Councillors seek government help to repair fractured member-officer relationships after senior member was jailed

 Senior East Devon councillors have asked communities secretary Michael Gove to help the authority recover from the fall out from a historic case of paedophilia.

In a letter to the minister, the councillors said the way this was dealt with in the council “is affecting our ability to ensure that the council provides proper safeguarding for all vulnerable residents.

“The failure to resolve this issue properly is exacerbating corrosive relationships between the controlling partnership of councillors and staff which is proving difficult to resolve.”

It was signed by leader Paul Arnott, chair Eleanor Rylance and senior councillors Paul Hayward, Eileen Wragg and Sam Hawkins, all their capacities as members rather than as a formal letter from the authority.

Former councillor John Humphreys - who had been made an honorary alderman - was in August 2021 found guilty of seven counts of indecent assault and three counts of buggery against two boys aged between 12 and 15 at the time of the offences. He was jailed for 21 years.

The letter told Mr Gove: “I am writing to you but more particularly to your officials, to bring you up to date with concerns that elected members have about the running of the council.”

It said the council had commissioned a report by investigative firm Verita and “we are writing to you at this point because the Local Government Association (LGA) conference is occurring early in July, and we would like to take the opportunity meet up with your senior staff who will be present at the conference to discuss the proposals that councillors are making to redress the problems and move forward”.

Both the LGA and the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS) had advised East Devon and the council now wanted an LGA corporate peer challenge to review its member/officer protocol, communications strategy, procedural standing orders and safeguarding strategies.

East Devon will also ask the CfGS to review its scrutiny processes to ensure that the cabinet and officers “are fully held to account in the preparation of strategies” and that a suite of performance indicators is put in place “to ensure that service delivery can be scrutinised by councillors and the public and modifications made to service delivery by a due process of review”

The letter also asked for LGA mentors for Cllr Arnott and other leading cabinet members and for “work to bring together the cabinet and senior management to become a unified team”.

A council statement said the letter had been sent by a number of councillors and “we won’t be providing further comment at this time”.

Mark Smulian