Agenda item

Public Question Time (15 minutes)

To receive any questions from members of the public provided that a question does not relate to:

 

·       Matters which are the subject of current or pending legal proceedings, or

·       Matters relating to employees or former employees of the Council or comments in respect of individual Council Officers

 

 

If you would like to ask a question at this meeting, please contact democratic.services@gloucester.gov.uk as soon as possible and by Wednesday 9 September at the latest.

Minutes:

19.1    A member of the public elected for the following three questions (to the Chair) to be read out by an officer on her behalf:

 

          Can you confirm that there will be a public announcement of clarification, concerning the response to your question to the former Leader of the City Council at the O&S meeting on 10th March 2020?   The minutes of that meeting state that "Councillor Wilson queried whether Councillor James had read the internal audit report in 2017 which followed on from the 2014 whistleblowing allegations. Councillor James advised that it had not been brought to his attention at the time."  This response has subsequently been proven to be completely untrue.  Cllr Watkins confirmed in the Council meeting on 9th July 2020, that the former Leader was in fact made aware of the audit report.  This has been further backed up in an email provided under a FOI request that clearly shows the former Leader was copied into an email concerning the Internal Audit Report.

 

19.2    The Chair responded that the communications referred to were now in the public domain and that any member of the public could draw their own conclusions from them.

 

19.3    The second question was:

 

Please could you confirm whether you agree with the stance being taken by both the Managing Director and Audit Risk Assurance?  This is in respect of whether information and documentation from a whistleblowing case, correctly raised under Gloucester City Council's Whistleblowing Policy should have been destroyed in spite of the fact this was contrary to both the Whistleblowing Policy and the Document Retention Policy.  It has been stated that the information did not need to be retained because the Whistleblowing case was about Marketing Gloucester, a company 100% owned by Gloucester City Council.  Where in the policy was this stated, as it should be noted that at every other stage in the process, the Council's Whistleblowing Policy was strictly adhered to as confirmed in an email from the Head of Paid Service at the time.

 

19.4      The Chair responded that his view was that the documents should have been retained. He noted that some Members had attempted to retrieve the documents but had been unable to do so.  He also stated his belief that the Whistleblowing Policy should have encompassed those employed by Marketing Gloucester. In respect of a possible review of the policy, the Chair stated that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee recommended in March that a review should be undertaken. He confirmed that the review was in progress and hoped that it would conclude in December 2020.

 

19.5      The  third question was:

 

Please could you confirm whether a review is planned of the Council's Complaints Policy?  The current policy states that a complaint will be acknowledged in one working day.  From recent experience this KPI is not being met.  A recent complaint submitted to the Council was only acknowledged after querying why no acknowledgement had been received after five working days.

 

19.6      The Chair stated that he was unsure if a review of the complaints policy was imminent. He noted that such a review was in the Audit Plan but was being postponed until next year due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. He noted that the policy did state that the target response time to acknowledge a complaint was one day and that this was done through an automated receipt system and that the complaint in question should have been acknowledged. In respect of the associated KPIs, the Chair stated that performance would be followed up.