A DATE TO REMEMBER

On May 19th 2006 Freddie Garrity died. To those with a Liverpool background this will have been a day of mourning. But to one particular person with a Liverpool background the date is deeply significant for a very different reason. It was on May 19th 2006 that the disciplinary hearing against the Chief Executive of Somerset County Council was finally decided. He had been forced to face a panel because of a complaint made against him by a female member of staff. This aggrieved individual had an affair with the Chief Executive. She had been employed by the Council enirely on his say so and she was hired as Project Manager for ISIS - the forerunner of SouthWest One. Whatever transpired between them turned sour. By the close of 2005 the lady in question was sent home, sick with stress. But her decision to invoke grievance proceedings against the Chief Executive could not have come at a less convenient time. The Audit Commission was about to conduct its inspection of the County Council - an inspection that resulted in the award of four stars for excellence. Would the Commission have arrived at such a conclusion if the Chief Executive had been forced to face, for the sake of argument, a public industrial tribunal? Alan Jones begged for mercy and continued to protest his innocence. The lady in question left Somerset's employment quietly - her silence encouraged, no doubt, by a severance agreement finally settled in June 2006. She was paid over £140,000. I know these things because I was there, and I was (as I still am) the County's Section 151 officer. There is much more to be said and there are documents to prove it.