CAMPAIGN: Criminal Checks for Councillors - Somerset Independents Receives Apology

 

Our Leader Andrew Pope has today received an apology from the Chief Legal Officer (Monitoring Officer - MO) of Mendip District Council.

 

As in our earlier article, Somerset Independents has been asking questions regarding whether Mendip District Council checks criminal records ("DBS checks") for councillors.

 

The short answer is NO. 

 

How many councillors have been checked? ZERO.

The MO wrote to Andrew today to apologise for giving incorrect information about when councillors considered the issue.

He originally told us that they last considered it in 2018.

But the MO apologised and now he says that another set of Mendip district councillors considered the issue again as recently as October 2019.

 

"Apologies for a small error in my previous response... This matter was considered again by the Standards Committee in October 2019 and the papers and minutes can be found here

 

I apologise for any inconvenience caused."

 

And incredibly, the councillors present decided AGAIN to not have councillors be subjected to DBS checks.

Somerset Independents Spokesperson for Safeguarding, Denise Wyatt, has written to councillors on the Standards Committee and Licensing Committee, to ask them why, and to urgently recommend that DBS checks are brought in.

Somerset Independents now believes that ALL councillors should have the Standard Check - which includes more checks than the Basic Check - and the Enhanced Check must apply to councillors in the roles that the law allows those increased checks to occur.

We have also asked the three other district councils and the County Council, and still await their answers to our questions.

Protecting Somerset Residents