Cornwall Council defends senior officers' response to confidential email incident
It led to the suspension of the deputy leader from the Lib Dems
Cornwall Council has said that its officers “acted entirely appropriately” in the incident which led to the council’s deputy leader being removed from the Liberal Democrats.
Adam Paynter, who was also leader of the Lib Dems at County Hall, was yesterday revealed to have been suspended by the national party for a year for bringing the party into disrepute.
The sanction was passed after a complaint was made to the party about Cllr Paynter sharing a confidential email sent to him by a colleague to senior officers at the council.
However claims made about how senior officers at the council responded to the email raised questions about whether they behaved appropriately.
The email – sent by former Lib Dem councillor Dulcie Tudor – included comments questioning the openness and transparency of senior council officers including chief executive Kate Kennally.
However Cllr Paynter sent the email onto the officers with a note saying “you didn’t get it from me!”.
Cllr Paynter has since claimed that he had forwarded the email to “help” Cllr Tudor and says that he has apologised for sending on the confidential message.
Cllr Tudor has said that she was “bullied” by the Lib Dems at County Hall with some encouraging her to withdraw her complaint against Cllr Paynter.
And she also said that after the email was shared by Cllr Paynter she was approached by Ms Kennally and told that her role as chair of the council’s strategic planning committee was “inappropriate” due to her lack of trust in senior officers.
Cllr Tudor was also told by the council’s chief legal officer that she could not take part in any discussions or even be in the room when matters relating to the Langarth Garden Village development were being discussed. That decision was challenged by Cllr Tudor and later overturned.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service asked Cornwall Council about the claims made by Cllr Tudor.
We asked whether it was appropriate that senior officers at the council should be questioning councillors’ appointments to committees when that is a role for elected members.
And we asked whether it was right for senior officers to make rulings against councillors which are then overturned.
Lastly we asked whether senior officers should accept confidential emails which have been passed to them by councillors and whether they should have disregarded the email when it was received.
In a statement Cornwall Council said: “During the day to day running of the authority it is routine and entirely proper for senior officers to give advice to councillors, including where any potential conflicts of interest may exist, as well as on other code of conduct issues.
“The council is confident officers have acted entirely appropriately in this case, and the advice provided to members was proper and correct.
“Any complaints about councillors are dealt with by the monitoring officer in a timely and transparent way according to the members’ official code of conduct complaints process.”