Manor Residents Tribunal: 'I've Nothing To Resign For'

[perseus]

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/charity-pays-cleaner-9-000-after-wages-gaffe-1-5582435

The flood gates will open now.

Also, I notice no comments are allowed on this story.

[marky]

How typical of The Mail to label this as 'a gaffe'. The list of transgressions is so long it can hardly be classed as an 'unintended mistake', far from it and I very much doubt the Judge would have used the word outrageous if this all results from a series of errors. This was deliberate action against someone on low pay and where Wilcox had decided that minimum wage wasn't low enough. And all of this from a woman who spends her holidays in the Caribbean.

The real face of Labour in Hartlepool. Hypocritical, self-enriching parasites every one. They're into throwing people out of the party these days so let's see what they class as acceptable and what is not.

[not4me]

and this is the woman who was handed a £640,000 contract by HBC free from having to compete for it with anyone else.

[for fawkes sake]

I think this case adds more weight, if any were needed, to the questions hanging over this woman,  the organisations that she is involved with and which have been highlighted, seemingly alone, on this site for quite some time now.

What I personally find astonishing is the extent of the cover up and denial that continues to be demonstrated by HBC. The council is clearly incapable of putting its own house in order and this being the case it must surely be passed the time when it should have been classified as no longer fit for purpose.

The appropriate checks and balances either do not exist or, if they do exist, are there simply as window dressing.

[steveL]

Let's not forget that the £340,000 extension to the Connected Care contract is on hold at the moment after the Cabinet decided that it should go out to tender because of 'serious doubts over the Governnance' of Who Cares (NE). Both Stubbs and Cranney have voiced their own opinions that they don't think this is necessary and the suspicion is that once Labour take over in May they will overturn that decison. A case of watch this space.

http://www.hartlepoolpost.co.uk/column black cat.htm

[craig finton]

Surely the game must now be up. This is not about socialism and these people aren't socialists. They are there purely to screw the system (and anyone else) for all they can get. It's that simple and it needs to be sorted.

I would feel sympathy for the genuine councillors but if are prepared to sit by and let this sort of thing happen unchallenged then it's no wonder everyone tars them with the same brush.

[fred c]

Hello fellow HTH Posters & Readers......

I would just like to say that from a personal point of view, this particular Issues leaves me feeling so disallusioned with the state of Hartlepool Borough Council, how people who are supposed to be civic minded individuals can let situations such as this develop  is beyond my understanding.

There are undoubtedly people within HBC who will be aware of things that go on in organisations such as Manor Residents & are prepared to sit back & do nothing about it, those people can now no longer sit back & make excuses for behaviour such as this, they need to act & act now, before Hartlepool Borough Council becomes totally Morally Bankrupt.

In some ways we as users of this forum are to blame, we sit in the armchair posting comments on the problems the town faces & feel good about ourselves because of it, but it isn`t good enough, we should all be attempting to influence things in a more positve & active manner...... we should at the very least be filling the council chamber to capacity & beyond to make our civic leaders realise we aren`t prepared to put up with the way they are running the town.

I feel embarrased & ashamed that we have all sat back & allowed an elected member of our ruling council group to treat a hard working Lady with such disdain, if Ms Wilcox does not resign, we should all make a positve contribution in getting her thrown out of office.

People can have a Pop at me & generally i accept it, if i chuck a few stones i expect to get the same back.............  But i think this post is the most important contribution i have attempted to make since I first began to take an interest in civic matters, i hope people reading it accept it as that.

[mk1]

The fa*tty Belchers need Angie. Compared to her their looting is very discrete. The longer she hogs the spotlight the better for them. If she goes she will take Cranny with her and that would leave the  fat blokes as the most visible (ugly) face of local corruption.

[steveL]

Those who were paying attention on Thursday night will have noticed that the money saved by not accepting the £250 increase in basic allowance is not destined for the general public coffers but is to be put to one side should the council decide to implement 'a living wage' for its lower paid staff. The 'Living Wage' is a recognition that the 'minimum wage' is insufficient to provide sufficient funds to meet basic living costs.

