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| LEADER'S ‘CARIBBEAN CONSPIRACY’ |
Claim long-distance friendship basis
for hiring Chief Exec
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Helen Bailey
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ISLINGTON council leader Steve Hitchins made repeated phone calls
to the Caribbean contacting the woman he wanted as the borough’s
new Chief Executive, it was claimed at a misconduct hearing this
week.
Within seconds of making the calls to Montserrat, Cllr Hitchins
was on the line with fellow Lib Dem Margot Dunn, allegedly conspiring
over the appointment of Helen Bailey.
Cllr Hitchins told the Adjudication Panel for England his recollection
of events was “clouded by the passage of time”.
Five councillors and chief executive Ms Bailey are fighting for
their professional reputations – and the councillors face being
barred from office for up to five years.
The complaint, made by former Labour opposition leader Mary Creagh,
is that the Lib Dems – Steve Hitchins, Bridget Fox, Margot
Dunn, Jyoti Vaja and Dorrie Valery – “conspired”
to appoint Ms Bailey to the £130,000 job in July 2002 because
of her friendship with Cllr Hitchins.
The councillors have to pay their own legal fees, which currently
run at around £200,000.
In this second week of the hearing, the working relationship between
Cllr Hitchins and Helen Bailey, who later got the Chief Executive
job – and is a witness in the case – was laid bare under
questioning from Barrister Antony White QC.
The three-man panel heard how Cllr Hitchins made repeated calls
to Ms Bailey in July 2002 while she was working in the Caribbean
and the interview for the position of chief executive was being
finalised.
They were told Ms Bailey made it on to a shortlist for the job,
even though she was not recommended by recruitment company Veredus.
It emerged that Ms Bailey, herself a committed Liberal Democrat,
had known Cllr Hitchins for nearly 20 years. The pair have worked
closely together on a number of high-powered Lib Dem committees.
They would often pick up the phone for “a chat”.
At one point they sat as chair and vice chair of the Liberal Democrats’
Federal Executive and Ms Bailey attended a dinner party at the St
Peter’s Street home of Cllr Hitchins and his wife Baroness
Sarah Ludford.
However, Miss Bailey denied she was a “friend” of Cllr
Hitchins, preferring instead to call him a colleague.
She said: “‘Friend’ is a term people use loosely…It
is a term with a social connotation.”
The tribunal heard how Miss Bailey was appointed to Islington Council
as a freelance policy consultant in 2000 prior to her appointment
as Chief Executive in 2002.
She worked closely with then Chief Executive Leisha Fullick and
Cllr Hitchins.
Ms Bailey was even responsible for drafting the Chief Executive’s
job application advertisement, for which she later applied.
Both Ms Bailey and Cllr Hitchins denied that during a series of
telephone conversations – including two on the day of the job
interview – they ever discussed the job.
Town hall phone records – gathered by the Standards Board –
show that late night calls were made to the island of Monseratt,
where Ms Bailey was working for Price Waterhouse Coopers.
She said she “didn’t recall” whether Cllr Hitchins
had actively encouraged her to apply for the job and told the tribunal
the calls were strictly council-related.
Antony White, barrister for the Standards Board ethics watchdog,
said to Cllr Hitchins on Tuesday: “You called Helen Bailey
in Monserrat twice. You no sooner came off the phone from Helen
Bailey for the last then you called Margot Dunn immediately.
“You must have discussed how you were going to get help Helen
Bailey on the shortlist when she’d been graded D by Veredus.”
Cllr Hitchins said the calls were merely to discuss council business
and Islington’s impending Comprehensive Performance Assessment
by the Audit Commission.
He added: “My recollection of these events is clouded by the
passage of time. Margot’s pattern of phone calls is very individual.”
Mr White suggested that in one of the later Monseratt calls Cllr
Hitchins told Ms Bailey that “something could be done”
to get her on the shortlist for the Chief Executive job, even though
vetting agency Veredus had struck her off the list.
From the initial 39 interviewees, 12 including Ms Bailey made it
onto a long list. However, she failed to make the final shortlist
of seven because of the ‘D’ grade given to her by Veredus.
It is alleged that Cllr Hitchins was instrumental in adding Ms Bailey
along with another candidate who did not make the grade, known as
“Islington employee”.
Much of the case hinges on whether Cllr Hitchins should have declared
a prejudicial interest over his relationship with Ms Bailey, as
opposed to the personal one he disclosed, and whether indeed the
pair were firm friends.
Ms Bailey said in her statement: “Because the Code of Conduct
says that if you know somebody socially you have to declare an interest
as a friend, and a friend is an odd sort of term because it implies
somebody who (you) go out for an evening with, or have a cup of
tea with or you go and stay with their granny or something. It’s
an odd sort of term.”
Cllr Hitchins said: “We have never gone to the cinema together,
on holiday together, or anything like that. I have never been to
her home. We are friendly but I would not describe her as ever having
been a personal friend outside work.” |
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