Launceston councillor Alex Folkes, deputy leader of Cornwall Council's Liberal Democrats, had to be made the subject of a liability order before paying his council tax in 2010. The total owed, including costs, was £793.62.
Alex got his first council tax bill on 8th March 2010 and did not pay it. In April he got a reminder - and did not pay that either. In May he got a final reminder, warning him that if he did not pay within seven days the council would seek a summons at the magistrates' court. And Alex still did not pay. On 23rd September Bodmin magistrates issued the liability order which eventually forced payment. It was the second year running that he had to be taken to court to extract his council tax.
The political fall-out from this could be substantial. Can a front-bench councillor, who aspires to the quasi-executive role of Cabinet office, really be taken seriously if he is not much more careful about paying his taxes?
Did the leader of the Liberal Democrats, councillor Jeremy Rowe, know about this? If he did, why did he allow Alex to remain on the front-bench? If he did not know, what does that tell us about the relationship between the leader and his deputy?
Back in October the Falmouth Packet did a good job of following-up its own August exclusive about 17 Cornwall councillors who were late paying their council tax bills. Some members had to be dragged to court to extract payment.
The Packet's list of nearly 50 councillors who have so far voluntarily declared that they HAD paid their tax on time leaves a cloud of suspicion over the remaining 70. We are still waiting for the Information Commission to rule on whether the council can hide behind Data Protection rules to keep the truth secret.
But the Packet's October story triggered a thread of comments which the newspaper bravely allowed to remain on its website. The nudge-nudge-wink-wink "look at Launceston" nature of these comments, with some cheekily suggesting "surely not Alex Folkes?" is becoming a standard way of spreading information in our modern media age.
So late last year I asked Alex about it. He was initially, and most unusually, lost for words. He then said he would neither confirm nor deny the rumours. Taking this as confirmation - but not good enough to satisfy the BBC's lawyers - I resolved to find the evidence.
Thus began a correspondence with officials at the Bodmin magistrates' court, leading on 6th January to my first-ever court appearance to make a formal application for permission to inspect their archives. A week later I found myself alone in a tiny consulting room, surrounded by large box files. There is much more information still to be dug out.
Nevertheless, details of Alex's late payment were there in the public record. Those details had been there for 16 months. And that is one of the reasons why I'm challenging the Information Commission to rule that Cornwall Council's attempt to keep secret the identities of late-paying councillors is nonsense.
For a start, the council's initial announcement put all 123 of its members under suspicion. Pretty unfair, I would have thought.
The council's position is illogical - the information about court summonses is already in the public domain. It is also unfair and discriminatory, because the information is more readily available to individuals and organisations with more time, money and resources than is traditionally associated with small, local media.
The council also claims that as its members pay their taxes (or not) as individuals, they should be afforded the same privacy as the thousands of other late or non-payers. I dispute this. Councillors are not "ordinary" individuals: they make tax-and-spend decisions denied to most of us. If they are in arrears with their taxes, and vote in a budget, they are committing a criminal offence. They ask us to make character judgements at election time. These are all factors which make councillors different - not superhuman, but different - to ordinary individual citizens.
No-one expects councillors, or any other politicians, to be immune from human failings. But if someone seeks election to office in public life they must expect to keep very few secrets.
So far only two councillors, Ann Kerridge and Andrew Wallis, have volunteered the information that they might be among the 17 late-payers declared by the council. Ann missed a payment and was sent a one-month reminder; Andrew was summonsed. Both came on BBC Radio Cornwall to talk about the circumstances and it seems both can face the electorate next year with a clear conscience.
I think it is inevitable that, eventually, the names of all 17 late-paying councillors will be made public. If the council does not publish voluntarily, the Information Commission might rule that it has to. And even if the Commission decides in favour of the council, the political reality is that we live in an age where "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" comments on Twitter, blogs and local newspaper websites will make sure The Truth Is Out There.
More on this on BBC Radio Cornwall later this morning, when you can hear my interview with Alex. With a full council meeting to follow, it could be quite an interesting day.
No comments:
Post a Comment