Yep, you read it here first. On the 18th of November last year to be precise. Our beloved council's' legal beagle Harvey Patterson is off to pastures new.
The story was splashed all over the front of Friday's Isle of Thanet Gazunder. Harvey's departure is part of a shake-up that will see The Duffers' Chief Exec, Dr Sue McGonigal, relinquish some of her power, but not any of her £100K+ per year salary. As I wrote at the time: '(Harvey's departure) could mark the start of an admin shake-up at Duffer Central'. We've yet to be told whether Harve'll be collecting any dosh as he passes 'Go'.
You know, it's hard being so right all the time. But I do it all for you, my dear readers!
Click here to read my exclusive scoop from last November.
Click here to read The Gazunder's story, which came out two months later.
19 comments:
One step closer to a new order. I always liked Harvey. He was did all tdcs wet work. I have also heard some stuff about other finance heads who may be leaving. And did you see clives piece, asking for everyone to leave the poor bin man alan alone. Never a dull moment
"Illegal activities implications guidelines
That is an example of a guideline. Section 2 is the relevant bit.
TDC doesn't have a policy or guideline.
But they do have a legal officer whose job it is to advise them about this sort of stuff (law)
Harvey explained some time ago that he refused to search TDC records because if he did so and found evidence of crime he would be under no statutory duty to report it.
Which in essence means "I won't look for crime in case I find it and have to do nothing about it"
TBH I thought no one would possibly think that position is rational. But I overlooked the ubiquitous Simon Moores. He apparently understood it right up to the moment he was asked to explain it.
To extend Harvey the opportunity to explain (if there is an explanation) there is a current FOI to TDC.
I think it is only fair to wait now for him to respond.
Relevant bit of law
38B Information about acts of terrorism
(1)This section applies where a person has information which he knows or believes might be of material assistance—
(a)in preventing the commission by another person of an act of terrorism, or
(b)in securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of another person, in the United Kingdom, for an offence involving the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.
(2)The person commits an offence if he does not disclose the information as soon as reasonably practicable in accordance with subsection (3).
(3)Disclosure is in accordance with this subsection if it is made—
(a)in England and Wales, to a constable,
(b)in Scotland, to a constable, or
(c)in Northern Ireland, to a constable or a member of Her Majesty’s forces.
(4)It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (2) to prove that he had a reasonable excuse for not making the disclosure.
(5)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—
(a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, or to a fine or to both, or
(b)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both.
(6)Proceedings for an offence under this section may be taken, and the offence may for the purposes of those proceedings be treated as having been committed, in any place where the person to be charged is or has at any time been since he first knew or believed that the information might be of material assistance as mentioned in subsection (1).]
That, Harvey, looks like a statutory duty to report ?
Who else could that apply to ?
Perhaps Michael Child can think of someone ?
Terrible murder read all about it
The murder victim was a property developer with business interests in off shore tax havens.
A man I think called Graeme West was convicted of the killing.
But the linkie should be about the conviction, re assisting, that resulted from inquiries in the bodyguard live fire training world re the supply of the assassination weapons.
If by any chance you publish that. I can nip off and fetch a couple of linkies about your show bizz chums Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie.
I venture to suggest Mr All Seeing Dick that the wrong person may have been axed. I get the feeling that Mr P is the fall guy for the sins of other incompetents
So 1993 Donald Urquhart shot. He was a property developer with hi9s business interests largely in offshore tax havens.
The DI (guv) and his trustee sergeant (skip) head to the Croydon area to check out the murky world of bodyguard training.
Skip "Someone's gotta say it Guv. Brinks Matt"
DI "Never mind all that. Here are some murky world of bodyguard training brochures but have a butchers at this"
Skip "This appears to be a training course brochure for a prestigious organisation the International Law Enforcement Training Agency. Formed by an SAS man James Shortt and involving a copper Brian Ware"
They hadn't got a crystal ball and could not have known that 16 years later ECR's Private Eye team would expose Shortt as bogus ex SAS and cause Brian Ware to stand down as Head of Cabinet Bunker Security.
You may think that given the excellent work of Private Eye the two organisations International Bodyguard Assn and International Law Enforcement Training Agency would have gone into obscurity.
Well no here we have the prestigious Mid Kent College course
As far as I know the trainees gain qualifications validated by ILETA !
And the course tutor is a Mr Brian Ware
And the course offers a real life assignment. Guarding the annual Russian Summer Ball. A high society annual function in the smoke which actually appears to have been invented by James Shortt founder of IBA and ILETA.
Bodyguard trainees, probably not knowing that then ball organiser is a long term associate of the course tutor, may recall of recent times something of a kerfuffle.
Which James Shortt briefly described on his Facebook page. Where He described the kerfuffling guest as "Yet another self appointed guardian of the empire" who appears to have been loudly advocating genocide as a solution to the Irish problem.
This kerfuffling guest was none other than an adult leader of Thanet's very own private cadet group Kent Adventure Training Corps. (KCC Youth Group affiliation status withdrawn 2003 one complainant Rick)
It is not known how long the self appointed KATC guardian of empire may have held his strong feelings about Irish people.
