Independent County Councillor Derek Kennedy (Hexham West) made a freedom of information request in an effort to find the real truth as to why Public Notices were not being advertised in the Hexham Courant. So many Hexham and Tynedale residents were being let down and Derek felt it was part of his civic duties to investigate on behalf of the public.
Derek said “I wanted to get down to the bottom of this issue once and for all. The findings from the email show that on 16 Nov 2016 the Chief Executive of the County Council instructed that all public notices be directed away from the Courant and to the Northumberland Gazette. There is no explanation as to why and no directive to inform the public, councillors or the Courant of the decision. In December 2016, the Courant asked the County Council about the lack of public notices coming through to their paper. County Council then informed the Courant there “….were no notices“.
“As I understand it, public notices were being sent to the Northumberland Gazette for the period November 2016 and onwards.”
“It appears in February 2017, 3 months after the redirection of the notices to the Northumberland Gazette, the Council decided to call this “………a pilot exercise looking at alternative ways of displaying and advertising.” and that cost etc would be monitored. This email was sent to all senior officers of County Council and to Northumbria Healthcare and Active Northumberland.
The FOI law requires the release of all related papers on this subject, so I make the assumption the County Council has complied with this. I am therefore rather surprised that there are only a handful of emails which make up this decision. I had expected that a meeting would have taken place with proper governance and minutes of decisions. However on the face of it, it appear the Chief Executive of the County Council took a unilateral decision with no explanation as to why. No councillors were involved in any of the email exchanges. I cannot see any legal opinion, cost benefit analysis, risk appraisal or other strategic judgements which would lend itself to a safe decision.”
Derek concluded “I do hope there is a reasonable conclusion to this unsavoury affair. In the spirit of co-operation can I suggest that the Courant and County Council get round the negotiation table soon and thrash out a solution that serves the public interest of Tynedale and be quick about it. Remember we are all public servants and this endless squabbling needs to end and now.”