This week: no transport money for Somerset, Glastonbury Life Factory update, the analogue switch off, a resident is declared not a nuisance after all, Yeovil takes on more and rural policing...
Good for Mr Orr (and Mr Rigby). The standard, defensive attitude of so many local government employees merely tends to confirm that they have something to hide.
David Orr here. Grateful for the investigative and forensic reporting work that Andrew Lee and James Garrett carry out.
Re my alleged "large volumes of communication" by the Council:
In a well-run Council with the work completed to a good, professional standard, the answers to my specific service questions should be readily to hand and not require additional effort.
I would say that around two-thirds of all communications are down to the Council either not answering a reasonable enquiry requiring multiple follow-ups or partially answering or giving answers that raise further questions.
One example: A local planning application in Taunton South was missing information and was maladministered in a number of ways. Emails to my two Division Councillors didn't fix it. Emails to the Planning West Committee Chair didn't fix it either. An email to the Executive Councillor for Planning was passed to Education to obtain key missing information. When I followed up politely 3 weeks later, this chain of failure was counted against me as "unreasonable". When the Council counts up all the emails, the demand failure is huge, but isn't attributable to me but rather to not resolving issues quickly at the first point of contact. This simple planning portal/maladministration issue took 8 months to finally resolve!
If you don't believe me, then please read this public domain investigation report from Executive Councillor Mike Rigby from November 2024:
From: Cllr Mike Rigby
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2024 13:42
To: Duncan Sharkey; David Clark; Maria Christofi; Alyn Jones; Chris Hall
Cc: Executive Lead Members
Subject: MR ORR
All,
I have continued to be copied into a long stream of emails between the council and Mr Orr. Many of these now seem to be as a direct response of the way in which we have handled his enquiries and subsequent complaints.
In order to try to reach a resolution, I have taken it upon myself to meet Mr Orr and work through the issues.
As far as I can see, his recent communications with the council largely centre on 3 key issues, as follows:
1. - The abandonment of the planned new school for Killams, Taunton;
2. - The justification for additional, significant increase in Adult Social Care budget for 2025-27;
3. - The council’s policy on nutrient neutrality;
I have done a little research into these three issues:
Issue 1: The Killams School.
A new residential development was approved some years ago, by Taunton Deane Borough Council. The circumstances of the consent were controversial in that the council claimed, in permitting the development, that the then call for sites rendered the existing local plan silent and that the application could be approved despite the fact that it was not designated in the local plan and that the site was in a green wedge. The council apparently took legal advice to support that position. The legal advice was apparently verbal only and recorded in the council solicitor’s day book. On request, it could not be produced and had apparently been ‘lost’. That application was passed by the TDBC Planning Committee by a margin of 2 votes. Key to its passing was the promise of a new school. Mr Orr, who until recently lived in that ward of the council, was concerned that the recent decision to abandon the planned school appeared to have been taken without any public consultation or member oversight. Further, the planning application to drop the school and replace it with a care home was lodged with no educational information to support the decision to drop the planned school. Mr Orr requested that that information be provided before the application was determined and that the consultation period be reset from the date that that information was received by the planning department. The agreed to do this and then failed to do it.
My consideration of the issue:
That there is local suspicion around the original decision on this development is not surprising given the handling of the original application as outlined above. Mr Orr’s request for the pupil stats to support the planning application to remove the planned school seems entirely reasonable. It is disappointing that the council did not deliver on our agreement to provide the information and extend the consultation period.
Issue 2: The increased Adult Social Care budget for 2025-27.
Mr Orr has suggested that the council undertakes external assurance of the 69% increase forecast in the Adult Social Care budget for 2025-27. Given that inflation has fallen significantly, he has been concerned that the proposed increase may not have been made on a sound basis and that overbudgeting could lead to the council cutting frontline services unnecessarily. I have picked up this issue with the s151 officer who effectively agrees that the budget forecast is too high; she has already removed £16m from the non-contractual inflation budget for Adult Social Care. One wonders whether that is the end of the overbudgeting. [Note: Another £21m was removed from the Adult Social Care budget for 2025/26]
My consideration of the issue:
While we may not have had to resort to external assurance of the Adult Social Care budget, it is clear that Mr Orr’s concerns were well-founded in that the s151 Officer has begun examining the Adult Social Care budget and has already discovered that non-contractual inflation was excessively provided for, to the tune of £16m.
Issue 3: The council’s policy on Nutrient Neutrality.
For the sake of brevity, I do not intend to restate the details of the issue here but we will all be aware that Mr Orr disagrees with the council’s policy on nutrient neutrality. He has written on a number of occasions making various points and asking for information on this issue. He often copies me into his correspondence on the issue but I cannot be sure that I have seen the entirety of it. What I have seen appears to raise reasonable issues and questions. Issues and questions that have caused sufficient concern at the council that further legal advice on the subject is now being sought.
My consideration of the issue:
On the basis of the emails that I have seen, Mr Orr has asked a lot of questions on this subject. Given that the council is taking further legal advice on the issues that he has raised, it would appear that there does indeed remain doubt about the policy route that the council has chosen to follow in response to the position taken by Natural England. I share Mr Orr’s doubts as do many members of the council.
