranged for the unfortunate women to be immediately suspended and had his grovelling s.151 Officer, Darren Carter, commence an investigation. It immediately became apparent that the secretaries were wholly innocent and they had to be quickly reinstated with compensation. Once again, definitive evidence of Britton's spinelessness, lack of judgement, and craven kowtowing to his political masters.
[Carter was later suspended himself and eventually left the Authority. Sandwell say this was NOT due to his own appalling behaviour during this incident but won't say what caused him to be suspended. Needless to say, in the sick world of local government Carter walked straight into another job with Reading Council.]
When Cllr Hussain was still pals with Cooper and Eling this blog exposed his failure to disclose his interests in a taxi firm which was bidding for Council contracts. Britton claimed to have undertaken a "full investigation" into the matter and duly exonerated Hussain on the grounds (a) that the convoluted arrangements made with regard to his shares in the taxi company were somehow an oversight (which was completely meaningless given what this blog had revealed), and (b) that although the Cllr had not declared a significant business interest during contract negotiations this didn't really matter since EVERYONE KNEW that he ran the taxi firm in question! This shocking conclusion should, at the time, have led to Britton's instant dismissal but the position became even worse following a freedom of information request from this blog. Despite the alleged "full investigation" Britton was unable to produce ANY documentation of it ever happening nor of any interviews or other meetings which were supposed to have taken place. Britton later mentioned this misconduct to Greenburgh stating that this was not "his finest hour" (as if he ever had any others).
As the tyrant Eling's paranoia grew before his own defenestration, Britton agreed to set up a para-military force to police the Council House and conduct various other mysterious operations. Thus Council meetings were surrounded by barriers and security staff all equipped with body cams - at huge expense to the taxpayer. Britton rapidly - and inexplicably - promoted a very nasty piece of work who had started at the Council as a gravedigger to become head of this force and his Head of Security (see further below). He also caused or permitted this force to video members of the public outwith the ring of steel and even some distance from the Council House (one security report shows that Britton had the writer under observation in a local pub). None of this was lawful pursuant to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
If you are beginning to flag reading all this please note that these are only the choicest extracts from many reports on the fawning and cowardly Britton, as can be seen in back numbers of this blog over a very considerable period of time. And hang on in there, dear Readers, as things actually get WORSE!
The Hackett scandal is, after many years, still ongoing (Skidders passim ad nauseum). Corrupt liar Cllr Hackett was (and, even more incredibly, still is a Sandwell Cabinet member). The Assistant Chief Executive (ACE) referred to above was also acting Monitoring Officer when Hackett faced several allegations of misconduct (including being caught urinating in a bus shelter by a Council warden). Hackett was the useless political head of Children's Services when, again as above, it crashed into oblivion. One day he became privy to highly confidential information concerning a child and his/her parent. He duly blabbed this information to other Councillors and even to the local Labour Party chief whip (the latter in an email, a copy of which is held by this blog). The ACE unsurprisingly found (with a unanimous team which included Maria Price) that this was a serious breach of confidentiality and that he was in breach of the councillors' code of conduct. The martinet, Eling, ordered the ACE to change her report which she bravely refused to do and so Britton then told her she could no longer be Monitoring Officer. She rightly took this bullying as constructive dismissal and left, with Britton then agreeing a very substantial payment into her pension fund. If this isn't bad enough Britton then conspired with Hackett, Eling and Cllr Khatun for the latter pair to give new evidence, He told a junior employee to take two statements from them. He was to ask only one question, which Britton gave the employee, and he was to simply write down their answer (which, of course, was identical) without any further ado. This was done and suddenly a new Report was produced completely exonerating Hackett. Hackett had admitted in the email what he had done but then had a pet "journalist" trumpet his innocence and claim the allegation had been malicious. Maria Price was directly involved in sending out the altered Report despite her earlier involvement. What this shower had not considered, however, was the wrath of the parent and child who then brought civil actions against the Council. Even though Britton and others - including Council solicitors - knew that the evidence had been deliberately altered they initially contested the civil case. But. of course, the Council eventually had to admit defeat and had to pay damages to the injured parties. Incredibly, the costs are not yet finalised but are very substantial. All these costs were a direct result of Britton doing Eling's bidding and rigging the Report.
Happily, it was Britton's involvement in this deliberate subversion of this standards investigation which was the primary cause of his eventual suspension and disgrace. The second nail in his coffin arose from the infamous c*cksucker trial.
Britton had been trying to criminalize the writer since 2015 via pals at West Midlands Police (WMP). He saw an opportunity when I referred to him as a "c*cksucker" outside the Council House whilst, unfortunately, having a megaphone in my hand (as one does)! I was taken all the way to a criminal trial at Dudley Magistrates Court where I was acquitted. During the trial Britton and his aforementioned Head of Security both told the exact same lie whilst on oath in the witness box. Word for word. I made a complaint of perjury to WMP which found, bizarrely, that both witnesses may have told the exact same lie "by accident". At the time West Midlands Police were very friendly with Britton and employed his son.
It later transpired during Britton's dismissal that he and the Head of Security had directly colluded with regard to their witness statements. Such was the concern of Sandwell Council itself about an attempt to rig a criminal trial that it referred the documentation itself to WMP although, again, the cops decided to take no action. But Britton lied on oath in a criminal case, and that's a fact as set out previously in this blog.
[I refer at this point to the many Sandwell Skidder blogs mentioning Britton's appalling behaviour and these form the legal justification for his post which repeats matters mentioned over a period of several years. I also refer specifically to the legal notice below. For the avoidance of any legal doubt I also refer to the post, "Jan Britton - the net closes in!" from our associated blog, Crow Multimedia, which can be found via this link:
https://www.blogger.com/u/6/blog/post/edit/5210725868751736806/733190956498783159
Following his disgrace at bent Sandwell Britton walked straight into another local authority job with Publica Group. This was a Company set up by four small councils around the Cotswolds area to deal with their administration. Publica must have known all of the above but employed him on a high salary regardless. I have never been able to get to the bottom of how he swung this job although, inexplicably, the very aggressive Liberal Democrat Leader of Cotswold District Council, Joe Harris, seems to have been involved. Even if he wasn't, he has since been an assiduous cheerleader of Britton for whatever reason he may have.
Publica Group is disbanding and Britton is bragging that he is the new "Interim Executive Lead for Place" at Dorset Council from January, 2024 despite the above - which Dorset Council must clearly be aware of. The interesting thing is that as Chief Executive of bent Sandwell when corruption and incompetence grew, and it lurched towards Government intervention, he was a member of the absurdly named, Solace, a network for local government high-flyers [sic]. The boss of Dorset Council, Matt Prosser, is, coincidentally, currently the President of Solace.
Further, the use of "interim" appointments is a well-known ploy by councils to get round the law of the land. They use such appointments to dis the Equalities Act and to ensure that cronies can get posts without the bother of posts being advertised or having to go through any other sort of competitive process. I am not saying that is what has happened here, and I am sure that Dorset Councillors will wish to vigorously scrutinise the appointment process given Britton's atrocious record. I have put in a Freedom of Information Request to Dorset which I urge you to read and, again, I am sure Dorset's Chief Executive will make a timely and very full reply to it.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/interim_appointment_of_jan_britt#incoming-2477760
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