Rochdale Council: Corrupt Institution? by Les May

THERE are good reasons why it is a rule that all Councillors should file with the local body upon which they serve a list of their beneficial interests in a borough and that this should be publicly available as the Register of Members Interests. One of these is to ensure that council members do not vote on anything in which they have a pecuniary interest. Anyone trying to apply this simple test to Rochdale’s own Councillor Faisal ‘Two Votes’ Rana since his election in 2018 has faced an uphill struggle.

In April of this year I noticed that the entry for ‘Two Votes’ had been replaced with the words 'Not shown on website'.

So I wrote to Rochdale Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow as follows:

Dear Sir,

I refer to the Register of interests for Councillor Faisal Rana.

https://democracy.rochdale.gov.uk/mgDeclarationSubmission.aspx?UID=6271&HID=2563&FID=0&HPID=14660973

I note that Section 7 Securities: contains the words 'Not shown on website'.

Could you please clarify whether this conforms to what is commonly known as 'Best Practice' which is usually taken to mean a standard way of complying with legal or ethical requirements? I assume that in the interests of open government RMBC would normally wish to be seen as implementing 'Best Practice'.

If there is a reason for 'Best Practice' not being followed in this case could you please inform me of the reason?

N.B. the material at the above link was changed on 28 June 2021 as detailed below.

I did not get a reply so two further reminders were sent. The third of these elicited the following response:

In relation to the register of interest for Cllr Faisal Rana. The entries not shown on the website are due to the items being considered as sensitive by the previous Monitoring Officer of the Council. Any requests for such information should be submitted via the freedom of information process.

So on 23 May I wrote to Rochdale Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow as follows:

My understanding is that any request for information should be treated as a request for information governed by the FOI Act even if that term is not expressly used by the requestor. I request the following information which if necessary you should treat as Freedom of Information requests;

What information is held by RMBC in the register of members interests for Councillor Faisal Rana and on what date was each of these individual interests registered?

On what date did the previous monitoring officer conclude that the information in the register of members interests for Councillor Faisal Rana was ‘sensitive’ and should be withheld from the public unless a Freedom of Information request was made?

Has the present monitoring officer concluded that the information in the register members interests for Councillor Faisal Rana is ‘sensitive’ and should be withheld from the public unless a Freedom of Information request is made?

If the present monitoring officer has concluded that the information in the register of members interests for Councillor Faisal Rana is ‘sensitive’, why is this information considered to be ‘sensitive’ and on what date was the decision made?

I still require an answer to the second and third parts of my original query which relate to what is commonly called ‘best practice’.

Five weeks later I still had not received an answer to these questions so on Sunday 27 May I sent the following to Rochdale Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow and on 30 May followed this with a printed copy sent by Royal Mail:

Dear Mr Rumbelow,

I wrote to you on 21 April 2021 with regard to the entry in the Register of Interests for Councillor Faisal Rana. I did not receive a response from you and sent a reminder on 5 May 2021. This reminder did not elicit a response and on 20 May I sent a second reminder.

I received a partial response to this from a Michael Garraway but the original question about ‘Best Practice’ and the reason why it is not being followed in this case remains unanswered. Mr Garraway informed me that if I required any information about this councillor’s declarable interests I should submit this through the ‘Freedom of Information’ process.

On 23 May I submitted four further questions regarding this councillor’s declarable interests, and why and when the decision(s) had been taken not to allow these to appear on the Rochdale Council website.

To date I have not received a response to these and the previous two questions. When I raised similar queries about the register of interests relating to the same councillor in the autumn of 2018 I met similar delays and evasiveness on the part of the officer(s) I dealt with.

You will be aware that in a recent report into the failings of the Metropolitan Police the term ‘Institutional Corruption’ was used and the report of the investigating panel referred to the fact that the investigation had been impeded by the organisation.

In their working definition the panel included the following actions or inactions as indicators of Institutional Corruption; failing to identify corruption; failing to confront corruption; failing to manage investigations and ensure proper oversight; failing to make a voluntarily commitment to candour; failing to be open and transparent.

I made reference to the question of whether some officers of Rochdale Council have become corrupted and no longer act in a non-political manner in my communication of 20 May. Within RMBC there has been a failure to ensure proper oversight with the result that officers who fail to carry out their duties and to act within the legal framework set out by the UK government with regard to the provision of information to the public, are not censured. There is no commitment to candour, and there is a failure to be open and transparent.

I am forced to conclude that RMBC is institutionally corrupt. If you object to this conclusion then you may prefer the statement by the panel that ‘failings do not all automatically fall within the definition of corruption. Some may result from professional incompetence or poor management.’

Irrespective of which parts of the last paragraph are applicable, as you are the Chief Executive the responsibility for this lies entirely with yourself.

You will note that I have sent a courtesy copy of this communication to my MP, Mr Chris Clarkson. I will follow it up with a separate e-mail requesting that it be held on file. I have done this to ensure that he is fully aware of the situation should it be necessary at some future date to request him to take up these matters with the office of the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.

This did produce a response in the form of a change in the web entry which now carries a submission of Rana’s interests within Rochdale timed at 6.16pm on Monday 28 June, i.e. the same day that the above letter would have been received and read. This may of course just be a remarkable coincidence!

The interesting thing about this new entry is that it does not contain the long list of mainly residential properties which were previously declared by Rana and published on 25 March 2021, but not made available on the web. I intend to publish this full list at a later date if it does not miraculously appear on the web from an ‘official’ source before then.

Now of course it is entirely possible that in the last three months these properties have been sold or brought under the umbrella of one of the businesses or partnerships owned or operated by Councillor Rana. The question which then arises is whether officers of the council have deliberately not replied to my FOI requests in order to give him time to do so.

The further questions of who has gained from this evasiveness by council officers and who authorised it will be dealt with in the next few days.

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