The recently revived
Bob Piper (by which I mean his blog has been revived, rather than him...although...) has an excellent
POST on the uselessness of the Standards Board for England. Rather brave of him really, seeing as my good friend David Davies has made a complaint to the Board about Bob. I very much hope this will be among the first quangos culled when the revolution comes.
His position is consistent - he's always hated the concept of the organisation. I had a chat with someone on the Standards Board at party conference and wasn't overly impressed. A quick look over their website gave me no further insight into the process by which they work. You could be forgiven for thinking they are making it up as they went along. Unless someone has another way to enlighten us, maybe you can try to arrange an interview with someone from the Standards Board to try to explain how they work.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that some councillors do break rules and there needs to be some organisation to do this. However, the SBE is awful.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think MP's like your friend David Davies should leave well alone. It looks like blatant political point scoring of the worst kind.
Norfolk Blogger, the 'organisation' is called the electorate...
ReplyDeleteBut I agree on the last point.
Oh I absolutely agree it has been misused constantly as was foreseen at the inception of the sorry affair parasite. The worst thing I notice is that after endless expensive deliberations the board always seesm to conclude it was worth investigating leaving a tang of guilt where there was none
ReplyDeleteNB - If certain blog commenters on sites such as LabourHome and Bob's site itself, followed their words with actions then Liberal and Labour Party members also reported Mr Piper.
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard Piper was giving up his blog, I wrote to him, saying, "Good riddance and fuck off".
ReplyDeleteAnd he wrote back, "No, you fuck off".
Now what kind of language is that from an elected councillor?
I totally agree. The electorate and of course the ward committees who select candidates should be the judge of elected members, not some unelected quango. It is certainly used for political point scoring. Scrap it and put the money into something remotely useful.
ReplyDeleteWhilst we're at it, time to scrap the Audit Commission. Out of interest who audits the performance of that?!!
I've worked for the SBE and prague tory's impression that they make it up as they go along is precisely correct. It is a politicised joke.
ReplyDeleteThere is a perfectly adequate mechanism for removing defective councillors - the electorate. The only exception should be for actions where the councillor has committed a criminal offence - for which current legislation would suffice.
ReplyDeleteIf a councillor is merely offensive, then that should be a matter for the electorate to decide.
I don't normally respond to anons, but I wander whether anon thinks that these guys are corruptable. And if so, what's the going rate?
ReplyDeletePrague Tory, Not corruptable but, like Bill Clinton, just want to "make everyone happy". Think Ken Livingstone and the Council for British Jews. Previous high court case law was clear that while you may think his comments offensive, not a breach of his Code of Conduct-and, in any event, his human right.
ReplyDeleteThis this stop the SBE? Ha!
Most cases are party political bun fights (one councillor or former councillor complaining about another). Handbags.
But expensive handbags rolled out by people would can't take a decision to save their lives without a barrister and two management consultants onboard.
Toothless, aribtrary and wet.
Iain, I dare you to get one of their Ethical Standards Officers (judge, jury and executioner) on the settee!
I hate the double standards in it all. A Councillor cannot get involved in matters where he has an interest for fear of the Standards Board, yet MPs are free to do as they see fit (as long as they declare).
ReplyDeleteI have been referred to the SBE 5 times, all of them politically motivated and none of them investigated. the problem is that there is never any come back on the person who made the referral and 9 times out of 10 the referral is accompanied with a detailed press release which generates negative publicity for someone that is totally innocent.
I suspect the failure of the SBE to protect individuals from malicious and political referrals is a Human Rights issue - but that is another piece of legislation I don't like.