All posts in the topic Brighton Councillors sign Petition to Disclose Pubic Cost of Fighting Tribunal (Short link)

From: Andy Baldwin Date: 2009 Jan 30 18:32 UTC Short link

A petition has been signed by a number of Brighton & Hove City Councillors,
demanding the City Council disclose the Public Interest question of how much
Public Money they spent fighting two un-winnable Employment Tribunal cases
against Natasha Thoday, a transgender teacher. Notably 2 other councillors
(North Devon & Edinburgh) and Carline Lucas MEP have also signed. A letter was
sent today asking the remaining City Councillors to also sign it.
    

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Dear Brighton & Hove City Councillors,

A cross party petition has been set up to get the City Council to disclose the
Public Interest question of how much Public Money they spent fighting two
un-winnable Employment Tribunal cases against Natasha Thoday, a transgender
teacher, who was supported by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. If
you have not yet done so, please DO sign the petition. The link is here: -

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/freedom-of-information-brighton-hove-council/sign.html

A very BIG thank you to all of the following City Councillors who have so far
have signed it: Green Councillors:- 1. Ben Duncan; 2. Rachel Fryer; 3. Amy
Kennedy; 4. Sven Rufus; 5. Jason Kitcat; and 6. Lib Dem Paul Elgood. The shame
of the Council's cover-up is rapidly spreading nationally and is cross party:
North Devon Green Councillor Ricky Knight; and Edinburgh Scottish Conservative
Councillor Gordon Buchan have also signed. And so has Caroline Lucas Green
Party NATIONAL Leader and MEP. Here is a link to list of all those who have
signed: -

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/freedom-of-information-brighton-hove-council/signatures.html

Latest news and background information on the Council’s refusals to answer
basic Public Interest questions has been put up on a web site link here: -
http://brighton-council-cover-up-transgender.blogspot.com/that tracks:-

The site tracks the cover-up of Cllr Elgood's questions to Director of Strategy
& Governance Alex Bailey: -
• Why senior staff lied and threatened when their actions were questioned?
• What the public cost is?
• Why they refuse to Acknowledge or Withdraw  prejudice and damaging statements
about transgender people?
• Why No Apology?

On 18 December 2008, after more than a year of campaigning, Alex Bailey's
misleading inadequate responses to Cllr Elgood's questions was finally
disclosed. Cllr. Paul Elgood was later threatened with "further legal action"
and if confidentiality was "breach[ed]" he would be bared from "privileged
information on future cases" that he "cannot risk" after he made
representations on behalf of Natasha Thoday.

Alex Bailey confirms this Council decided to fight Natasha Thoday BEFORE she
had even lodged the Tribunal case, and that under him, officers NEVER intended
to try to settle. Instead he accuses her of wanting "£90,000 plus" and that
"she would not have settled" - with no evidence - and without the courtesy of
ever approaching her to negotiate. Read about it here and judge for yourself: -

http://brighton-council-cover-up-extras.blogspot.com/2009/01/director-of-strategy-governance-alex.html

On 22 December 2008 District Auditor Helen Thomson chose to support Alex Bailey
misrepresentations destroying public confidence and shattering the credibility
of the office of District Auditor. Read about it here and judge for yourself: -

http://audit-commission-brighton-hov-council.blogspot.com/2009/01/audit-commission-supports-council-cover.html

Here are some link to some recent news coverage and how the council blacklisted
Ms Thoday: -

http://www.pinke.biz/news/488/Brighton-Hove-Found-Guilty-of-Transgender-Discrimination/
http://foxstales.blogspot.com/2008/11/think-youre-above-law-think-again.html
http://www.gscene.com/blog/2008/11/natasha-thoday-talks-to-richard-smith_10.html
http://www.gscene.com/blog/2008/11/guilty-on-6-counts.html
http://www.gscene.com/blog/2008/11/natasha-thoday-claims-tribunal-victory.html

Here are links to the General Teaching Council’s decision and the Commission
for Equalities Human Rights Report on the Employment Tribunal’s decision, both
against the Council:-

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/yourrights/equalityanddiscrimination/gender/atwork/Transgenderissues/Pages/transsexualismcasedecisions.aspx
http://www.gtce.org.uk/standards/hearings/disciplinaries/disciplinary_order_6oct08

Thank you.

Natasha Thoday

From: Andy Baldwin Date: 2009 Feb 02 22:16 UTC Short link

Craig Turton, Labour councillor for East Brighton, is the latest local
politician to sign the cross party petition set up to have Brighton Council
disclose how much public money they spent fighting the two Employment Tribunal
cases: -
http://www.gscene.com/blog/2009/02/labour-councillor-signs-trans-petition.html

Thanks Roy for pointing out the typo, the correct link for latest news and
background information on the Council’s refusals to answer basic Public
Interest questions is: -
http://brighton-council-cover-up-transgender.blogspot.com/

The petition text is: -

"Background (Preamble): The General Teaching Council ruled in October 2008 that
a former education, training and employment manager at Brighton & Hove City
Council was guilty of discriminating against and victimising a teacher who is
transgender and was ordered to pay £35000 in compensation. The manager, Philip
Morgan, had secretly sent a fax to an employment agency that revealed the
teacher was transgender, which led to her being blacklisted. Brighton & Hove
Council spent over £100000 to fight the tribunal case. The public wants to know
how much the council spent of public money.

Petition: We are asking the Information Commissioner to disclose the amount of
public money spent to fight the tribunal case against the teacher Natasha
Thoday."
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/freedom-of-information-brighton-hove-council.html

Note: whilst the Commissioner does not keep such information to disclose, the
spirit of this petition is clear: the Council must keep proper account of its
internal spending of public money, and disclose the information on demand, or
risk accusations of either gross incompetence or deception or both. Andy
Baldwin, advocate, said "We’re disgusted that Councillors and senior staff have
been colluding since 2003, to defend and then cover-up discrimination with
public money... The people involved must account for their actions and reform,
or step down.”
http://www.gscene.com/blog/2008/10/education-chief-disciplined-for.html

The text of the General Teaching Council’s decision is no longer on the GTC's
web site (they do not keep their decisions online for very long and the link in
the above post is broken) so its been posted here:-
http://brighton-council-cover-up-extras.blogspot.com/2009/01/6-october-2008-philip-morgan-general.html

Natasha Thoday
    

From: Andy Baldwin Date: 2009 Feb 07 21:40 UTC Short link

Thanks Joerg for setting up the petition.

I’d be very pleased if anyone has ideas how to ‘force the council to disclose
the information’ as I'm unclear how Art. 10 ECHR 'freedom of expression' helps
here? Perhaps Joerg means Art. 14 'freedom for discrimination'. If so, then its
not clear how one can show the council are acting differently compared to
disclosing how much they spent fighting any other specific legal case....?

Louise Hanrahan for the Council’s “Head of Law” responded to our request for
how much public money they spent fighting these cases. Is this normal? Surely
the council’s own Information Officer should deal with this? Instead the letter
was copied externally and only to the Information Commissioners Office.

Louise Hanrahan stated the information on costs “is not held by the council”.
This is ridiculous. Are we expected to believe that time sheets were not filled
in by staff working to fight the government’s equality champions (EHRC and the
EOC)? The council will have to trawl through those time sheets and wherever
else time spent is recorded since the FOI is aimed at disclosure of the
information itself, not the documents it is stored on.

Now that the petition has shown there is considerable support demanding the
disclosure of public costs, the next step is to write to the Council’s FOI
Appeals Officer and if not satisfied to go back to the Information
Commissioners Office.

Natasha Thoday