Cabinet position held open while guilty councillor appeals - and Standards Board are emasculated

The story in the Liverpool Echo yesterday tells you more or less all you need to know about the latest position with LibDem Councillor Hurst of Wavertree ward, Liverpool.

The Standards Board have elected not to process his case because they say that following the precedent set by the High Court in the case of Ken Livingston, his actions were not made whilst on official duties as a councillor. He was campaigning and electioneering which are apparently unrelated, as is, we must assume, the fact that he was found guilty in a court of law of an offence against the representation of the people act, despite being a representative of the people.

As the Ethical Governance shadow cabinet member I shall be discussing this matter with the Standards Committee and the City Solicitor tomorrow. I shall not discuss the details of this particular case but shall ask what mechanisms are open to us to influence future policy and guidance of the Standards Board so that such precedents are not applied to similar cases in the future. I shall also be asking whether the change of procedure that was introduced a few weeks after Councillor Hurst committed his criminal offence would have achieved a different result if it had been able to be applied.

A much deeper concern to me though is that since Councillor Hurst resigned his position as a Cabinet Member, the remaining 9 members of the Executive have decided to divvy up his work between them and not appoint a successor, pending the outcome of an appeal to Crown Court. They have not been able to furnish me with a list of who will carry out which part of the duties, nor any explanation of why they even have the slack to take on this extra work.

I have not been able to discover how long it might take before a case is heard in Crown Court, but it could easily be months, surely.

Liverpool City Council received 1 star from the Audit Commission - we have not forgotten this, despite the efforts of the Leader and Chief Exec to draw a line under the whole business by failing to mention the star rating ANYWHERE IN THE ENTIRE ANNUAL REPORT (and that is a scandal all on its own) - and yet the post of Cabinet Member for Corporate Performance is held over indefinitely.

So much for Corporate Performance - I see another 1 star on the horizon once the Audit Commission learn that there is no-one actively in charge of

performance management
corporate improvement reviews
business planning
human resources
or health and safety

This is how much this LibDem council really care, they want to hold a place open for a convicted criminal (hoping obviously that he will be cleared by a retrial), rather than appoint someone else to the post.

Unofficially, speaking as a campaigner, and not as a councillor (!) I wonder how much this decision is based on the fact that the 26 people who voted for Warren in the leadership campaign have already been rewarded and there is no appetite to bring anyone else in? Or does he have a dearth of talent to choose from?