Double Standards Board

Those of you who have had the misfortune to come up against the local council in your fight for democracy and justice for the common man will have heard of an enigma going by the name of the STANDARDS BOARD FOR ENGLAND
The SBE is a strange government institution whose remit is to investigate the conduct of local authorities.
That in itself is a conundrum as the only standards they appear to adhere to are their own and no other point of view comes into the equation.
Of course being a government institution their set of standards change depending on how they feel on the day, so if you get a decision that goes against you, it must be because the wind of change is blowing in the wrong direction.

Their blurb dictates that..... The Standards Board provides the national and independent oversight necessary for there to be confidence in a locally based system of ethical complaints.

Their responsibilities include:

Giving standards committees and councillors support and guidance on understanding the Code of Conduct, and on how to deal with complaints about the conduct of members of their council or authority.

Monitoring the performance of local authorities in the local assessment of complaints.

Publishing information about how councils and other authorities are dealing with complaints about their members.

Working with standards committees to help them improve if they do not deal with complaints about their members properly.

Removing the power of the standards committee to receive complaints about their members, if we believe it necessary.

Investigating the most serious cases where the local standards committee believes it is not best placed to deal with the matter and we agree with them.
Courtesy of the Standards Board Website



So are you beginning to see a certain coincidence emerging here?

The Standards Board is probably a veritable fine body of men and women (mostly Australian by the way - don't ask me why) but its ethos is to protect its members.

And although the SBE will tell you it is independent it was until very recently answerable to the Office of Deputy Prime Minister - yes!!!

Old 2Jags himself.

Thats not independence - that's role play!

Of course its debatable if you venture to make a complaint against your council/councillor that they will even investigate it let alone find in your favour.

It's an uphill struggle for justice all the way and with the added Aussie administrative input you're up a Gum Tree from day one.

So why did I bother to take my local councillor to the Standards Board I ask you say?

Simple! Because he didn't so what it said on the packet!

I was informed by Tony Blair's office on House of Commons headed notepaper that Councillor H would help me with my problems and 'be in touch quite soon'.

That was in October 2002.

When I met Blair I was asked by him what Councillor H had
done to help as usually he is 'so good'
and I told him 'I'm still waiting for a meeting with him' Councillor H said he would meet me October'.
It was November by this time, only a few weeks out you're thinking - sorry matey - it is now November 2003.

What's a year between friends?

Who said a week was a long time in politics?

In that case a year must be a lifetime, it certainly felt like one!

Hence the start of the long walk to the Gum Tree.

But our Councillor H - grandfather of the perpetrator whose crime just happened to be the one for which my statement and name was forged by a police officer had a good reason not to help me.... as charity begins at home.

So our firmly entrenched Old Boy at Sedgefield made his story even better and told the SBE that Sedgefield had offered me help and I had refused.

I asked Sedgefield under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection for all copies of correspondence relating to myself and them and guess what? No letter offering help better still no letter from me saying........

'No its all right I like being terrorised in my own home thank you, it's just dandy'.

Even Sedgefield in their slap-dash fashion wouldn't have just picked up the phone they would have given a written offer of help, to cover their backsides and to lay a paper trail.

There is absolutely nothing in the file relating to this!

When I approached Sedgefield Borough Council's solicitor Dennis Hall and asked about the matter I was referred back to the SBE and then told in a telephone conversation, a tape of which I have in my possession;

'Councillor H thought you had been offered help and he thought you had refused'.

So not only does our Old Boy have the power of telepathy but he has the power of precognition too.

A man of many talents and not all of them his own!

And the Standards Board take on this shambolic affair............

- zilch - nada - zero - nicht - no problemo!

It didn't warrant an investigation at all.

That's justice for you spelled out as......

N-O C-H-A-N-C-E in a South Australian drawl!