Brighton & Hove Councillors Vote To Scrap Member Appeals Panels

Councillors will no longer be involved in hearing appeals against dismissal and disciplinary measures from council staff after a committee agreed to end the practice.

The scrapping of “member appeals panels” followed a critical report by independent barrister Aileen McColgan into the “toxic culture” at Brighton and Hove City Council’s rubbish and recycling service Cityclean.

Miss McColgan recommended that the council “ceases to operate member appeal panels” after hearing evidence of political interference.

She wrote:

“I heard concerns about individuals dismissed for gross misconduct having been reinstated by member appeal panels.

“Concerns were raised with me about the propriety of allowing panels whose members may have received (and declared) GMB funding, to ‘completely, unashamedly just reverse officer decisions’ relating to GMB reps and / or individuals described to me as being particularly protected by the GMB reps within the council.

“Another witness told me that having politicians sitting on the panels for collective disputes and dismissal cases ‘further enhances the GMB power to subvert normal council processes’.”

She added: “Disciplinary dismissals have been overturned on appeal to panels of councillors. One manager told me that, until recently, Cityclean management expected their decisions to be overturned.”

The Labour leader of the council Bella Sankey commissioned the McColgan report, having been first elected as a councillor less than 18 months ago.

Her tenure started after the key period covered by the McColgan report and a previous report by former union leader Gerry Doherty.

She has nonetheless apologised to council staff and residents affected by the problems at Cityclean and pledged to put things right.

At Brighton Town Hall today (Thursday 25 April), Councillor Sankey said that the recommendations in the McColgan report were “very clear”.

Green councillor Sue Shanks asked for an acknowledgement that political interference with personnel panels was the main reason why members were being removed.

Councillor Shanks said that Labour had not upheld proper sackings, were asked not to sack people by union bosses and asked senior officers not to sack people who should have been dismissed

She told Councillor Sankey: “That’s in both the (McColgan) report and the Doherty report so I would expect you to own that.

“It wasn’t you – but the Labour group at the time do need to apologise because that was really a misuse of public office in terms of allowing people to not be dismissed. Dismissals were overturned. It’s in the report.”

The Doherty report in 2019 – as yet unpublished – cited evidence of deal-making to prevent a strike over whether GMB rep Dave Russell could continue working at the Cityclean depot in Hollingdean.

Managers did not want Mr Russell at the depot because of his behaviour but the GMB said that it was an anti-union move by the council.

The dispute led to a ballot on industrial action with the GMB preparing to strike during the annual Pride festival in the summer of 2019.

The late Mr Doherty said that councillors and officers had gone outside the proper procedures in their – successful – efforts to avert a strike.

This afternoon, Councillor Sankey urged Councillor Shanks to “think about the staff concerned” rather than the politics.

Councillor Sankey said: “In that report, Aileen McColgan makes really clear that senior managers have felt unsupported by successive political administrations which includes Green-led administrations.”

The council leader said that she had been really pleased when Conservative leader Alistair McNair “took responsibility and made an apology – as I already have on numerous occasions, both directly to staff and in public forums, for the way in which staff have been let down”.

She added: “We are yet to hear an apology from the Green group on this which seems only interested in making political milage out of it.”

Councillor Shanks told the council’s Strategy, Finance and City Regeneration Committee that she was happy to apologise for not being clear about the behaviour of the GMB at the time.

She added: “It’s not about making it political. It is political. The GMB, supported by the Labour group, were able to run rings around us at Cityclean.

“Hopefully, that’s no longer the case but, yes, of course, it was a bullying culture and we were bullied as much as a lot of the staff were.”

Councillor McNair said that the most important thing was that residents should receive the rubbish collection service that they deserved.

He said: “It’s not there yet. We still have problems with the collections. It needs improving as soon as possible.”

Labour councillor Tim Rowkins asked how many other councils still had members involved in their disciplinary process.

He was told that 43 other councils had responded to a request for information about their processes, with most – some 26 – moving away from councillor appeals panels.

Locally, appeals would be heard by senior officers – and specially trained managers would be involved in cases that included racism or other discrimination.

The committee was told that 40 staff had been sacked over the past year, 2023-24, with 15 of those cases having gone to appeal.

The unanimous vote today puts an end to the personnel appeals panels which have been in place for disciplinary and dismissal proceedings since the council’s formation in the late 1990s.

Councillors will still hear some appeals from chief officers, in line with legal requirements, but will no longer be involved in resolving formal disputes between the council and unions.