A copy of a letter sent to the Mayor and Councillors plus the BJ and TownCrier
You will recall that I wrote to you in May 2014 regarding a complaint about one of your officials.
In August 2014 you invited me to meet Councillor Cooper and yourself to present my case. I was also allowed to leave
documents with you, which I believed supported my argument that an official had acted beyond their authority.
I have had no response from either Councillor Cooper or yourself from that time.
I made several attempts to get an update on the situation between September and December 2014 without any success.
The matter was then referred to the Monitoring Officer of Shropshire Council. Mr Graham White responded by email to say
the Monitoring Officer had considered very carefully my allegations but had decided to take no further action. He went on
to say that a delay in determining a complaint did not amount to a failure to comply with the code of conduct.
It was suggested that dissatisfaction with the complaints process operated by the Town Council was a matter for the Town
Council to consider.
I am not alone in believing that it was a major mistake by government to allow large town councils to operate without any realistic external controls over non-financial matters.
Having met Councillor Cooper and yourself, and also observed your behaviour in Council, I doubt that you both have been deliberately discourteous.
A much more likely explanation is that you, and other councillors, have allowed a situation to arise where you had no procedure to deal with a matter of this kind.
You can see that this email has been copied to several people.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Shaw
