Woollen Mill Gate

I attended Thanet Council's Standards Committee this week, mainly because I was interested in press reports that somehow there was going to be action against bloggers. Personally, I couldnt see why blogging should be treated any differently than letters to the press or a councillor's ward newsletter.
Anyway, those reports turned out to be rubbish, perhaps because there has been a change in Monitoring Officer at the Council. Miles Smith replacing Paul Moore. ( by the way there seems to be a mis-understanding of the role of the Monitoring Officer. The job's main role is to ensure that the Council and Councillors comply with the law and statutary obligations. They "monitor" the decisions made, not what goes on blogsites or the press!).
I was surprised to find at the end of the meeting, the press and public were excluded (there wern't any there, but thats by the way) and the committee proceded to deal with the case concerning Cllrs Ezekiel and Latchford, refered to the Standards Committee by Cllr Johnston.
This is all very sensitive, at one point it was even suggested that I should leave, but good sense prevailed. I checked with the Monitoring Office what was being made public. It is this:
The case was considered by a sub committee of the Standards Committee and was refered to an investigating officer to be, well - investigated! It was the report of this officer that was considered this week. The Standards Committee decided, by majority verdict, on a recorded vote, to refer the matter to a further sub-committe of three (members yet to be decided) who will sit in public (date to be arranged) to decide what action to take, if any. The report from the investigating officer wont be made public until the hearing.
I believe this is the first test of these new local procedures for dealing with standards cases.
Book your seats now!