AFQ        Lies, damn lies, and Nottingham City Council

I am writing this essay on Mon 23 October 2006.  Recently there seems to be a culture of telling porkies in the Council.  The chairman of the local Residents' Association complains that he has often got on to a particular Council official to complain about some aspect of this estate.  He has been listened to with seeming courtesy and a promise that "I'll look into it and call you back".  Three days' later no return call  has occurred.  I call that "lying".  The Council erk has simply forgotten about the call and has got on with other things.  When called again about a week later, an affectation of surprise is the response, as if "you didn't really expect me to call you, did you?"

But in another area, the Council seems to be much more purposeful in its obfuscation.  A local gentleman who at one time worked for the United Nations as an investigator searching out statistics that a government wished to hide from the world, decided to investigate the actions of the Council regarding the transfer of school land within the Wollaton Park area.  Dr Bowbrick suspected that there was a plan to build a road across the Deerpark.  How he came to the suspicion was not disclosed in the Nottingham Evening Post, but the Council, for reasons best known to themselves, decided that to release information under The Freedom of Information Act, would not suit their purpose.

There are a lot of details that I don't know, but some porkies were told saying that no data on the subject was held.  The Post had a wonderful phrase "they didn't know who they were dealing with".  The good doctor got information from somewhere and did a bit of Sherlock-Holmes work on that data.  When the Council issued a Refusal Notice saying that further data was not held, our sleuth appealed to the Information Commissioner and presented evidence that showed that the statement simply was not true.

The Tribunal issued a typical Civil Service statement saying that "they were dismayed at the way the request had been handled, and at the conduct of the Council".  "The Council appears to have misled Dr Bowbrick and the Information Commissioner".  The doctor was awarded costs at the measly sum of £9.25 per hour of his work in preparing the appeal and the hearing.

The County Court is involved in deciding the eventual costs.  But the good doctor wanted the Tribunal to exercise its powers and put the matter before the High Court where Criminal sanctions could be applied.

Dr Bowbrick said to the Evening Post that this is the sort of behaviour one would expect in West Africa.  Lies, and refusal to give information, followed by dribs and drabs of data being released as sparingly as possible

I am waiting in anticipation of the political fallout that will ensue.  The Tories and the Lib Dems have a beautiful stick with which to beat the Council.  I suspect we have not heard the last of this sorry tale.  Dr Bowbrick still believes that the Council is holding something back.  I remember a lot of years ago that a Tory MP on the Isle of Wight was caught doing something similar, and at the next election the people who were until then the most reliable of Conservative voters, put a Lib Dem into office.  To have put a Labour man into office would have been more serious than putting a bomb on a Red Funnel ferry.

The most sorry aspect of this story is that it is certain that the costs of the cover-up will be born by the Council Tax Payer.  Current legislation does not permit action to taken to recover money from the real perpetrator.

One thing the Post did say was that Dr Bowbrick had left the area.  He is obviously attached to this neck of the woods to take so much trouble about a local amenity, why would he get up and leave after his success at showing up the Council misdeeds?  I, as a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracist, may have an answer.  Being familiar with West Africa, the good doctor may have had it in mind the way that political troublemakers are handled in that part of the world.  And he may have considered that in suburbs like St Annes, it would probably not be too difficult to find a contractor who was willing to arrange an unfortunate accident for a modest fee.  And we taxpayers would probably have contributed to that exercise too.

Watch this space !

For my source, refer to the Nottingham Evening Post 20 October 2006 Page 10.