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More dodgy politicians
No surprise, really.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9921344/Councillors-for-hire-who-give-firms-planning-advice.html
Councillors across the country are offering themselves for hire to property developers who are hoping to take advantage of relaxed planning laws which come into effect within weeks, a Daily Telegraph investigation reveals on Monday.
Local government politicians are trading on their inside knowledge of the planning system to receive fees of up to £20,000 for advice on how to get developments approved, it can be disclosed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9921344/Councillors-for-hire-who-give-firms-planning-advice.html
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Is it something that's only just started then or is it something that in one way or another has been going on under various governments and local governments.
Its much more than that.
It was inevitable with our entire political class.
Policies come and go, the people in power exploiting those policies for personal profit is the constant.
If you read Private Eye you will see they have been up to this caper for years.
Agreed...this is just a more blatant/professional way of doing it.
I spent 12 years as a senior local governement officer in 4 different LA's...for 99% of the time 99% of the councillors I dealt with were utterly scrupulous.
However not a single year went by when I, a colleague or a Chief Officer in one department or other did not "warn off" an elected member for their behaviour/conflict of interest in one shape or form.
The worst case I recall was a senior councillor in the majority group of a County Council who somehow managed to have a couple of junior staff in one department working for part of their time on issues that related only to local District Council matters (where he was Chairman) and his personal/private commercial interests.
I've also called out one of my Parish council colleagues who thought it was okay for him to be present while we discussed a planning application on land just happened to be owned by his son...:D
And probably the biggest revolved around T. Dan Smith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Dan_Smith
In the Google article you'll see the name Sidney Sporle who later went on to appear in court in the Shirley Porter gerrymandering case having previously been jailed for corruption in the early seventies and involving the very same building type for which Dan Smith was jailed. Though Smith was a Labour councillor operating in a Labour council, it wasn't just Labour councillors or councils who were responsible for having these high and low-rise monstrosities erected. Somewhere in the Google article you will see the names Harold Wilson and George Brown.
It has ever been rife and though in many cases the bad boys may have been the minority, many councillors and council officers were aware of what was going on and did nothing to stop it.
I was involved in a case where I was interviewed by the police. When the interview was over, I mentioned that I had information concerning another case in which some very senior people (not all councillors) were involved. The police said they were only investigating the case in hand and wouldn't ask me for the information I had, they also never offered to alert anyone of the additional case.
So what DID you do about it?
In the first case for which I gave a statement, the councillor was jailed for 15 months and disqualified from public office.
Interestingly (or not) it was my phonecall to the monitoring officer that precipitated bringing the police in.
In the other case, I sought to get support from councillors who were aware of what had gone on but found no support.
Just as a rider, I wasn't and never have been a councillor.
Interesting.
And neither was I a councillor until I ceased to be in "politically restricted posts" ...and the only "politics" in our parish council tend to about where we place the dog poo bins
And the micro-pothole that's outside my house when no one else has one. I actually knew a few parish councillors that I wouldn't trust with even a pothole.
Tender comes up for bin collection....council wins the contract....head of the environment division gets a pay rise because he has additional people working directly for his department....because of parity clause in employment contracts of departmental upper levels, they all qualify for a pay rise. What looked like a saving of a few thousand pounds become a gain for top officers and a loss for the council overall.
No doubt it has gone on for years but it is this government who has changed planning laws to allow much easier and less exacting standards for planning laws. So now we have the sharks already in the pool being given free reign to help out those that pay them enough and nothing to stop their behaviour any more. It's the Tory way...
It has happened under various administrations, not just here but abroad. This new Tory idea, assuming it's being correctly reported, will, perhaps, make it more legal, but it won't seriously change the level of honesty or dishonesty that's existed for years at all levels.