Redcar Council confirms two councillors in tax arrears but refuses to name them
Plus: Cleveland Police knife crime statistics as Boro go all-white at The Riverside
Can you believe we’ve reached the fifth edition of The Teesside Lead already?
Boro donned an all-white strip at the weekend as part of the No More Red campaign. Although they lost at The Riverside, the white kits (with white badges and sponsor logos) were to draw attention to the issue of knife crime in the region. I’ll be looking into the stats later.
The Wednesday edition should usually be sent out first thing, but there was a short delay in order to give fair opportunity to Redcar Council to respond to today’s lead story.
It’s a story I’ve wrestled with in how to cover, since at its heart is very likely to be people who are potentially vulnerable. However, they are politicians, and a vulnerable politician should not be immune from accountability. Something I’ve always strongly believed is that politicians should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. Yes, they are only human, but if they aren’t squeaky-clean it can cause huge damage to democratic institutions, and they must take that responsibility when they enter life in service to the public.
Two elected members of Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council are in council tax arrears, however the information watchdog has supported the council’s decision not to reveal their identity, despite case law directing the opposite.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) publishes Decision Notices when it concludes investigations it has been asked to conduct in relation to the disclosure of information, usually via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.
On October 16 it published a Decision Notice (which you can read here) relating to Redcar Council, and an FOI it had received asking it to reveal the names of any councillors who had accumulated council tax arrears.
The council confirmed there was at least one councillor in arrears, but refused to name them.
They have since confirmed to me that two councillors are in arrears.
You’ll remember from our first edition that local authorities are dutybound by law to disclose this information. However, in a highly unusual step, the ICO has supported the council’s decision to keep the councillors’ identities secret because of what it says are the “exceptional personal circumstances involved in this case.”
In coming to its decision, the ICO says the council acknowledges “there is a legitimate interest in disclosure of information relating to councillors who are in council tax arrears, given the high level of accountability and transparency expected of those in elected public office.
“However,” it continues, “in this case, the Council considers that this legitimate interest is ‘overridden by the fundamental rights and freedom of the data subjects concerned given the exceptional personal circumstances which apply and which warrant protection’.”
The “exceptional personal circumstances” are not expanded upon by the ICO. Instead, it says that to share the council’s defence for not revealing the councillors’ names, it would inadvertently be revealing that councillors’ identities itself.
“The Council provided the Commissioner with detailed representations to support its view that the personal circumstances of the councillors concerned in this particular case are exceptional,” says the ICO’s Decision Notice. “This includes representations from the councillors concerned about their position and the impact that disclosure of their identity would have on them.”
A spokesperson for Redcar Council told me: “The specific details of these cases cannot be provided for obvious reasons but were provided in full to the ICO. In deciding to withhold the information there would be consideration of the possible consequences of disclosure on the individual against the legitimate interests in the public having access to the information.”
They added: “Withholding this this information is unusual but, given the circumstances of both cases, appeared to be the correct approach in order to avoid breaching data protection principles. The ICO has upheld the Council’s decision and confirmed that disclosing the names of the councillors in these particular circumstances would have been unlawful.”
Council leader Alec Brown of Labour provided a comment for The Teesside Lead. “Councillors are first and foremost people,” he said. “People that have to endure all of life's challenges, just as everybody else does. As leader of the council, I am not privy to these exceptional circumstances, however, I have full confidence in the council’s decision making.”
When asked if councillors being in debt made them vulnerable to blackmail or bribery, the council’s spokesperson replied, “No comment”.
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Middlesbrough FC’s “No More Red” campaign took an ironic twist on Saturday when midfielder and Redcar lad Hayden Hackney was sent off in his team’s defeat to Coventry.
However, the team’s all-white kits, with white sponsorship logos and team badges rightly drew more attention than anything the team managed to achieve on the pitch. Sometimes football teams’ support of campaigns can feel tokenistic, but the No More Red campaign is an issue that should capture the attention of anybody on Teesside.
The idea of knife crime can feel like a moral panic at times. The sort of thing which happens in large cities, with the Daily Mail whipping up its readers in middle class suburbia to be suspicious of everybody.
However, the statistics in the Cleveland Police area show an unusually high amount of violent crime and knife crime, and the disproportionate impact it has on younger people.
From August 2023 to the end of July this year 57% of all serious violence in the area involved a knife or bladed weapon. Of those knife crimes, a third involved people aged 24 and under.
Cleveland Police’s Cleveland Unit for the Reduction of Violence (CURV) found in a study of crime stats that the area has the second highest rate of knife crime per head of population in the country (154 per 100,000)
It also found that Cleveland has the seventh highest rate nationally for hospital admissions as a result of assault with a sharp object (11.4 per 100,000 population).
Cleveland Police have also relaunched their own ‘Carrying a Blade Doesn’t Give You an Edge’ campaign. They say that between October 2023 and last month it had received 503 reports of violence and injury involving a knife, with 154 offences involving a person between the ages of 14 and 24.
Assistant Chief Constable Richard Baker said evidence shows a child who carried a knife was "more likely to become a victim of knife crime".
Cleveland Police say they’ve seen a reduction of 23% in knife crime and serious crime over the last 12 months.
Funds raised from Middlesbrough’s all-white kit will help support The Chris Cave Foundation, a charity launched in 2005 by Theresa Cave to fight knife crime in the area. Her son, Chris, was stabbed to death in Redcar in 2003 at the age of 17.
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Thanks for reading
Leigh