Nub News takes a close look at Hadleigh town council's investigation into alleged failures by the staffing sub committee during an appointment process and the subsequent refusal of panel members to be open and transparent about their findings and refusal to take questions from fellow councillors.

The independent review of Hadleigh Town Council's process to recruit a Town Council Manager in December 2020/January 2021 has reached its conclusion with questions still left unanswered and a frustrated councillor's resignation.

 After a whistleblower passed a recording of the interviews to Hadleigh Nub News, it was confirmed that a member of the interview panel had declared a prejudice against armed forces veterans stating, after an interview with a candidate with significant military experience: 

"I've got to admit to having a terrible prejudice…Tendring had a lot of people who used to retire from the army, who worked for the Council and some of them…I spent a year getting rid of them…I had one who worked for me and he was [unclear] for about 5 years and then it became an absolute nightmare, but…that's my experience of the military…and sometimes they can be a bit jobsworth…"  

Cllr Knock began a lengthy campaign with his colleagues, calling for an independent investigation, and found himself up against the District's Monitoring Officer and the County Advisory body, who both advised against the council undertaking an investigation, citing cost. Cllr Knock made the case for an internal investigation and this was agreed at a full council meeting earlier this year, after almost a full year of fighting for it.

Concerns were raised not only about the prejudice against veterans, but also:

-recording the proceedings without permission

-a councillor taking delivery of a household appliance during an interview and 

-the panel discussing what to do about the internal candidate if they employed someone else

Rolf Beggerow recorded process without interviewees knowledge

 Hadleigh Nub News understands that at least two interviewees have said that they were not advised that their interviews would be recorded, why and how the recordings would be used and when they would be destroyed. 

One went on to say: "I was disappointed not to be offered the position initially, as I was told and believed that I had lost out to a better candidate. I later found out that was not the case. I was also disappointed that the council, who advertise as Armed Forces Champions seem to have some councillors who are the opposite of that.

"Had I found out at the time, I would have taken said councillor to complaints and a tribunal, but time for that had past by the time I became aware of the recording.'

Hadleigh Nub News has also seen a recording of a member of the recruitment panel conduct all interviews with his camera off and stating that he wouldn't be able to ask questions of one interviewee while he took delivery of an appliance, and could others do that for him while he would be on mute.

Gavin Talbot took delivery of domestic appliance mid interview

The review panel's report is available on the Hadleigh town council website. It makes several recommendations in line with ACAS guidance for recruitment. None of the recommendations appear to tackle the issues of prejudice, protocol for conducting oneself while interviewing or making recordings of interviews and safe handling of them.

The review panel conceded that there may have been bias towards the internal/inhouse candidate who was given the job. However, the review panel report says: "It should be noted that the selected candidate was an Armed Forces Veteran so negating the allegation that a bias against Armed Forces Veterans."

Hadleigh Nub News understands the successful candidate's miliary experience was relatively short compared to the candidate that provoked the interview panel member's comments. It is also not clear that whether the successful candidate had included their military experience on their application form or CV, with the review panel saying: "It was common knowledge amongst councillors who visited the office on a regular basis that the successful candidate was a military veteran."

Bill Wilson refuses to allow suitable scrutiny

Supplementary questions to the review panel were at first not allowed in an extraordinary move by the council to only 'note' the report. Panel members refused to take questions in the meeting but later agreed to consider questions put to them in writing. Their answers are now available on the Hadleigh Town Council website. The review panel appear to have relied heavily on the word of the recruitment panel members who were under scrutiny for the list of failings above.

The long delay in agreeing to and concluding the investigations meant that the findings were not in time to have some impact on subsequent recruitment processes, with councillors deciding to delegate authority for agreeing employment terms to the staffing subcommittee. Some of the councillors who were on the original interview panel, including the councillor who expressed their prejudice against veterans, are members of the staffing sub-committee.

While Cllrs Knock and Wiltshire offered their considerable experience and time to the review panel, an all male and middle aged panel of Cllrs Gower, Loftus and Wilson were elected instead, one of whom, we understand, may have had no councillor training. 

Deputy Mayor Wilson and the council have persisted in reporting back to their colleagues via motions which are 'to note' their findings, conclusions and recommendations, rather than 'consider' them, stating that these documents are not for discussion, and preventing councillors from questioning the report in meetings, some going so far as to vote to move on to the next item.