Letter: Is Guildford Borough Council Beyond Effective Scrutiny?

Published on: 31 Jul, 2015
Updated on: 31 Jul, 2015

From George Dokimakis

Following on from my experience of the previous full council meeting at Guildford Borough Council (GBC), I decided to attend the extraordinary full council meeting, held last Tuesday, July 29.

Once again, I was struck by and surprised at the behaviour of the Executive committee and how the council is run. There is an overwhelming sense of entitlement; it seems almost feudal.

The council talks about transparency and engaging the public but unless the public is really committed to participate and are approved of, they are not able to.

It is true that members of the public can put questions to the council. But, understandably, such questions must be put forward a week before the meeting to allow for researched answers to be given.

However, the meeting agenda is not published until the same deadline day for questions, so it is impossible to read the agenda and then submit questions about it. How can this be?

The public, who pays for this council through taxes, is not given a chance to properly engage. It seems to be yet another instance where GBC is saying one thing, claiming openness and transparency, but doing something different.

When someone does try to scrutinise the council and its behaviour, the Conservative tribe appears to put party first and protect their own.

This extraordinary meeting was partly about governance and how the council is to be governed going forward. A lot of work had been done by a cross-party committee to create a new governance model and the committee had, after due consideration, rejected both the elected mayor and committee systems for Guildford.

Yet, the disgraced convicted forger and proven liar, former Conservative councillor Monica Juneja, is organising a petition, commenced while she was still a councillor, to have a referendum for an elected mayor system in Guildford. If such a system is introduced by referendum we will be stuck with it for at least ten years.

One can only guess as to why she would run such a petition in light of the governance work carried out by cross-party committee at the council, work that had already been initiated and of which she must have been aware.

Is she personally motivated? Surely she cannot expect to be elected given her recent criminal track record? But if she is not ambitious for herself then who? No prizes there, I am afraid.

Cllr Gunning (Lab, Stoke) was the one at the meeting brave enough to ask the obvious question. The Guildford Dragon article: Council Leader Challenged On His Connection With Mayoral Petition captures, extremely well, the exchange.

Cllr Mansbridge’s ongoing association with Ms Juneja is well known: he seems to see no problem with it; does not appear to care how it might affect GBC’s reputation even though it has made the national press (Private Eye 26/6/2015, Rotten Boroughs column).

There are valid questions about the funding of this petition, as well as Cllr Mansbridge’s involvement, yet the council leader sees no need to clearly and unequivocally deny the speculation, or do the honourable thing and step aside to protect the council’s reputation.

His answer to Cllr Gunning: “Irrelevant and no,” only raises more questions. What exactly did he consider irrelevant and what was he saying no to?

Predictably we then witnessed some Conservative councillors, instinctively rather than with any thought, rallying to protect one of their own.

Appropriately perhaps, in a town where Lewis Carroll did some of his writing, Cllr Rooth (Con, Tillingbourne) seems to prefer life behind the looking glass and continues his refusal to recognise the reputational damage that the leader’s behaviour is causing, even claiming personalised comments were inappropriate, just minutes before his leader made a few of his own.

Cllr Mansbridge’s unsubstantiated allegations against Cllr Parker were unseemly. If Cllr Mansbridge has documented evidence that Cllr Parker has engaged with Private Eye to discredit him, as he claims, let us all see the evidence. She emphatically denied it. Allegations made this way are just slurs.

I am surprised that the Mayor of Guildford, chairing the meeting, allows such behaviour.

It seems to me that that Cllr Mansbridge and his Executive consider themselves to be beyond scrutiny, beyond criticism even. Questioners can expect indignation rather than straightforward answers.

Unless we all force them to change their ways and their attitudes, the next four years will not be kind to Guildford and its people. So it is imperative that everyone starts getting involved, starts to question the council’s behaviour and starts to help our local democracy transcend party politics.

It is time for all of us to change Guildford for the better; we can’t rely on the council.

George Dokimakis is a member of the Labour Party.

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