More apologies made over Sheffield street tree scandal to protesters who faced court action
The report said that all the protests and campaigning activity were legal.
Sheffield City Council has had to issue more apologies over the street tree scandal to protesters who were threatened with being taken to the high court for their actions.
An independent report by law firm VWV investigated formal complaints made by four residents who faced injunction proceedings for their part in protests to stop the felling of thousands of street trees. Another nine protesters gave undertakings to the council as a result of being targeted for legal action.
The report said that all the protests and campaigning activity were legal.
A meeting of the council’s finance and performance policy committee yesterday (July 21) heard from chief operating officer Claire Taylor that all the recommendations and actions proposed by the VWV report have been fully accepted.
Committee chair Coun Zahira Naz said: “Before we begin discussing the report formally, I want to acknowledge the seriousness of what we are about to consider.
“This investigation lays bare a difficult and painful chapter in the council’s recent history. It confirms what many residents have long felt during the street trees dispute, that mistakes were made that had a lasting impact on individuals and trust in this council.
“The way legal action was taken and how complaints were handled did not meet the standards that the public rightly expect from public bodies. As chair of the finance committee, I recognise that this is not just about historic decisions, it’s also about how we manage risk, ensure oversight and build the culture of transparency and accountability moving forward.
“The reputational, financial and human cost of poor decision-making is clear. This report makes it clear that simply an apology is not enough – the apology must be sincere, personal and followed by meaningful change.”
Coun Naz thanked the complainants who pursued the issue “with courage and persistence” and thanked VWV for their “clear and frank” findings.
She added: “It is now on us as councillors, officers and leaders to demonstrate that we listened, understood and are committed to doing better.” Coun Naz welcomed the report’s findings and said that a serious discussion must take place to strengthen the council and rebuild public confidence.
The issue will also be discussed by the strategy and resources committee in September. It will hear an update on the apology-making process.
The report said that the council decided in 2017 to threaten protesters they considered “the main protagonists” with high court action unless they gave wide-ranging undertakings that they would not take part in direct action to stop the tree-felling programme.
The four complained in 2021 when questions to the council revealed further information. The report said that the council made little response, other than to decide the complaints would be dealt with by Sir Mark Lowcock’s inquiry into the street tree scandal.
However, the inquiry team said that it lay outside the scope of what they were investigating.
The VWV report concluded the council must “issue full and complete apologies to each of the complainants from the chief executive of the council. This will need to incorporate the apologies post Lowcock Inquiry, that had not been accepted by the complainants and in accordance with the perimeters set within the strategy and resources committee in respect of apologies.
“In addition these apologies must also cover the issues identified in this report
around decision making, heavy handedness and failure to deal with the complaints in an appropriate way.
“These apologies must reflect the individual complainants and their part in the many years of this dispute where they have persisted for the ‘right’ thing to be done, despite the obstacles placed in their way by the council.”
It said the council must also “consider how to demonstrate, in an open and transparent way, acceptance, compliance and accountability of these recommendations”.
The report concluded that legal staff must be “the voice of constructive challenge and role models of good governance – specifically in the context of this investigation to raise and escalate poor/ill-conceived instructions requiring the taking of legal action”.
Coun Douglas Johnson said the scale of the issue was difficult to comprehend, four years on from the establishment of the Lowcock Inquiry.
He said: “In a way it’s encouraging when you think of how badly you can run a council and you can look on the bright side of how well things are going now. But there is that really long-running saga and at the centre of it are people, including the four people referred to here, who have really been in the thick of it for years and years and years.
“It’s obviously been a really personal toll.”
Coun Johnson criticised the government for wanting to impose the cabinet system of council decision-making which was rejected by the people of Sheffield in a referendum following the street tree scandal.
Coun Martin Phipps said the report shows that “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. He said that in a situation of no overall political control and a committee system in place, it was far less likely that the council would give the go-ahead to an injunction.
Coun Andrew Sangar spoke about “the deeply sorry situation from the council where the council’s political and officer leadership refused to listen to objectors and ended up where we are, first with the Lowcock Inquiry and now complaints with the legal process, and from a corporate reputatiom point of view the council is now known for the tree saga and probably will for the next 10 years.”
He said it was disappointing that the report had come to the committee before all the complainants had responded to the council offer of an apology. Coun Sangar said he was still concerned about when officers, particularly legal officers, get things wrong and whether the recommendations go far enough to prevent a similar situation happening again.
He said that the protesters had faced legal costs of up to £1 million, which prevented them from going to court to challenge the council.
One of the complainants, who was unnamed, spoke briefly. She said the report referred to a “verbal culture” in the council and said the decision to take out the injunction proceedings was not recorded as a key decision and was made without records.
She asked: “Can we be assured that there is more of a written culture now is the council and such key decisions could not be made by one individual behind closed doors?”
Coun Naz said that there needs to be a clearer process of documenting why decisions were made and if advice was ignored or misused.
Legal counsel David Hollis said the concept of key decisions belongs to an executive system, when there needs to be advance notice that you are taking such decisions and publish them. He said: “It wasn’t taken as a key decision but it was fully recorded.
“It wasn’t a verbal thing but it was fully documented. It just was not notified in advance and was not published. That would have been the key decision requirement but that would be the same.”
He added: “That decision wasn’t taken in isolation, it was the culmination of a lot of things that had gone and was taken under the strategy that the council was pursuing at the time.”