The original story of council housing officers kicking elderly people out of their houses and then moving in council staff at much reduced rents was covered in some depth all over the blogosphere and we now have the pay-off. Kristine Reeves has been dismissed,
as is good and proper although no doubt she'll start bleating about how
she should get a bloody great big pay-off, even though she has been
proven to be incompetent, corrupt and deceitful, because, well, that's
what happens in the Public Sector isn't it? Senior Managers who aren't
up to it get paid off and move on to destroy another Public Sector
Department.
Interestingly there's another player in this story,
Suzanne McBride, the former 'Strategic Director' and line manager for
Kristine Reeves who was made redundant before the story broke. I'm
assuming she'd been redundant for some time (in its purest sense -
sitting around with fuck all to do) before she was shown the door. Anyhow she stands by the decision and says:
“With
hindsight I should have taken the decision formally to elected members
so there would be a clear audit trail of the discussion [. . .] There
was full, open and frank discussion. I recall a meeting with Kris
Reeves and Julie Westmacott, the executive member responsible for
housing, where we discussed all of the options for what to do. I had
regular meetings with Ms McBride and have absolutely no recollection of
being told that the empty accommodation was being offered to all
council staff, I would not under any circumstances at all have agreed
to this course of action”
It also appears that she is pointing the finger at a senior Labour councillor. Well, no surprise there, then.
The
thing is this, I'm willing to bet that McBride is sitting at home
counting a generous redundancy package and thanking her lucky stars she
remains peripheral to the event, and that Reeves is sitting at home in
a real sulk, incredulous that she's been treated this way and
experiencing genuine shock that anyone had the gall to hold her to
account.
So a question; Why has Reeves not been arrested?
Wherefore the collection of Norfolk Police's finest knocking on her
door, rifling through her personal effects and feeling her collar under
suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office?
It
was good enough for Damian Green, who let's face it, didn't really do
anything wrong, so why not this grubbing corrupt little harridan? Let's
look at the two major parties on Norwich City Council:
Labour (15 seats), Greens (13 seats).
Ahhhh, that'll explain it then. And which one of the 15 Labour Councillors
aided, abetted, counselled or procured this misconduct in a public
office? I think the good people of Norwich deserve to find out so he or
she can be marched from the City Hall to Carrow Road football ground
whilst they are pelted with turnips just dug up from the frozen earth.
Hattip Snowolf
