Chairman’s Statement – 9th October 2006
An agreed statement has been published in the matter of Mr Stephen Cohen’s claim for unfair dismissal against Lothersdale Parish Council. Throughout the last six months the Council has been repeatedly asked questions about matters which are of legitimate public concern. It has been a difficult time for the Council which is a public body but also an employer and an organisation involved in an ongoing legal dispute. There have been questions which the Council has been unable to answer for the above reasons. This statement is intended to answer factually many of the questions which members of the public have asked. The statement has been read by the Council’s solicitor.
An article which appeared in the Craven Herald on Friday 6th October was based upon a press release issued by Mr Cohen. I was away on a school residential visit all last week and was unaware of the impending story and did not speak to the reporter. At the end of our agreed statement it says “Both parties hope that the gossip, speculation and misinformation that have been circulating around the village will now come to an end”. I fail to see how the misleading story in the Craven Herald can be seen to bring this matter to an end. Quite the contrary. It has stirred up anger and animosity within the village, and in my opinion breaks the spirit of the agreement which the Council and Mr Cohen have both signed.
To be absolutely clear: at no time did the Parish Council begin disciplinary proceedings against Mr Cohen. The Council did not dismiss Mr Cohen. Mr Cohen resigned. Mr Cohen has publicly accepted that the Council acted correctly throughout these matters on the basis of the advice it received. It was solely Mr Cohen’s decision to end the Employment Tribunal proceedings. The Council’s advice from its solicitor was that it was almost certain to win the case and an agreement was only entered into when Mr Cohen dropped all claims for financial compensation.
A significant part of the Craven Herald article focuses on Mr Cohen’s candidacy in the Parish Council election in May 2006. The newspaper states that Mr Cohen stood for election to ensure that there were sufficient candidates to fill the five vacancies on the council. It should be noted that the clerk is supplied with the nomination papers and prospective candidates receive their nomination papers from him. The clerk must have been aware that on the closing date for nominations there were already seven other candidates.
It should also be noted that Mr Cohen should not have stood for election to the Parish Council as at that time he held an office of profit with the Council. Colin Iveson, Head of Democratic Services at Craven District Council and the Returning Officer for the elections wrote to me on the 18th April:
Section 80 of the Local Government Act 1972 sets out the disqualifications from being a member of or being elected to local authorities. In summary part of this says that anyone who is an employee of a council is disqualified from being elected to that
council. As part of the declaration on the Candidate's Consent to Nomination, candidates state that to the best of their "...knowledge and belief..." they are "...not disqualified from being elected by reason of any disqualification set out in Section 80 of the local Government Act 1972...".
The matter is being pursued with the appropriate authorities.
In this case the appropriate authorities were the police.
I should also stress that the agreed statement cannot be seen in any way as an apology by the Council to Mr Cohen. I have apologised to him for any distress caused by the agenda item placed on the noticeboards. I have no problem doing so, as the agenda was not intended to cause any distress. The agenda had to be published on the noticeboard. That is the law. If an item is not published on the agenda then a decision on that item cannot be taken. The wording on the agenda was made as vague as possible whilst still allowing the Council to discuss issues about the clerk. The wording was made following advice from the legal officer of the Yorkshire Local Councils Association. The Council believes that it has acted correctly throughout, and Mr Cohen has accepted that.
I would like to set the record straight on the installation of telegraph poles on Sidegate Lane. The fact that the poles were erected within a month of the Council being approached inevitably caused questions to be asked. There has never been any public suggestion that the Council or its agents acted in any way improperly. The Council did receive information from Pat McGowan of North Yorkshire County Council and Gerry Wood of BT that a site meeting took place on Sidegate Lane in November 2005 at which the Parish Council was ostensibly represented. It was entirely right that the Council should seek to investigate that information. However, neither the County Council nor BT has been able to provide any documentary evidence that such a meeting occurred. It must be accepted, therefore, that they were mistaken and that the site meeting actually took place at the end of January, which the Council discovered in August was witnessed by former councillor Malcolm Willetts.
I believe that if there is any blame to be apportioned for the installation of the poles up Sidegate then on the basis of the known facts it should be levelled at BT and not at the Parish Council or Mr Cohen. The decision was rushed and proper consultation was avoided. However, the poles are up and they are not going to be removed, so this issue should now be closed.
The Council accepts that the then clerk made a mistake in not bringing the planning application for Ad Viam on Sidegate to a council meeting until after the application had already been approved by Craven District Council. The public should appreciate that the Council receives a large amount of correspondence and inevitably documentation may occasionally be overlooked.
I was concerned because the conservatory was built so soon after our meeting on March 9th so I contacted Craven to enquire as to what was happening. I was informed that planning permission had been granted the previous week, and that the Parish Council had been notified of the application at the beginning of February.
Again, I believe that it was entirely correct for the Council to ask why a planning application which it was likely to object to was only brought before it for consultation after the final decision had already been taken by Craven.
The Council has since tightened up its procedures to ensure that such an oversight does not happen again.
