UPDATED (20/3/22): South Somerset District Council Lets Councillors Off The Hook and Lets Them Make Unsubstantiated Allegations

UPDATE (20/3/22): Lib Dem Leader of South Somerset District Council, Councillor Val Keitch, survived the vote of no confidence at the recent Full Council meeting.

But at the same meeting, councillors made allegations about a former Conservative councillor Linda Vijeh. Ms Vijeh was unable to defend herself. She was also the Leader of the Conservative Group until she resigned.

Former Conservative Councillor
Linda Vijeh

So we have offered her an opportunity to defend herself, as we believe that this is fair. 

Yes, we even apply this principle to former Conservative councillors:

• despite her being a Conservative, 
• despite Ms Vijeh accusing us previously of "political games" (see below) - or was she talking about the Lib Dems when they supported a unitary authority? - and  
• despite her bringing SSDC into disrepute by swearing audibly during a Council meeting.
  

Tweet by Linda Vijeh July 2020
when we spoke at South Somerset Council

Following the SSDC Full Council meeting where councillors were allowed to attack her, Ms Vijeh published a Statement on her website and on her Facebook page.

We believe that this Statement led to a range of unanswered questions. Ms Vijeh agreed to answer our questions.

The questions were as follows:

Q1. What were these South Somerset District Council Street Scene people doing in France?

Q2. How did these people get there?

Q3. Why did no money change hands?

Q4. Were other benefits offered and if so, what were they?

Q5. Did they just happen to be there or were they flown across by you, a sitting councillor, or by a paid official of SSDC?

Q6. Why did you get these Street Scene staff to do the work, and not hire someone local instead?

Q7. If money didn't change hands, why did they do the work and were other benefits provided? If there were, what were they?

Q8. Who advised you not to declare an interest during the investigation, when you offered to do so?

Q9. Did you consult the Monitoring Officer?

Q10. Did you consult the Chief Executive?

We had sent these to Ms Vijeh in an email.

Ms Vijeh did respond to these questions. But sadly that was in a recorded audio message, and not in writing.

So as it stands, we are unable to publish her response. We've asked for a response in writing. But Ms Vijeh does not have the answers in writing. 

There are technical and legal reasons why we won't publish the recording.

Ms Vijeh did confirm in writing that:

"I can confirm that my solicitor has been in contact with the perpetrators, am waiting for their response."

We will not be repeating any of the allegations uttered by these perpetrators, and await the progress of Ms Vijeh's legal action.

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UPDATE (7/3/22): Following our showing the Standards Committee up for the charade that it is, The Leveller Confidential has done a more detailed analysis of South Somerset's Standards Committee. 

They have also written an explanation of what Standards Committee are supposed to be for, and asked some very pertinents questions.

They have also looked at the Standards Committees other Somerset councils.

We hope that Somerset residents will share our concern, and The Leveller's concern, that these committees don't seem to be achieving what they are supposed to achieve.

And this is especially concerning when the current Leader of the Council and the former Leader of the Council have failed to uphold the standards that Somerset residents expect - see our original article below and elsewhere on the Somerset Independents website.

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Original article from November 2021 follows...

South Somerset District Council (SSDC) has upset local residents again. The Public Inquiry into the Wyke Farms and Hopkins proposed development near Castle Cary Railway Station, which was refused TWICE by planning committees of the Council, has been adjourned today (10/11/21), as reported here by Somerset Independents.

Apparently it was due to "IT issues" at the venue, but residents are very upset at the decision to hold it "virtually" instead of in public with public attendance. The virtual public inquiry will now be re-convening, starting on 24th November. Many residents attended, and now they feel excluded from the reconvened virtual meeting. One resident told Andrew Pope, Leader of Somerset Independents:

"well they obviously misjudged the number of people who don't want this and the only way they can think of dealing with it is to exclude the people who it will affect."

We say that SSDC has upset local residents again because SSDC has been dogged by controversy.

SSDC Covers Up Names of Councillors Not Paying Council Tax

An investigation by Somerset Independents shows that multiple SSDC councillors have been found to have persistently failed to pay their council tax. Our investigations were blocked by SSDC, who tried to cover up the names of the councillors. 

Eventually, we forced SSDC to name the councillors, but only after a fight involving the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), who enforce Freedom of Information (FoI) law, and with the help of local and national media Private Eye and The Leveller. Recent issues of both newspapers reported on our investigation.

Private Eye "Rotten Boroughs"

The Leveller

SSDC Fails To Answer FoI Requests In a Timely and Accurate Manner

We have taken SSDC to the ICO and we are pursuing a Formal Complaint, because SSDC have still not answered the FoI requests about councillors in arrears.

They have refused to give details of the correspondence between councillors and officers on the arrears. Other councils gave us those details, with the exception of Mendip District Council (MDC - also run by the Liberal Democrats with the help of the Greens). As reported here, MDC are also subject to a separate complaint for withholding public information about councillors in arrears.

We are aware of many other local residents, and The Levellers, being blocked on FoI requests by SSDC.

Former SSDC Council Leader Guilty of Multiple Criminal Offences

The former Liberal Democrat Leader of SSDC, Ric Pallister, has been recently convicted of multiple criminal offences. He has been jailed as reported by the Crown Prosecution Service.

So what state are standards in, at the Council that Pallister ran for years?

In a sorry state, is the answer. They don't even check up on councillors. In fact, worse than this, they even cover up for councillors, as shown in their shameful behaviour regarding our council tax investigation. 

SSDC Standards Committee Hardly Ever Meets in YEARS

SSDC's Standards Committee has hardly ever met
over YEARS

The SSDC Standards Committee, which is supposed to uphold standards by councillors, has hardly ever met over YEARS, including the period when Pallister was Leader of the Council.

The above meeting schedule shows that between June 2015 and December 2018, the Standards Committee only met twice. 

As you can see, NINE out of ELEVEN SSDC Standards Committee Meetings were cancelled over THREE YEARS. Meeting after meeting was cancelled.

Only two Standards Committee meetings were held in 2019.

Only one was held in 2020.

And according to the above schedule, taken on 29th October 2021, there have been no Standards Committee meetings held since July 2020.

We challenged this, and SSDC told us that cancellations were the responsibility of the Chair of the Committee.

We will continue our investigations into SSDC, including the behaviour of its councillors, former councillors and council officers.

Somerset Independents stands up for residents, because we are Somerset residents.