The Leader of the Conservative Group on Telford & Wrekin Council, Cllr Andrew Eade, has called for the Deputy Leader of the council, Cllr Carolyn Healy, to resign over undeclared business interests with the council.
Cllr Healy co-owns an environmental consultancy, Red Kite Network Ltd. For five years her company did tens of thousands of pounds of business with the council which she failed to declare on the Register of Interests. This isn't an administrative oversight, she declared that she had no contracts with the council for five years when she did which is a criminal offence.
The council have, of course, come out to defend her. The Leader of the council, Cllr Lee Carter, says she's done nothing wrong and that the council's audit committee reports detail her business dealings with the council. But the law doesn't say business dealings with the council can be declared in a report published by the audit committee, it says they must be declared on the member's Register of Interests and Cllr Healy didn't do that for five years running.
But this isn't just a simple case of a councillor failing to register their business interests. Cllr Healy's cabinet portfolio includes planning and environment - she sets the council policies that decide how much business environmental consultancies like hers get from the council. It's even more important that a cabinet member which such a clear conflict of interests declares their business dealings with the council so that the public have the opportunity to ask questions about that relationship.
Now Cllr Healy is Deputy Leader of the council after the previous Deputy Leader's unexpected (and officially unexplained) departure from that post she has even more influence over the council's direction. The need for transparency and honesty is even more important yet the Leader continues to back Cllr Healy despite making false declarations about more than £70k of council contracts over five years.
Cllr Healy's position is clearly untenable - you can't make false declarations involved tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money and still be Deputy Leader. If she refuses to stand down and Cllr Carter doesn't have the integrity to sack her then he needs to stand down too. Being dishonest or protecting a colleague who has been dishonest are not the kind of qualities we need in leaders.