Poorly maintained pathway. In addition to the above three issues, I am also aware that Mr Orr has asked questions about the lack of maintenance on a footpath/cycleway that runs north-south near Richard Huish College. He asked his local councillor to ensure that it was maintained and she approached council officers and was told that the college had refused to co-operate in providing access to land to improve the drainage. Mr Orr then contacted the college directly, which claimed that they had had no contact from the council on this issue at all and were as keen as Mr Orr to see the issue resolved. This complaint was not formally recorded. As a result of Mr Orr’s intervention, RHC has given up the land required to improve the drainage and a decade-long problem has now been fixed. This correspondence has also been held up as evidence of Mr Orr’s unreasonableness.
In the spring, a week after asking some particularly difficult questions on the issue of nutrient neutrality, the council decided to designate him under the unreasonable customer policy. After some discussion, the CEO eventually wrote to Mr Orr agreeing that, despite what the letter to him had said, we in fact had NOT designated him as an unreasonable customer.
In September, we tried again to designate his as unreasonable, writing to him to tell him so. At the same time the council wrote to all members to tell him that he was unreasonable but using the statutory wording for a vexatious complainant; quite different from ‘unreasonable’. This separate letter to all members was also shared with thousands of staff. Given that the wording of that letter was manifestly unfair – not only can the council not demonstrate that he is vexatious we can’t even show that he is unreasonable – Mr Orr is understandably unhappy.
Conclusion: Mr Orr asks difficult, some might say, awkward questions. I have observed that a standard way of dealing with this is for the council to provide partial responses, skating over the parts that are either most awkward or embarrassing. The resulting need for Mr Orr to follow-up with additional emails requesting the missing information is annoying and unhelpful to the customer. It is also unhelpful to a council that is short of resources and is a good example of failure demand.
In my view, Mr Orr has justification in all three of the issues that he is raising with the council. Rather than seeking means to silence him, the council ought to be thanking him for his interventions.
Proposed resolution: That we accept that the unreasonable customer policy has been incorrectly applied, withdraw his designation as unreasonable and confirm that to him and all councillors, in writing.
As far as I can see, Mr Orr has a very good case for a successful complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman. Please can we now bring this unfortunate matter to a close, avoid the LGO complaint and agree the proposed resolution above. And learn how to manage better the expectations of engaged citizens.
Best, Mike
Mike Rigby
Councillor, Lydeard Division
Executive Lead - Economic Development, Planning & Assets
Good for Mr Orr (and Mr Rigby). The standard, defensive attitude of so many local government employees merely tends to confirm that they have something to hide.
So still no station for Somerton or Langport, very disappointing.
But sadly not very surprising
David Orr here. Grateful for the investigative and forensic reporting work that Andrew Lee and James Garrett carry out.
Re my alleged "large volumes of communication" by the Council:
In a well-run Council with the work completed to a good, professional standard, the answers to my specific service questions should be readily to hand and not require additional effort.
I would say that around two-thirds of all communications are down to the Council either not answering a reasonable enquiry requiring multiple follow-ups or partially answering or giving answers that raise further questions.
One example: A local planning application in Taunton South was missing information and was maladministered in a number of ways. Emails to my two Division Councillors didn't fix it. Emails to the Planning West Committee Chair didn't fix it either. An email to the Executive Councillor for Planning was passed to Education to obtain key missing information. When I followed up politely 3 weeks later, this chain of failure was counted against me as "unreasonable". When the Council counts up all the emails, the demand failure is huge, but isn't attributable to me but rather to not resolving issues quickly at the first point of contact. This simple planning portal/maladministration issue took 8 months to finally resolve!
If you don't believe me, then please read this public domain investigation report from Executive Councillor Mike Rigby from November 2024:
From: Cllr Mike Rigby
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2024 13:42
To: Duncan Sharkey; David Clark; Maria Christofi; Alyn Jones; Chris Hall
Cc: Executive Lead Members
Subject: MR ORR
All,
I have continued to be copied into a long stream of emails between the council and Mr Orr. Many of these now seem to be as a direct response of the way in which we have handled his enquiries and subsequent complaints.
In order to try to reach a resolution, I have taken it upon myself to meet Mr Orr and work through the issues.
As far as I can see, his recent communications with the council largely centre on 3 key issues, as follows:
1. - The abandonment of the planned new school for Killams, Taunton;
2. - The justification for additional, significant increase in Adult Social Care budget for 2025-27;
3. - The council’s policy on nutrient neutrality;
I have done a little research into these three issues:
Issue 1: The Killams School.
