Leader of Merton Council Councillor Stephen Alambritis has apologised for “confusion” caused by a Labour Party tax consultation.
A Labour-backed letter and questionnaire, headed “Urgent: Consultation on Council Tax increases – please read now!” and “URGENT: Have Your Say – Council Tax” respectively, were sent out in October last year to several wards including the council leader's own, St Heliers.
The letters were co-signed by ward councillors and Cllr Alambritis.
The council’s Standards and General Purposes Committee voted to investigate Cllr Alambritis in December after seven formal complaints were received about his conduct, including one from a councillor in his own party.
At a committee meeting last night (May 9), councillors were given the opportunity to ask the independent investigator, Richard Penn, about the report.
Mr Penn had concluded that although Cllr Alambritis had breached protocol on the use of council resources, he had not breached the code of conduct in relation to two requirements mentioned by complainants last year.
Conservative councillors Michael Bull, for Dundonald ward, and Hillside councillor David Williams asked Mr Penn whether a breach of the protocol on use of resources itself amounted to a breach of the code of conduct.
Mr Penn admitted it was possible he had not established this during his investigation or final report but could not say whether this would alter the recommendations put forward at the meeting.
A motion was seconded and passed by Labour councillors on the committee in favour of agreeing to the two recommendations made by Mr Penn.
The first recommendation addressed concerns by complainants that although Cllr Alambritis had made an apology around the time of the controversial tax consultation for the misuse of resources, and although the costs to the council were refunded, this was “not adequate”.
Mr Penn suggested that Cllr Alambritis make a formal apology to the committee for his action in initiating the consultation and recognising that the letter did cause confusion among many of its recipients.
The second recommendation was that the protocol on the Use of Council Resources rules are reinforced with all political groups, and that the rules on the use of Merton Council’s Business Reply Service be reinforced to avoid future incidents.
Cllr Alambritis was invited to speak at the end of the meeting and said: “Thank you chair and thank you for inviting me to speak. It is very kind of you and I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words tonight.
“I would like to thank Mr Richard Penn the independent investigator for his work on the Report.
“I will deal with the two recommendations in the report. I will take the second recommendation first.
“Recommendation two is aimed at all the political groups and here I know we as leaders of our groups will do all we can to expedite this recommendation.
“I now turn to recommendation one. In terms of recommendation one, if the recipients of this Labour Party communication felt confused then I apologise for this. We received a huge response from residents but just seven complaints and these were mostly from people who were not recipients themselves.
“However I acknowledge that even one complaint is one more than I would want and I am certainly sorry if any confusion was felt.
“Again thank you for this opportunity to say a few words.”
The use of the freepost cost the council £1,380, which the Mitcham and Morden Labour Party reimbursed and apologised for at the time. The party maintains the use of the council’s business reply service was a mistake.
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