Bernard Arscott Speaks

BERNARD Arscott, chairman of Leigh Town Council, has spoken about some of the difficulties faced by the Conservative group since taking control in last May’s elections and his hopes for the future.

Addressing his lack of willingness to share information about the controversial suspension of the Town Clerk, Helen Symmons, and the ongoing Community Centre’s staff grievance procedures, Coun Arscott said: “As people are aware, the staffing issues remain confidential issues.”

He explained that in order to ensure proper and fair hearings in any employment process, it is necessary for those deciding the outcome of any process, in this case councillors, be able to look at any allegation or evidence with out prejudice.

He said: “Just the five members (of the Staffing Committee) met as a whole, saw the evidence, decided a suspension was appropriate for a proper investigation to then take place.

“The outcome of that investigation will then be presented to three councillors who have no prior knowledge and it will be for them to determine the outcome of that process.

“They will make the decision, based on the evidence before them what the outcome is.”

The councillors will not be members of the original staffing committee. They will be councillors who have not been involved in the process and not had previous knowledge of the allegations or the evidence: “therefore allowing them to look at it all brand new and draw a conclusion without any prejudice or risk of prejudice.”

Should an appeal then be made against the decision of that panel, a further panel will be convened, consisting of a further three councillors who have had no previous involvement in the matter. They will then decide whether or not to uphold the decision of the previous panel.

Coun Arscott went on: “We’ve got to make sure that there are not too many people with full knowledge of everything that’s happened and what the issues are, because in that situation there could be a prejudicing of the process, which I know can be quite frustrating, but obviously that’s a sound legal reason and the advice we’ve been given.”

“If there should be any sort of disciplinary panel or appeal panel, then you want to have the maximum number possible (of eligible councillors) to be able to serve on it, to draw three from the maximum number, rather than reducing that number down to being virtually impossible to find a panel of three.”

He added: “We are now at the stage where we’re hoping things should be concluded very very shortly.”

Even when these matters have been concluded, no public statement providing details will be made. He said: “You wouldn’t expect an employer to discuss their employee matters with a third party, that wouldn’t be fair or appropriate.

“It would breach Data Protection regulations and obviously could land any organisation in serious trouble, for discussing or revealing confidential information about a member of staff, so that’s why I’ve had to be very careful about this.”

Regarding the Forensic Audit that was requested by Coun Agdeve at the Full Council meeting in  September last year, Coun Arscott said, “We’re really pleased that it showed that there’s been no fraudulent activity.

“Whilst there has been an expectation from people that it would be more in depth, it has been helpful in that it’s highlighted a number of issues that we need to address going forward and we need to now consider into the next financial year, putting measures to rectify those problems.

“It has also looked at certain other periods. With things like the café, we took that on in January this year, directly from being a private company running separately from the town council. He’s (the auditor) looked at figures from earlier in the year to now. There’s things that have come up and there’s been some pointing out of some issues, nothing suggesting anything untoward, but where they could be improvements to processes.

“That’s been really helpful and going forward that will allow the council to really focus.”

Regarding Coun Agdeve’s original request for a Forensic Audit of the council’s accounts, which has caused considerable upset, Coun Arscott said: “In the first instance there was not actually an allegation of fraud in the way that has been presented.

“Obviously I’ve heard the audio recording that has been supplied to us (and all Leigh Town Councillors), by the Leigh On Sea News and that makes very clear that Coun Agdeve clearly states that he had some concerns over seeing duplication and asked for a forensic audit.” (The recording can be heard by visiting: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SFU8fgo7qQ7FGgqL7 )

“It is interesting to note that Coun Mulroney can be heard to ask if he was making an accusation of fraud, which in itself implies that at that moment even she recognised there was no accusation there, but it’s unfortunate that this has been turned into an accusation and obviously we’re sorry that the staff have felt that they’ve been accused or there has been an accusation made against them.

“There certainly hasn’t been any intention to do that.”

Addressing the challenge that Leigh Town Council should, and always has been, non political, Coun Arscott said: “I know that people have said that it’s not right that the conservative have fielded candidates and it’s (LTC) has always been non political, but the truth is that this has been a legal fiction since the Town Council’s inception.”

He added: “We were quite open and up front before the elections and in fact, I would point out that last year there was a byelection in Highlands Ward, in Leigh and whilst there was only a 13% turn out, 78% of the vote went to Coun Craig Watt, who was the official Conservative party candidate in that election.

“The thing is that the council really reflects probably the majority of electors views in Leigh now and actually in most of those wards the Conservatives would have probably won seats anyway. Theoretically there would have been a majority council (had other candidates stood for election).”

Coun Arscott has been challenged on a number of occasions over Council Minutes not being made available and written responses to questions not being delivered on time.

He explained that the issues regarding the minutes were primarily caused by the Locum Clerk, adding: “There’s no criticism of him it’s just been due to unforeseen circumstances.”

Whilst Coun Arscott, acknowledged that some written responses to questions had been sent later than the seven days he had told people he would respond to them by, he did confirm that: “All responses have now been sent out.” He added: “A few days after the last full council meeting I met with the Locum Clerk and we went through all the answers to the questions that had been sent in and they’ve all received responses.”

Coun Arscott explained that the delay in responding has generally been caused by difficulties in the process, however he confirmed: “Going forward I am confident that where we give a time frame, we will meet that time frame.”

Looking to the future, he spoke about hopes of doing more with the Community Centre, bringing back the Leigh Lights Parade, activities for the Easter and Summer Holiday periods and reinstating some of the other services and events that the Council previously organised. He said: “So, doing the things that the Town Council has been good at in the past and doing them as well as, or better than before.”

Coun Arscott added: “What would be really good is actually to hear from members of the public, to hear what they would like from the town council.”

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