This week’s edition of the local paper, the MDA, contains various statements/ opinion pieces regarding the Ombudsmans report about Teignbridge Councils’ mishandling of a standards case brought against a councillor, C’llr Richard Daws. I have a piece printed, but the editor, as is his absolute right, edited it. Here is the unedited version.

Teignbridge Council was recently criticised by the Ombudsman for the way in which it dealt with allegations regarding a Newton Says No (NSN) councillor, C’llr Richard Daws.
As soon as the ruling was announced current council Leader Alan Connett issued a full apology and called a special Full Council meeting to make the apology as public as possible and also to put in place necessary changes to the procedures of the council, to ensure there is no repetition of the procedural errors for which Teignbridge was quite rightly found guilty.
The vast majority of the councillors present supported the recommendations, and I am confident procedures will be corrected as a priority.
It is worthwhile however considering how these issues arose in the first place.
It should be remembered that the Ombudsman only criticised the council’s procedures; it made no comment on the merits of Cllr Daws’s alleged behaviour which had resulted in Teignbridge Council taking him to the Standards Committee in the first place. Newton Says No do not want those matters revisited, and of course, some of us understand why. So, cast your mind back 4 years and this group (NSN) were starting their campaign to, as I and others recall they said, “destroy” Teignbridge Council. Their campaign was based around the intention of stopping the proposed NA3 development and “…the Local Plan must be revised…we mean hung, drawn, quartered, torn apart by horses, it’s head put on a spike outside Asda and the remains thrown into a plague pit with the careers of the people who devised it.” Some may remember a web page devoted to singularly rude and offensive personal attacks on council officers, family members and some councillors. This vile web page remained in place for a long time, either side of the elections of May 2019, despite requests to remove it. The 3 NSN cllrs, completely failed to stop NA3 (The Conservative Secretary of State approved the Planning Application, contrary to the Council’s wishes). Neither was the Local Plan (a legally necessary document) ripped up. In other words, they failed in their stated objectives.
The NSN councillors got off to a bad start, and things only got worse. As council Leader at the time, I received numerous complaints regarding their treatment of officers. Claims were made to me of alleged bullying and harassment, by both Cllr Daws and Cllr Mullone. These complaints were taken up and brought to the Standards Committee. A case was brought to the committee and the big mistake of the officers was that no written evidence was provided by those making the complaints, a fundamental error for which Teignbridge was rightly criticized, and judgements were made without that necessary written evidence. That was wholly wrong. It should be stressed that the council apologised for this and other administrative, and procedural errors, nothing more, nothing less. I can guarantee those procedures will be corrected very quickly. Abusive behaviour towards anyone is simply unacceptable in my book, particularly when directed at those who are unable to respond.
Let me state the obvious. I believe it is absolutely right that councillors should question and probe officers, that is the democratic duty of elected members, to represent the interests of their residents. Officers should respect the policy-making duties of councillors. There exists a balance between open debate/free speech on the one hand and rude and offensive behaviour on the other. In all walks of life we should be mindful of that, but some clearly overstep the mark. NSN appear to treat ill manners, abusive behaviour and angry outbursts as a badge of honour. This is hardly surprising as their 2019 election literature stated “We promise we wont behave”. In my opinion, they too should be offering apologies to the many officers and councillors their abusive language and behaviour has offended. I am not holding my breath!
Come May a new council will be elected, and my sincere hope is that lessons will have been learned on all sides and there will be a greater effort from certain quarters to work constructively for the common good. As a young and inexperienced teacher, I was given a piece of advice by a senior member of staff who was I suppose my mentor. “Always remember, “he said, “that you win more with sugar than you do with vinegar” Far too much vinegar has been spilt in the last 4 years. Some in the current council would do well to remember that. Show some respect and basic good manners and you may gain and earn the same, and in so doing actually achieve something for those you are supposed to represent.

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