A former Cheshire East leader has asked why councillors were not informed of reports the council is being investigated by police, writes Belinda Ryan.
Audlem Cllr Rachel Bailey (pictured) referred to a story in the Congleton Chronicle which stated police were investigating accusations of misconduct in public office at the council.
Cheshire Police confirmed to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) an allegation is being reviewed but said there is no criminal investigation at this stage.
A police spokesperson said: “We have received a complaint in relation to an allegation of misconduct and are currently looking into the matter.”
The issue was brought to the attention of the audit and governance committee yesterday (Monday), initially by Cllr Liz Wardlaw at the beginning of the meeting.
The LDRS cannot give a verbatim report of what she said as that part of the meeting did not appear on the council’s livestream because the audio wasn’t working.
At the time of writing, the audio recording is still unavailable.
But Cllr Bailey insisted on re-visiting the issue towards the end of the meeting, saying the council should have a process in place to deal with such matters and councillors should be informed.
She said: “I’ve been surprised that nothing has come through updating members of council as to whether this report from a resident in the paper is the case or not.
“The silence of this council, in my opinion, is a real risk to reputation.
“I think we really need to understand what it is and what the council’s actions will be, or whether or not there is a police investigation.”
Cllr Bailey said she believed the allegation related to matters raised in the recent peer challenge report.
Bollington Cllr Ken Edwards said he wasn’t sure it was the audit and governance committee’s responsibility to deal with “individual issues that emerge in particular newspapers”.
But he added: “I agree with [Cllr Bailey], absolutely there should be a method for dealing with these sorts of matters, but I’m not sure it should be the audit and governance committee.”
Interim monitoring officer Janet Witkowski told the meeting: “I think the position is we [council] haven’t been contacted by police about any matter at this stage.”
Committee chair Cllr Michael Beanland said he wasn’t sure what the allegation was.
“So, if we haven’t had any contact, there’s nothing to report yet is there?” he said.
He said audit and governance should be made aware of it though.
Wilmslow Cllr Chris Hilliard said: “I’d just like to remind everyone that it is quite easy to make a report to the police and then write a letter in to a newspaper and have it printed.”
Cllr Judy Snowball agreed.
“Having spent 20 years working as a criminal defence solicitor, I know that it is very easy indeed to make a report to the police and, of course, reports should be made to the police for investigation,” said Cllr Snowball.
“I also know how very, very many of them are either not proceeded with because there is absolutely nothing to them originally or are proceeded with and then are no further actioned.
“So, I would suggest that we do proceed with caution until we know a bit more about this, since we don’t know anything at all, from what I can gather in this committee.”
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