Stage 1 Complaint to Shepway District Council Against Refusal of Call-In Request on Cabinet Member Decision

http://www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaintPlease accept this as a formal complaint on the process and decision made to fail to accept the call-in of the decision (officially dated 29th September) of the Cabinet Member for Transport on the Sandgate East Parking Zone. I understand that I should exhaust your complaints procedure before taking up my issue with the Local Government Ombudsman http://www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint

The decision to proceed despite 96% of the 342 respondents to the statutory consultation on the scheme being against it (329 out of 342) seems to me completely unacceptable and perverse, and at odds with the process used by Kent Highways Authority who have confirmed to me there would be no way they would proceed with a TRO scheme with that level of objection without at the least referring it back to Councillors to decide. However, as I understand the decision was made by a Councillor, and that the complaint procedure cannot be used against Councillors according to your guidance, I will address this complaint instead to the action of Officers in refusing a call-in request for Scrutiny of the decision.

I have already sent a series of correspondence to the Chief Executive Alistair Stewart, his deputy Jeremy Chambers and other officers regarding the content of the report itself including errors and omissions, and have had only partial replies to those messages.

For example, an email reply from Andy Blaszkowiwicz on 10 October attempts (unsuccessfully) to address some points, but states "Amandeep Khroud will reply to your points raised concerning legal advice and scrutiny.". I have had no correspondence from her at all to date, despite that assurance.

I would like that correspondence, and the responses given and not given, reviewed as part of this complaint. Please do let me know of Mr Stewart and Mr Chambers cannot supply you with copies for your review.

However, the new element of my complaint regards the process that lead to Alistair Stewart's email to me at 15:44 on 10 October saying "Sorry, but there has been no "call in" of the decision and I have asked for said decision to be implemented."

Although the report and decision notice claim to have been published on 29th September, they were not available or published on the Shepway Council website prior to Monday 3rd October.

A notification of the publication of both purports to have been sent by email from Modern Gov on behalf of Sue Lewis on 29 September 2016 at 13:36, but the link in that email to "Decision details on Public website" (http://www.shepway.gov.uk/moderngov/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?id=1472&LLL=0) did not work until late on Monday 3rd October, and nor was the decision or report and appendices searchable on that site until late on the Monday.

As such, given the lack of availability of the report, a closing date and time of 5pm on Friday 7th October as originally written is clearly unreasonable and should have been extended. Councillor Gary Fuller requested an extension to the deadline by Twitter on Wednesday 5th October, after advising them on Monday 3rd the link wasn't working, and only receiving confirmation from them on Wednesday 5th that the system was now working.

Indeed, on Monday 10th October, I was advised by Sue Lewis of Democratic Services by phone that the deadline had been extended, accepting that the report had not been available online due to a new server being installed which had affected the operation of Mod.Gov and promising to call me back to advise me of the status of the call-in request. I had no such call back either before or after Mr Stewart's email.

Previously, on Tuesday 4th October I emailed and spoke to Sandgate & West Folkestone District Councillor (and Chairman of Shepway District Council) Jan Holben who confirmed to me that she had "called-in" the decision. I was concerned at that time that she could not do so having read through the most recent version of the constitution on Call-in procedure Part 7-12 of the Council Constitution (http://www.shepway.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/s19916/Part%207%20-%20Overview%20and%20Scrutiny%20Rules%20and%20Procedures%20updated%209%20June%202016.pdf) and researched the required form and areas that the call-in request must cover (as described in section 3.1 of Part 7-12) and advised her so.

Further to that, I called Sue Lewis in Democratic Services on Wednesday 5th October, who confirmed with me that Cllr Holben had not (as she could not) "called-in" the decision, and that my understanding of the constitution was correct, that it required three members of the overview and Scrutiny Committee to call it in. In order to assist them in that process, I emailed all members of that committee (copy attached) including details of the areas required to cover in their call-in.

By noon on Wednesday 10th October, I received replies to my emails from three members of Overview and Scrutiny (Cllrs Gane, Goddard and Jeffrey) telling me they had "Called-in" the decision. I called Sue Lewis at Democratic Services again to confirm, and she confirmed to me verbally that the three requests had been received, and that the call-in request was now being considered by the Head of Paid Service. I requested to be kept updated on the progress of the call-in, to which Sue Lewis agreed.

I believe that it is clear that the intent to call-in the decision to Overview and Scrutiny was clear, and that if the initial requests to the Council by those Councillors required additional information it was the responsibility of the council to request that additional detail before the expiry of any deadline and give those Councillors time to respond. I believe the detail given in my emails to them would have been more than sufficient to justify a call-in under the constitution. I therefore complain both about the non-acceptance of the call-in by the Head of Paid Service, and that the deadline for call-in was not extended despite the non-availability of the decision and supporting report via the Council website until the close of business on Monday 5th.

I would like this decision reviewed urgently, and would be happy to accept an apology, immediate halt on the implementation of this decision, and the consideration of the decision itself by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee suitable remedy to this complaint.