On the afternoon of March 9th, there was a meeting in Lothersdale Village Hall, hosted or chaired by Mr Cohen, at which parish clerks received training on the Code of Conduct from a legal officer of Craven District Council, Mr Townson. One of the specific issues covered in the course of this training was councillors’ declarations of interest. It is the duty of parish clerks to be familiar with the Code of Conduct to ensure the proper conduct of parish council meetings and to proffer advice to the Council. At the Council meeting that evening both Cllr Willetts and Cllr Marshall declared an interest in the planning application for Ad Viam as their properties adjoin Miss Salter’s . During the discussion on the application neither Cllr Willetts nor Cllr Marshall took any part in the process, but were seated at the opposite end of the table to the other councillors. Neither councillor received any advice that their interest should be considered to be a prejudicial interest which would require them to leave the room.
Two months later, following the Parish Council elections, Mr Cohen made a complaint to the Standards Board for England that Cllr Marshall failed to leave the room during the discussion of the planning application. That case is still ongoing, though Mr Cohen has now withdrawn his complaint as part of our agreement. Unfortunately once an investigation has been launched it cannot be stopped. A public hearing is scheduled to take place before the end of December. Individual councillors are responsible for their own actions and decisions in meetings. However we do look to the clerk for advice and guidance. In this case it is the then clerk who has made the complaint that the Code of Conduct has been breached, the same clerk who received training on the Code of Conduct that same afternoon and who also complained about only one of two councillors who acted in exactly the same way. That is to say he made a complaint against Cllr Marshall but failed to make a complaint against Cllr Willetts. I am attempting to discover how much this investigation has cost. It is the first time that the Standards Board has undertaken an investigation in Craven. I know that I speak for all my fellow councillors when I say that we have every sympathy for Helen and her family in having to undergo this awful ordeal.
At the same meeting in March the Council considered tenders for works in the coming year. Three letters had been received giving hourly rates for the would-be contractors work. The Council was not shown the letters but was informed of the hourly rates of each contractor. As was the usual practice, the Council agreed to contact each of the contractors and inform them that they would be considered for work when required.
Cllr Willetts took no part in these discussions and left the room as he had submitted a tender to be considered for work.
The Council understands that later that same evening in the Hare and Hounds Mr Cohen and Cllr Willetts offered a verbal contract, binding on the Council, to one of the contractors offering him work as the village caretaker, or Lengthsman. The Council wishes to make it absolutely clear that at no time during the discussions in council on that evening was any of the councillors under any impression whatsoever that there was any intention to offer any person any such position. Put simply, there was no job on offer and the Council did not agree to offer one to anybody.
The Council accepts that the contractor is an innocent party in this matter and subsequently offered him a contract as we were legally obliged so to do.
I was later reported to the Standards Board for England by Mr Cohen for instructing the contractor to suspend his work, as he was technically an employee of the Council. The Standards Board did not investigate the matter as they decided that I and my colleagues had acted entirely correctly in the circumstances. I will publish the findings of the Standards Board at the end of this meeting. Both Cllr Binns and Cllr Gover were also reported to the Standards Board for England which ruled that there was no need for a full investigation. As in Cllr Marshall’s case I am attempting to discover the cost of this action.
In defending this legal action the Council has had to employ a solicitor. The costs of this defence will not exceed £2,500, which is one third of the Council’s annual budget. No money has been paid by the Council by way of compensation to Mr Cohen. At the very onset of these proceedings Mr Cohen informed Cllr Gover that the maximum settlement would be £53,000. After the issue of proceedings to the Employment Tribunal by Mr Cohen, ACAS advised our Solicitor that Mr Cohen was prepared to settle for £17000 in compensation which, if he had won at the tribunal, would have had to be raised from the council tax payers in the parish. He then reduced his claim to below £2,000 in the week an agreement brokered by ACAS had to be reached. The Council, confident in the strength of its case refused to accept any claim for compensation or punitive damages.
If no further legal action follows, it is likely that the final cost to the Council of defending Mr Cohen’s case will be around £1,800. If we had not defended it, the parish would be facing a bill of £17,000. Unfortunately this money will have to be funded out of the parish precept next year, so the average cost per household will be about £10.
I have a 100 page document which details every letter and every email which I have sent or received, together with notes of telephone conversations, concerning these matters. I am fully prepared to make this document available to the public. I believe that anybody who reads through this document will clearly see the efforts the Parish Council has made to seek professional advice and to act accordingly. There has been no witch hunt, no kangaroo court and no conspiracy. The Council has acted professionally throughout in the face of an apparently concerted campaign to undermine its credibility.
The Council wishes that the village can now move on from the damaging events of the last few months. Once again we would like to thank Mr Cohen for his years of service as clerk to the council. I would like to publicly thank my colleagues on the Council for their support during what has been a very difficult time. I would like to thank those members of the public who unaware of the full facts behind the Council’s actions nonetheless offered their sympathy and support towards me and my colleagues. I should also thank the Council’s solicitor, Mr Hunter, and colleagues at Craven District Council, North Yorkshire County Council and the Yorkshire Association of Local Councils for their advice throughout this time.
As regular attendees of Parish Council meetings will be aware I received a letter from the Society of Local Council Clerks advising me that I could face action for defamation if I make certain comments in relation to Mr Cohen. Members of the public will therefore forgive me if I refer them back to this statement, which has been checked by a solicitor, rather than answer off-the-cuff questions which may lead me to make inadvertently distressing remarks.