Compulsory Behaviour Training For Sandwell Councillors
Councillor Geoff Lewis, Labour Chairman of Sandwell council’s Standards Committee has announced that training for the borough’s councillors is to be made compulsory. The Standards Committee deals with complaints made against councillors which on average are running at one per month and though no details are available may be supposed to concern chiefly, if not exclusively, Labour members who form the vast majority of councillors in Sandwell. There are only two councillors representing other parties out of a total of 72 in the whole borough.
One problem which has been brought to light recently has been the failure of councillors to declare, on the council’s register of interests or at all, business or other matters which might be relevant to their functions as councillors.
Councillor Mahboob Hussain recently apologised for failing to declare an interest in a taxi company which won a lucrative contract from Sandwell council. Cllr. Hussain is also currently the subject of a police enquiry into sales of council land to his close relatives.
Apologies have also been tendered by Bristnall councillor Lucy Cashmore, the daughter of Sandwell’s former mayor Cllr. Linda Horton and husband Roger Horton, councillor for Soho and Victoria, who failed to disclose her employment on the register of interests.
Wednesbury North councillor, Tony Meehan also tendered apologies after he failed to disclose ownership of property on the register of interests.
In each case these failures have been excused as “mistakes” or “oversights” which, if corect, raises issues of individual competence.
It is understood that councillors will also be schooled on what they should or should not say on social media such as twitter or facebook. This follows the “Ding dong the witch is dead” post by Sandwell’s Planning Committee Chairman, Bristnall councillor Steven Frear on the death of Margaret Thatcher.
According to the Express and Star, Cllr. Lewis conceded that what councillors were to be taught was no more than “common sense” but said it had been “lacking in the past with some of these issues”, a comment that speaks to the quality of a number of Labour councillors.