Where is the Standards Committee Report?
Newham’s Standards Advisory Committee must now rank as the most inept and useless of all the bodies of Newham Council. According to the Newham website, “Newham has set up a Standards Advisory Committee, comprising of five independent people and four councillors”.
It is now ten months since a spat over the Mayor’s (mis)handling of the budget escalated into mutual complaints from both Mayor Fiaz and Cllr Terry Paul.
We had been suspicious that the report would be released in the dead-time, when no-one was around to take an interest. We were cynical. We thought that there was some game-playing going on.
We have now revised that view. Gone is the cynicism. We now believe that the only explanation is that they are the most lazy and inept group of people it is possible to find who are clearly incapable of organizing the proverbial group-consumption of alcohol in an institution dedicated to the production of intoxicants.
How else do you account for the time it has taken to produce a report?
Newham’s own guidance states:
So, was there an investigation? If so, where is the report? Have the committee considered it?
We note that “no documents are available” for this meeting, so we don’t know if the meeting scheduled for the 18th October would have discussed the matter.
It may be that they are waiting for the anniversary and will now publish it in time for Christmas.
These are the members.
Reza Choudhury (Chair)
Julie Van Bussel (Deputy Chair)
Gary Moses
They should hang their heads in collective shame.
If the Labour members won’t press for the report at council, maybe Cllr Keeling will. Or perhaps they should leave it to Cllr Mirza.