Review criticises ex-leader for exceeding authority in bins dispute

The Leader of Birmingham City Council at the time of a long-running waste management dispute in 2017 did not have the authority by himself to make an agreement with the UNITE union that was contained in an ACAS press release about a purported settlement, a review carried out by law firm VWV has found.

In response Cllr John Clancy described the report as “utter nonsense from start to finish”.

After the dispute was finally concluded, the city council asked VWV to consider whether appropriate and lawful processes were followed in reaching and approving an agreement to end the industrial action, purportedly made on 15 August 2017.

The review did not seek to consider operational issues that led to the dispute.

The conclusions reached by VWV were:

  1. Cllr Clancy did not have the authority or power to enter into an agreement as set out in the ACAS statement made on 15 August 2017. This statement announced the retention of the Grade 3 posts and subsequent suspension of industrial action.
  2. At the “informal” meeting of Cabinet on 18 August 2017, the purported ratification of the agreement had no effect as it had no power to make such a decision.
  3. The council needed to consider how it commissioned the obtaining of a second legal opinion.
  4. The council failed to accept the “norms of decision making” and that day to day governance of how a council ought to be run was, in 2017, "missing/distorted".
  5. The council needed to consider whether there were grounds for bringing action against a member for both misconduct and misfeasance in public office.
  6. Member/officer protocols ought to be reviewed.
  7. There might be potential breaches of the Councillor’s Code of Conduct which the council needed to consider.
  8. Following the Kerslake report in 2014, issues still remained in 2017 around governance.

In a statement the council said that it had, since April 2018, made a series of improvements to its Corporate Governance plan to address these issues which was monitored monthly by the Birmingham Independent Improvement Panel and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

“The council has considered the findings of the review and obtained advice from an independent QC on any potential civil or criminal proceedings. They have advised there is no merit in either being pursued,” it said.

“However, the matter has been referred to the independent chair of the council’s Standards Committee for them to consider and decide if any further action is necessary.”

Robert Connelly, Deputy Monitoring Officer for Birmingham City Council, said: “We are absolutely committed to learning from what happened during the summer of 2017 and we have already put a range of measures in place to make our governance and decision making more robust.

“We have already reviewed and revised our elected member induction programme - with the new one rolled out for councillors elected in May 2018. In addition, our member development programme is being improved as part of a four-year plan, and the findings of this independent review will be built into that process.”

Connelly added: “We are also committed that officers themselves learn these lessons and we are looking at how these findings can be built into their development.

“Going forward the council is in a much better place, as both elected members and officers seek to provide the best possible services for citizens – which must always continue to be our overriding collective aim.”

Responding on Twitter, Cllr Clancy, who refused to take part in the review, said the report was “utter nonsense from start to finish” and “a whitewash”.

He insisted that he had acted appropriately and with full legal powers throughout the dispute. He also claimed a failure by officers to carry out his instructions “and to frustrate them politically and administratively” was unlawful and actionable.

Cllr Clancy said he would giving his own full report in the new year.

The VWV report can be accessed here.