But forensic psychology points its finger at the 1995 TDC elections. In which Irish upstart Mrs Johnson took the ward off existing Cllr George Maison (Tory/Kent Adventure Training Corps/Roger Gale support)
After the 1995 TDC elections a hatemail campaign targetted Iris Johnson. One line she quoted "We know how to deal with the Irish"
Poor Iris the Gazette letters page, Mike Pearce editor, even published a letter describing her as "The true pornography"
Mike is now retired and is self appointed custodian of ethical blogging standards in Thanet. Which is akin to Dracula retiring and becoming visiting Bishop to the Blood Bank.
This sort of unpleasantness after the 95 election was the context in which HM Coroner Rebecca Cobb allegedly asked senior Thanet CID to re-open a sudden death case of a woman 1978. The suicide verdict looking a bit suspect.
In 1996 unpleasantness extended to assault. A combat suited man attacking elderly Cllr Margaret Mortlock on her doorstep.
She had then recently issued libel action naming four tory cllrs including Martin Wise and George Maison (Tory/Kent Adventure Training Corps/Roger Gale support) For legal reasons only one could answer and that became George. His selection as libel action target coinciding with his elevation to Vice Chairman North Thanet Tory Assn.
Which brings us to the present day and our PCC. She had been on the Police Authority when the poor history of Thanet policing (In the above unpleasantness) was covered up (Such as the CID refusing HM Coroner request to re-open a sudden death case of a woman 1978)
Our PCC determined that she would never be dragged into another poor police response to Thanet hatemail campaigns. Then along came our Hammy ..............
That's enough
We don't need to be told whether Mr Patterson will receive a payout, as the Gazette article says his post is to be deleted so he will receive a fat redundancy payment.
Lord knows how much longer this taxpayer ripoff into the hands of departing senior executives at TDC is going to be allowed to re-occur over and over again as McGonigal with basically the same set of functions required in a (crap) council keeps reallocating these same tasks so that every five minutes we're paying megabucks for redundancies when overall the same tasks remain.
More to the point will be the confidentiality agreement which means the truth about various recent failures will be lanced and sealed off before they are investigated.
Why has nobody noticed that with McGonigal losing her statutory S151/Finance role, which was originally her job and core function, surely she is the redundant one.
Will the previous chief executive Mr Samuel be returning the £173000 it cost to pay him off in that faked up redundancy, or will McGonigal pay it as like Transeuropa it was her idea?
Hmmm. After all that info from Irritating Bloke, my crystal balls have gone a bit cloudy.
Harvey - like Sandy - does look to be the scapegoat. Macgonigal needs to go and we need a review of who has been paid what especially the Moores 0% fraud, Pleasaurama and Manston monitors/fines and Infratil/Glaog pollution we the taxpayer will be paying.
And many of our children and grandchildren will be paying the cancer cost that could/should have been prevented by Infratil and TDC.
FFS.
FCS: For Cancer's Sake surely ECR?
Here is a model, for illustrative purposes only, of the Duffer Central way.
You are the Chief Executive of a council with say eight departments which we shall call A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H. Each has a manager post called 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 respectively.
First Restructure – make 1 redundant, take on responsibility for A yourself and boost your own pay.
Second Restructure – you think the post-holder of 2 is a bit of a trouble maker so make him redundant by creating a new post managing B&C and your friend 3 is the successful applicunt, oops.
Third Restructure – 4 has been involved in some high profile problem areas which you should carry the can for, so agree early retirement with him for efficiency of the service and combine the roles of 4 and 5, and your chum in 5 gets the post. Create another new post 2b to be hand picked by you to do the work that 3 didn’t really have a clue about for dept 2, but don’t cut her pay.
Fourth Restructure – change the responsibility for D and E so that E now goes with F. Pay off 5 with a nice redundancy, create a new post 4b to manage D, while 6 takes on E and F.
And so it goes on until you are made an offer you can’t refuse and the cycle starts all over again, you get the general idea.
This is the way restructure and “redundancy” is used to pump up pay, remove undesirables, reward friends, put incompetents in charge, create chaos, engender fear, silence dissent, lower morale, and to protect the queen bee by making changes to suit your empire and not the council tax payers.
Dear Psychic Dick please can you tell me the winner of the 2.15 at Kempton tomorrow? and while you are at it please give me the winning lottery numbers for Tuesday.
It's good he's leaving, but why did they employ him in the first place? It seems that they are now clearing out the officers they brought in to replace the officers they got rid of (at great expense) only a few years ago. In their place they are putting the likes of Madeleine Homer and Mark Seed and neither of these individuals fills me with confidence.
TDC's ability to recruit the right staff seems to be lacking somewhat. Even a simple google would tell them a thing or two.
They paid a pretty penny for their cheeseburger or was it a hamberger and another few thousands more down the drain.
and our glorious (just so busy)elected councillors sit around and watch as another consultant appears out of the mist. just how much dosh do they have to waste. come on theres fifty odd councillors at least fifteen can think,(I heard that anyway)kick a**e or resign.
maybe someone can help me out here whos the t****r in charge of waste collection. Im waiting a week for a call from MR LAWES, whos he? is he a newbe? the phone aint rang. no surprise there then ???????
That's the trouble with remaining anonymous 7:20, no-one knows how to call you!
Post a Comment