Th, Mar 9, 2006Minority Report - For Your Eyes Only
The Sub-committee that the Overview and Scrutiny panel set up last summer to look at the background of the decision to build a school on the land occupied by the Ladywell Leisure Centre did an excellent probing work during its seven meetings.With its questioning it uncovered incredible stories, like that of a Mayor and his team of top officers and cabinet members asking millions of funding to Treasury and not knowing what they were asking them for because nobody had read the papers.
It was therefore with dismay, that we realized that the person in charge of writing the report with the conclusions of this sub-committee works, was the Chief Executive.
Unsurprisingly the report that he wrote is lacking some bite to say the least and at the last meeting of the sub-committee it was only 'noted' but not approved.
One of the members, Cllr Julia Fletcher didn't even take part in the vote to avoid glorifying the nonsense by actually taking notice of it as she was asked to do.
She and Cllr Helen LeFevre expressed their intention to write a minority report and officers present at the meeting confirmed that they could indeed do so.
So they did and they did a great job that makes compelling reading.
They then sent it to all the Council members.
Immediately the Legal Office of Lewisham Council stepped in and decided that this minority report could not be shown to the public or even discussed at meetings until they decide so because it may contain information of a defamatory of confidential nature.
This minority report is currently still held by them and all bets are on it staying there until after the elections.
It is therefore with immense pride that we announce that this minority report is available from this website from the link below.
It's the report that the Council doesn't want you to see.
Isn't that exciting?
Please download it, read it, give it to friends, help in making it as public as possible.
It's been checked by lawyers and there's nothing libelous or unlawful in it.
This version differs from that given to Councillors only in a few minor changes that do not affect the content of it.
This was done to prevent any possible legal challenge from Lewisham Council.
Download the Minority Report - pdf 66k.
Download the Foreword to the Minority Report - pdf 28k. ...read more...