After a cool £1million of council tax-payers money spent by Sandwell council on the Wragge report plus another £78,000 Sandwell spent on lawyers, in this case, Mr Justice Green has finally delivered his judgement in Hussain v Sandwell MBC.
Central to the case was the issue of the commissioning and publication of the Wragge report. The Wragge report dealt with the circumstances of the sale, by the council, of redundant public lavatories, allegedly at an undervalue, to a brother of Cllr. Hussain’s daughter in law and Cllr Hussain’s involvement therein and in alleged “fixing” of parking tickets issued to his family.
The headline news coming out of Sandwell MBC will be that Cllr. Hussain lost the case. Indeed he failed to have a disciplinary hearing against him halted, failed to obtain an order that the Wragge report was wrongly published and get damages and failed to get a declaration that Sandwell council were in the wrong, legally, to commission the report.
But Sandwell MBC hardly come out as winners and the usual and predictable losers are the council tax payers of Sandwell.
Mr. Justice Green’s judgement focussed on the legal powers and duties of local authorities and showed the nimble footwork which would grace a Strictly Come Dancing champion in avoiding political judge traps.
Nevertheless, the judge could not avoid reference to “a “culture” which pervaded the authority whereby members (councillors) were “the bosses” and the Council was “open for business”” Not a description that Sandwell council's over staffed propaganda department would wish to promote. Nor something to boast of after 30 odd years of Labour domination of the council.
The judge, perhaps displayed some naiveté and a total ignorance of Sandwell Labour politics when he suggested because an “issue has acquired a political significance is not reason for the Council as a body to succumb to political pressure”. Reality is that officers and employees of Sandwell council continue to bow and scrape to tin God Labour councillors who hold sway in the absence of political opposition.
Sandwell’s Chief Executive Britton, facing an allegation that he had acted in a partisan manner to secure the election of Cllr Eling as council leader instead of Cllr. Ian Jones, conceded he, Britton, believed that he would be sacked if Cllr Ian Jones became Council leader. However, the court found Britton had acted lawfully in commissioning the Wragge report and then a Q.C.’s opinion on what to do with it.
What of the Wragge report itself? The judge concluded “I am prepared to accept that a… third party might consider that there was a real possibility that the Wragge report itself could be affected by bias”
In respect of its publication the judge found “there could well have occurred a significant amount of political game-playing” and before publication “Material…. had been leaked, and probably deliberately so by various Labour party councillors M.P.s and/or the Labour party itself”
So it looks like Cllr. Hussain will appear before a Standards Committee of the council “where” according to the judge “all the issues will be canvassed, once again, on an essentially de novo basis”. Meaning the committee will consider matters afresh and until then as the judge put it “allegations remain allegations”
What of the conclusions reached in the Wragge report? They are to be completely disregarded. The judge directed that no use be made of the Wragge report contents at the Standards Committee hearings. Though either side is free to use evidence obtained in the investigation and teams of lawyers, no doubt, to argue about it.
This conclusion raises the question whether the £1million spent on the report was money well spent. Corruption requires exposure and punishment. But here a police investigation has ended without proceedings and the powers of Standards Committees to punish are negligible. There is some evidence that in Sandwell council internal investigations into alleged wrongdoing not every stone is turned. Sceptics see political motives. Sandwell Labour councillors are fighting like ferrets in a bag. This is a sport council tax-payers should not be required to subsidise.