Bristol Cllr Zoe Goodman resigns from Labour over Palestine; confidential complaint at full council!
Channel: NOT The BCfm Politics Show, Bristol, UK
Date: 2023-12-13

And to cap it all beleaguered Cabinet member for Housing Tom Renhard, smarting from the Barton House quasi-eviction fiasco, started blurting out his opinion on a confidential current official complaint...

Suzanne Audrey
https://twitter.com/AudreySuzanne

Full Council BCC - Tue12Dec23

12:39 - From a legal perspective none of this complaint should have been allowed to have been discussed in full council and anyone whose speech or comment strayed close to it should have had their microphone switched off and have been warned not to repeat it by the Lord Mayor as chairman.

Complaints need to be dealt with confidentially until a decision is reached and a statement made by the complaint panel. 

Compounding the chaos Marvin the mayor also expressed his specific views on this active complaint, which arguably undermines the impartiality of Bristol City Council's complaint process generally and this complaint specifically.

Ani Stafford-Townsend should be the first to have been informed if a complaint has been lodged against her, by a competent monitoring officer. Then the complainant. They should send an urgent memo to all senior staff encouraging anyone with evidence to come forward to the panel stressing all matters to do with it are confidential, absolutely no public reference except to the fact that the complaint has been lodged by whom, against whom, and a timetable for its completion.

Any reference by councillors or officers to it other than the bare title above risks triggering further complaints.

Not doing this right fosters bitterness, plus the two main people last Tuesday, Goggin and Rees, didn't seem to understand their shared roles in overseeing the council's complaints process.

Any prejudicial comments posted here will be deleted and the commenter blocked.