BRENTWOOD: We just want the answers

By nhoodless

BRENTWOOD Borough Council has refused to hand over details of its staff salary rates and councillors' expenses after we discovered one senior contractor was being paid £1,200 a day.

What's more, despite being ordered by the Audit Commission to allow public access to its books, deeds, contracts, bills and receipts, the authority has repeatedly refused.

It comes after we revealed in September how the council's temporary finance director was paid £12,000 a month, and how another senior official left the council with a £330,000 payoff.

When we then discovered last month that an interim customer services director had also been paid a reported £1,200 daily rate, we asked Brentwood council to comment.

Council leader Louise McKinlay said: "Brentwood council has been using the expertise of an external consultant for the past 6 months to improve services to the borough.

"The contract for the consultant was held by Essex County Council and Brentwood Council. This meant the total cost to Brentwood for the 6 month contract was £16,800, with Essex County Council paying the remainder of the bill for services undertaken for them."

Essex County Council refused to comment further.

Further requests to leaf through documents since the council itself posted a public notice in the Gazette, on August 19, confirming that from September 2 to September 30 any person may inspect the accounts for the council for the year ending March 31 2009 as well as its books, deeds, contracts, bills vouchers and receipts, were then repeatedly ignored.

The public inspection period is set in order to provide members of the public with the opportunity to inspect and even challenge the council's accounts.

Some of the information we requested included salary rates for senior managers, details of councillors' expenses, money spent on entertainment, all material relating to revenue generated by parking fees and fines, and all costs relating to company cars, the mayor's chauffeur, taxis and fuel.

Mark Wallace from the Tax Payers' Alliance has labelled the gagging disgraceful.

He said: "It's disgraceful that councils are keeping secrets from taxpayers about how they are spending our money.

"They seem to have forgotten they are our servants.

"That means they are accountable to us.

"Brentwood is far from alone. A number of councils are less than enthusiastic about transparency and it's about time they leant this is an old fashioned and unacceptable attitude to take."

A spokesman for the Audit Commission said many of the items asked for should be on the internet. On the detail of revealing senior contractors rates he added: "There is no reason that that should be exempt."

This week the council passed a motion that "in the continued pursuit of greater transparency, Brentwood Borough Council will publish details of members' interests, and any hospitality worth more than £25 that individuals receive" on the internet so that it is available for public viewing.

Do you think the council should reveal how public money is spent? Or do you have your own questions for the authority? Let us know via editorial@gazettenews.co.uk or call the news team 01245 603408.