A new residential development was approved some years ago, by Taunton Deane Borough Council. The circumstances of the consent were controversial in that the council claimed, in permitting the development, that the then call for sites rendered the existing local plan silent and that the application could be approved despite the fact that it was not designated in the local plan and that the site was in a green wedge. The council apparently took legal advice to support that position. The legal advice was apparently verbal only and recorded in the council solicitor’s day book. On request, it could not be produced and had apparently been ‘lost’. That application was passed by the TDBC Planning Committee by a margin of 2 votes. Key to its passing was the promise of a new school. Mr Orr, who until recently lived in that ward of the council, was concerned that the recent decision to abandon the planned school appeared to have been taken without any public consultation or member oversight. Further, the planning application to drop the school and replace it with a care home was lodged with no educational information to support the decision to drop the planned school. Mr Orr requested that that information be provided before the application was determined and that the consultation period be reset from the date that that information was received by the planning department. The agreed to do this and then failed to do it.
My consideration of the issue:
That there is local suspicion around the original decision on this development is not surprising given the handling of the original application as outlined above. Mr Orr’s request for the pupil stats to support the planning application to remove the planned school seems entirely reasonable. It is disappointing that the council did not deliver on our agreement to provide the information and extend the consultation period.
Issue 2: The increased Adult Social Care budget for 2025-27.
Mr Orr has suggested that the council undertakes external assurance of the 69% increase forecast in the Adult Social Care budget for 2025-27. Given that inflation has fallen significantly, he has been concerned that the proposed increase may not have been made on a sound basis and that overbudgeting could lead to the council cutting frontline services unnecessarily. I have picked up this issue with the s151 officer who effectively agrees that the budget forecast is too high; she has already removed £16m from the non-contractual inflation budget for Adult Social Care. One wonders whether that is the end of the overbudgeting. [Note: Another £21m was removed from the Adult Social Care budget for 2025/26]
My consideration of the issue:
While we may not have had to resort to external assurance of the Adult Social Care budget, it is clear that Mr Orr’s concerns were well-founded in that the s151 Officer has begun examining the Adult Social Care budget and has already discovered that non-contractual inflation was excessively provided for, to the tune of £16m.
Issue 3: The council’s policy on Nutrient Neutrality.
For the sake of brevity, I do not intend to restate the details of the issue here but we will all be aware that Mr Orr disagrees with the council’s policy on nutrient neutrality. He has written on a number of occasions making various points and asking for information on this issue. He often copies me into his correspondence on the issue but I cannot be sure that I have seen the entirety of it. What I have seen appears to raise reasonable issues and questions. Issues and questions that have caused sufficient concern at the council that further legal advice on the subject is now being sought.
My consideration of the issue:
On the basis of the emails that I have seen, Mr Orr has asked a lot of questions on this subject. Given that the council is taking further legal advice on the issues that he has raised, it would appear that there does indeed remain doubt about the policy route that the council has chosen to follow in response to the position taken by Natural England. I share Mr Orr’s doubts as do many members of the council.
Poorly maintained pathway. In addition to the above three issues, I am also aware that Mr Orr has asked questions about the lack of maintenance on a footpath/cycleway that runs north-south near Richard Huish College. He asked his local councillor to ensure that it was maintained and she approached council officers and was told that the college had refused to co-operate in providing access to land to improve the drainage. Mr Orr then contacted the college directly, which claimed that they had had no contact from the council on this issue at all and were as keen as Mr Orr to see the issue resolved. This complaint was not formally recorded. As a result of Mr Orr’s intervention, RHC has given up the land required to improve the drainage and a decade-long problem has now been fixed. This correspondence has also been held up as evidence of Mr Orr’s unreasonableness.
In the spring, a week after asking some particularly difficult questions on the issue of nutrient neutrality, the council decided to designate him under the unreasonable customer policy. After some discussion, the CEO eventually wrote to Mr Orr agreeing that, despite what the letter to him had said, we in fact had NOT designated him as an unreasonable customer.
In September, we tried again to designate his as unreasonable, writing to him to tell him so. At the same time the council wrote to all members to tell him that he was unreasonable but using the statutory wording for a vexatious complainant; quite different from ‘unreasonable’. This separate letter to all members was also shared with thousands of staff. Given that the wording of that letter was manifestly unfair – not only can the council not demonstrate that he is vexatious we can’t even show that he is unreasonable – Mr Orr is understandably unhappy.
Conclusion: Mr Orr asks difficult, some might say, awkward questions. I have observed that a standard way of dealing with this is for the council to provide partial responses, skating over the parts that are either most awkward or embarrassing. The resulting need for Mr Orr to follow-up with additional emails requesting the missing information is annoying and unhelpful to the customer. It is also unhelpful to a council that is short of resources and is a good example of failure demand.
In my view, Mr Orr has justification in all three of the issues that he is raising with the council. Rather than seeking means to silence him, the council ought to be thanking him for his interventions.
Proposed resolution: That we accept that the unreasonable customer policy has been incorrectly applied, withdraw his designation as unreasonable and confirm that to him and all councillors, in writing.
As far as I can see, Mr Orr has a very good case for a successful complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman. Please can we now bring this unfortunate matter to a close, avoid the LGO complaint and agree the proposed resolution above. And learn how to manage better the expectations of engaged citizens.
Best, Mike
Mike Rigby
Councillor, Lydeard Division
Executive Lead - Economic Development, Planning & Assets
Somerset Council, County Hall, Taunton, TA1 4DY