Open Letter to the MP for Bridgwater

3.00.00pm GMT Tue 11th Nov 2008

Dear Mr Liddell-Grainger,

As I promised last week, here is my response to your letter of 6 November which you published on your website that day. I am making this response equally accessible to the public.

As I told you in my initial acknowledgement of your letter: you are the one who is gravely mistaken here. You are also demonstrating a complete misjudgement of the issues and are misusing your position to bring harm to individuals who have no practical means of responding to the torrent of false accusations and abuse that you are pouring onto them. Despite what you say on your website - realistically they cannot attack you.

Your letter admits that you are undertaking a sustained campaign of personal attacks against the Chief Executive and the Corporate Director of Resources of the County Council. I believe that this is a misuse of your position as an MP. The Parliamentary Code of Conduct requires you to be objective in carrying out public business but your words in respect of this matter have been malicious and inaccurate. Your use of your website as a repository of all this vindictive material is also very harmful for all concerned, including you. Above all we expect higher standards from a Somerset MP.

I do not know what authority makes you believe that you are acting correctly in pronouncing judgement upon the professional activities of two public servants nor indeed what authority you have for appointing yourself the judge, jury and executioner of those individuals. You have no legitimate status to find any local government officer culpable of any alleged wrongdoing. Nor do you have any legitimate status in applying any form of sanction upon local government officers. Not only that but you are entirely misguided in your judgement of the Chief Executive and Corporate Director of Resources. You have not asked Alan Jones or Roger Kershaw about the issues, despite many invitations to do so.

Your public bullying, harassment and punishment of these officers is based on your belief that the joint venture with Southwest One is a "fiasco". You are completely wrong to come to that judgement.

The effective way to scrutinise Southwest One and any other County Council related matter would be through the good offices of the Audit & Resources Scrutiny Sub-Committee, the Scrutiny Committee and the Executive, rather than via your website. Your attitude does a great deal of harm and embarrassment to your conservative colleagues on the first two committees mentioned for whom I hold a great deal of respect. Your very negative campaigning style is not winning you any friends and is damaging the economic prospects of Somerset.

I have to tell you that no one, apart from you, believes that this arrangement with Southwest One is other than proper, prudent and effective. I have already sent you a copy of the latest Audit Commission report (published last week). At no point, do they express any concerns about the procurement of IBM to be the joint venture partner. Nor does the Audit Commission have any concerns about the formation of the joint venture company.

The Audit Commission has reviewed the contract and sees no reason to disagree with the forecast that this joint-venture will save money for the taxpayers of Somerset over a long period. The Audit Commission obviously states that the Council will have to manage the contract rigorously to ensure that the forecast savings are delivered but it has reviewed the Council's contract management arrangements and it has no suggestions as to how they can be strengthened or made more effective. I very much hope that by now you have read the report, which was attached to my e-mail of last Friday.

Your assertion that you have been kept in the dark about the Southwest One Contract is not true. You were offered (as were all Somerset MPs) a briefing on the arrangements. Other MPs turned up but you did not. You have been offered full access to the contract provided you undertake to maintain the privacy of the small number of commercially confidential parts, but you have failed to give that undertaking.

You have been shown and given copies of all the independent reviews of the contract arrangements - these show that the procurement was exemplary and there is no suggestion of corruption, misappropriation of public funds, bribery or waste of public money as you have incorrectly alleged in the House of Commons.

You have come to a totally different judgement on the arrangements for Southwest One to the Audit Commission and I publicly challenge you to substantiate that your judgement about this contract is correct. It would be good if you could match the expertise that the Audit Commission has brought to bear on the matter. If you cannot substantiate your claim then the honourable course of action for you would be to withdraw your accusation that the arrangements are a "fiasco" to quote your last letter to me and to apologise for the distress and waste of energies and time that your misconceived campaign has caused to a great number of people.

None of your allegations about the County Council, its appointed officers or elected members stand up to scrutiny. Indeed we have been commended by many authorities for the work undertaken. You have made many allegations to the House of Commons on various occasions - not one allegation has any evidence to support it. As expected you have not produced any evidence and indeed none of the bodies whose job it is to seek out wrongdoing in local government, have found any evidence, which would support your very serious claims:-

There has been no corruption.

No Public money has been wasted.

There has been no bribery.

There has been no impropriety by officers.

The evaluation of the bids to join Southwest One was not flawed.

Councillors have not been kept in the dark and have not been manipulated.

Despite the lack of any substance to your allegations, you have vilified two members of the Council's staff without any justification. Indeed, your letter of 6 November compounds the position by accusing the Chief Executive and Corporate Director of Resources of bullying. You have made these accusations before but repeating them does not make them true:-

The Chief Executive did not make "spurious complaints" about Cllr Buchanan to the Standards Board for England - many of these complaints were about alleged inappropriate behaviour by Cllr Buchanan towards Council staff. The Standards Board for England has already investigated many of these complaints and in many cases no further action is being taken. Cllr Buchanan has acknowledged this behaviour and has apologised for it. The Standards Board for England is still investigating other complaints and has referred others to the Adjudication Panel for England to determine the remaining issues.

The Chief Executive does not "push people around". He is a very good and effective chief officer. He has brought this Authority from Fair to Excellent in 3 years. We are now 4 star and "Improving Strongly" as rated by the Audit Commission. You do not do that by magic. But what you do need is superb leadership. He provides that and I consider that he fully justifies his salary. Another item to consider is that he has a duty of care towards his staff - just as we elected members have a duty of care to him.

The Corporate Director of Resources did not "try to blacken Cllr Buchanan's name". The Director was required to give evidence to the Standards Board for England as part of its investigation into the complaints above. It is both disgraceful and illegal for someone connected with the investigation to drop you an anonymous copy of his testimony.

Again Roger Kershaw has proven his superb leadership skills in taking us through to a contract with IBM and now a successful joint-venture with them. He also is worth every penny to the council-tax payers of Somerset.

(Incidentally, you are grievously misinformed if you think that "Cllr Buchanan's political future has been in limbo" while these complaints have been investigated. He has in fact been adopted by the Liberal Democrat Party as the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the East Devon constituency; he will give your Conservative colleague, Hugo Swire a good run for the election when it comes.)

Thank you for altering your website over the weekend, correcting some of the information about myself. Thank you also for altering the link to the bogus blogsite - taking people now to my facebook page.

Would you please immediately take down all links to the other bogus blogsites, in the names of both officers and members? Would you also please reflect over the Audit Commission Report and this letter?

I would be delighted to meet with you again so that we can discuss this face to face and hopefully clear up any misunderstandings. I shall also be seeking a personal apology from you to both Alan Jones and Roger Kershaw for your past behaviour. Hopefully we can then move forward in a spirit of co-operation to serve the people of Somerset together.

Yours sincerely

Sam Crabb

Portfolio Holder for Strategic Resources and Finance

Risk Management Champion.