At some point recently, when debating the £250 increase, the Labour Group presumably voted that this is what should be done with the money saved and again presumably, sat around the table, would have been one Angie Wilcox. I would bet real money that she voted along with everyone else to support the move. If so, she would have done so knowing full well that she had been cheating her own staff out of receiving even the 'minimum wage.'

It's quite clear cut to me. The woman is a hypocrite and a hypocrite of the very worst kind. If she had a grain of decency within her bulk she would resign as a councillor - but she won't.

If the Labour Group had a grain of decency they would throw her out, now, before the weekend is over -but they won't.

CAB has probably already worked out by now how he is going to attribute this all to an error. Who knows, possibly even an error made by the Charity Commission.

Someone said to me recently that he thought that CAB was the first Labour Leader in his memory that was trying to bring the Council together.

I'm no longer interested in 'bringing this rotten council together.' I'm interested in disinfecting it.

[fred c]

Readers & Users of HTH could of course make an official complaint quoting the code of conduct for councillors some of which is listed in the post by perseus above.

I would think the relevant person to email would be the Borough Solicitor.

Peter.Devlin@hartlepool.gov.uk

[TSteels]

Hello, first post from me. I am a disgusted and very angry Labour Party member, who lives in the Foggy Furze ward.

I cannot put into words how furious I am at Ms Wilcox's actions - the only course for the Labour Group is to fire her immediately and if they don't Christopher Akers-Belcher will never have my vote again, in a selection meeting or anywhere else. I have talked to a couple of other party members in the ward and we all agree!

Once fired from the group Ms Wilcox must resign from the council for the good of the town.

Finally, I would like to know how much this woman gets paid herself! Can we find out? If we fund the organisation, do we not have a right to know?!

[stokoe]

Hello, first post from me. I am a disgusted and very angry Labour Party member, who lives in the Foggy Furze ward.

I cannot put into words how furious I am at Ms Wilcox's actions - the only course for the Labour Group is to fire her immediately and if they don't Christopher Akers-Belcher will never have my vote again, in a selection meeting or anywhere else. I have talked to a couple of other party members in the ward and we all agree!

Once fired from the group Ms Wilcox must resign from the council for the good of the town.

Finally, I would like to know how much this woman gets paid herself! Can we find out? If we fund the organisation, do we not have a right to know?!
hi tsteels and welcome to the forum,im also a foggy furze ward person and i can say i did not vote for that waste of time,in fact if he
reads this he done nothing for our plight in the road we live,you may guess where......in fact i really hope he comes canvassing one day PLEASE.
fire wilcox belcher, have you got the balls marra.

[stokoe]

hi tsteels and welcome to the forum,im also a foggy furze ward person and i can say i did not vote for that waste of time,in fact if he
reads this he done nothing for our plight in the road we live,you may guess where......in fact i really hope he comes canvassing one day PLEASE.
fire wilcox belcher, have you got the balls marra.

[steveL]

Welcome to the forum, TSteels.

I know that there are lots of Labour supporters out there who are as disgusted about this as anyone else. It's now really about what happens next. I have to tell you though that there is worse to come.

On the matter of sending in a complaint, well good luck with that. I'm bound to say that 'template' letters don't really work, the logic being that if you can't be bothered to write your own complaint letter then you can't really be that bothered about the issue. The best use of templates is as a guide to how you construct your own letter.

I've seen many planning objection letters based on templates which have been treated as as a single objection and I seem to remember the Boundaries Commission doing the same when the boundary changes were being considered.

I think this is really a Labour Party matter in that the council complaints procedure is pretty much compromised these days and now generally a waste of time. By forcing the Brash duo out over the public questions issue, it's going to look pretty crass if this woman is allowed to stay after the way she has treated low paid workers. It is the Labour Party we are talking about, after all and if they try to brush the matter to one side it will show the Party to be hypocritical and not just Wilcox. If it was a private sector employer who had been caught out paying less than the minimum wage then they would be up in arms about it.

It's an open and shut case really. It's down to whether CAB has the balls to do what's required.

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

I'm pretty well lost for words here ... it's absolutely appalling that someone who claims to represent the 'needy' has so cynically exploited those she employs.  Not only should she be out on her ear, but those within HBC who have been involved are tarred with the same brush; as far as I'm concerned, CAB put himself on the far side of that line regarding his handling of the Charities Commission/Manor Residents accounts issue.