Ok folks get your head around this one! At Dorset Health Scrutiny Meeting last week, part of a campaigner’s (factual) statement was redacted – it related to the Local Gov Ombudsman enquiry about the ‘old’ chair’s voting record (he voted 3 different ways at 3 different meetings (one local, one county, and one cross county) on the same issue in the space of a week – and, yes, you’ve guessed it, on ‘Referral to the Secretary of State!
So, at the meeting we get told that the Monitoring Officer decided to redact this in the absence of a new chair who needed to be voted in and who would then get to decide. And, guess who the committee then voted in as the new chair – yep the ‘old’ chair! One Cllr Bill Pipe.
So the public never got to hear what had been redacted – because the new chair, who was the ‘old’ chair didn’t want facts about himself read out to the public!
You really couldn’t make up this stuff!
Giovanna Lewis
