Apr 2009 07

The Town Hall Rich List of Opaque Councils5

Eye From our Town Hall Rich List you’ll find a number of councils who didn’t comply fully with the Freedom of Information requests we sent them.  You’ll see from the report here that on pages 135-137 we’ve listed the councils who obstructed our requests or just flatly refused to give the information plenty of other councils revealed. These councils don’t seem to realise that our Freedom of Information requests aren’t optional, they are a formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act that they are legally obliged to answer.

Needless to say, we’ll be pursuing each of these cases formally, but we also intend to harness people power to get this rump of secretive authorities to reveal the facts about how taxpayers’ money is spent. You can find below a list of all the councils with the council leader’s (or directly elected Mayor) contact details.  Email them to ask them to become more transparent and stop hiding from us information we have a legal and moral (seeing as we pay their wages) right to know. We’ve already had evidence today that this approach does work – the Leader of Torridge council was shocked by the fact we named and shamed his authority as one of those which had been opaque, and as a result he has got in touch and promised to investigate and release the information. He seems to share the TPA’s belief in transparency (and indeed he has frozen council tax this year) but his council’s officers have decided to be untransparent – perhaps there are others on this list in a similar situation, and your email can persuade them to intervene and make their authority more transparent. Even if some of these council leaders don’t believe in transparent public spending, your email will put them on the spot and remind them that they have a duty to answer to taxpayers.

Here are their contact details:

Bath and North East Somerset – Cllr Francine Haeberling ([email protected])

Bromley – Cllr Stephen Carr ([email protected])

Broxbourne – Cllr Ken Ayling ([email protected])

Camden – Cllr Keith Moffitt ([email protected])

Chelmsford – Cllr Roy Whitehead ([email protected])

Chester – Contact the leader of Cheshire West and Chester Cllr Mike Jones ([email protected])

Chester-le-Street – Contact the leader of Durham County Council Cllr Simon Henig ([email protected])

Enfield – Cllr Michael Rye ([email protected])

Essex – Cllr Lord Hanningfield ([email protected])

Hampshire – Cllr Ken Thornber ([email protected])

Kettering – Cllr James Hakewill ([email protected])

Lewisham – Mayor Sir Steve Bullock ([email protected])

Liverpool – Cllr Warren Bradley ([email protected])

Richmondshire – Cllr Melva Steckles ([email protected])

Runnymede – Cllr John Furey ([email protected])

Shepway – Cllr Robert Bliss (http://www.shepway.gov.uk/webapp/eforms/contact-us.php?to=robert.bliss&subject=Email-via-web-site&intro=contacting-Cllr-Bliss.)

Southwark – Cllr Nick Stanton ([email protected])

Sunderland – Cllr Paul Watson ([email protected])

Thanet – Cllr Sandy Ezekiel ([email protected])

The Vale of Glamorgan – Cllr Gordon Kemp ([email protected])

Torridge – Council leader is now ordering full disclosure

Wansbeck – Contact the leader of Northumberland Council Cllr Jeff Reid ([email protected])

Worcestershire – Cllr Dr. George Lord ([email protected])

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  • Steve Robson

    Talking of opaque, just remind us who bankrolls you and how many millions they earned last year.
    Don’t give us that rubbish about not being relevant as you are not taxpayer funded either. You applaud private sector openness and are seeking to influence a public policy debate in the UK, while almost certainly being funded by genuinely and excessively rich foreign based people. IT IS RELEVANT.

  • Brian Smith

    Steve Robson
    You just don’t get it, do you?
    What people do with their own money, provided it’s within the law, is no one’s business but their own.
    What people, paid by us, do with our money is our concern and we are entitled to know all the details the law provides for us have.
    It’s really not a very difficult concept to grasp.
    PS Explain to me why someone rich and foreign based – and therefore not living or paying tax here – could be bothered to get involved in UK politics or tax affairs? One or two with peculiar agendas perhaps. But generally or in any numbers? I don’t think.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156ea7bde3970c Mike Law

    I note Newham didn’t release the names of the officers; are they not obliged to do so?

  • Steve Robson

    Brian Smith
    No you don’t get it.
    I agree this information should be produced by Council’s and it will be much better to have a standard way of presenting it, so that its much better quality information than the rubbish the TPA produces. And that information is not just rubbish because Council’s give them rubbish, its because the TPA make NO EFFORT to check, verify or standardise the information. The reason for this is that they don’t really care whether the information is accurate, they just care about spin and propaganda.
    But, it DOES ALSO MATTER who funds the TPA. It is relevant. The TPA is dedicated to the destruction of public services. That will mean that people who need those services, people in social care need for example, will end up with NO SERVICES if the TPA succeeds in their quest. We will return to the Victorian era of a low tax economy with those who “fail” left to fend for themselves or in the workhouse. The reality is that many of the people behind that TPA mission, people like Lord Ashcroft, will never ever need those services because they are so rich. We should be told who these people are. In fact, living in Belize, I guess you don’t even need the universal services provided by local authorities, such as environmental services.

  • Brian Smith

    Steve
    I support the TPA because it is dedicated to the reduction in the general level of taxation; a principle I hold dear.
    Nothing I have ever read by them or about them says that they are bent on destroying the public sector.
    If the Labour party hadn’t destroyed the last vestige of public trust in anything they say or statistic they release, the TPA wouldn’t be necessary.
    The idea that any government that spends £600bn a year doesn’t waste some of it is incredible. The simple fact that a homemaker earning £55,000 a year can qualify for tax credits is, equally, incredible and a sign that the transfer payments system within the economy has become grotesque.
    The TPA is legitimate and a useful force within politics and more power to its elbow.