Leaked report on bullying accusation
Royal Borough: Former leader accuses Lib Dems of failing to act
A former Lib Dem councillor has responded to a catalogue of criticisms levelled against him by a senior officer of the Royal Borough regarding his ‘bullying’ conduct.
John Baldwin, former Belmont ward councillor, stepped down in March as a result of a ‘wholly inappropriate outburst’ towards a council officer last year.
Now a leaked document produced in January has surfaced, outlining repeated concerns by the monitoring officer Emma Duncan dating back to early 2021.
Ms Duncan detailed how Mr Baldwin had ‘mocked, belittled and undermined’ officers on multiple occasions.
He was also accused of using ‘rude’ and ‘unnecessarily aggressive language’ towards them.
But Mr Baldwin has described the report as ‘selective’, containing ‘hearsay’.
“All the context is gone – all that’s left is the quotes and that’s always going to look bad,” he said.
A series of letters from Ms Duncan to Mr Baldwin showed that there had been ‘a pattern of conduct’.
She wrote that Mr Baldwin’s behaviour towards officers had been ‘causing concern’ when she joined the Borough in 2021.
Ms Duncan added that Mr Baldwin’s behaviour did not much improve – though he had been ‘continuously warned’ in the 18 months prior to the date of this report.
After an August 2021 planning meeting, officers reported that Mr Baldwin’s behaviour was ‘the worst that they had ever seen’ at any council meeting.
Concerns were raised that his presence was ‘affecting the ability of the planning panel to operate effectively.’
Mr Baldwin said that there were ‘tensions’ in his relationship with the governance function of council which caused his interactions with officers to become ‘adversarial’.
“I was extremely concerned by the attitude of ‘officers work for the administration’,” he said. “As soon as that was uttered, it changed my and other councillors’ perceptions of what we could say.”
Moreover, ‘innumerable’ procedural changes made Mr Baldwin ‘very concerned’, he said.
“It just made it impossible for opposition councillors to do their jobs,” he said.
In a letter to the Advertiser (see p24), Mr Baldwin questioned why ‘only one incident led to a complaint’ and defended some of his actions, particularly in relation to the controversial Deerswood Meadow application.
Referring to governance issues, he added: “I can only beat my head against a brick wall for so long before perspective is lost. In short, that’s what happened.”
In June 2021, Lib Dem leader Simon Werner was alerted to Mr Baldwin’s interactions with officers by Ms Duncan.
Since the report has come to light, former leader Andrew Johnson has lambasted Cllr Werner for knowing about Mr Baldwin’s actions but not acting sooner.
An investigation was launched in December over his ‘inappropriate outburst’ – and at the time, Cllr Werner said Mr Baldwin had recently changed his coronary prescriptions ‘affect[ing] his general wellbeing.’
But Mr Johnson has pointed out that ‘this behaviour goes back over a period of two years.’
“Being leader of the council is a huge responsibility and ultimately shapes the culture of the organisation,” he said.
“His culture here is one of lies and cover-ups of bullying, abuse, intimidation and victimisation and I fear that the council will now lose good people as a result.”
New leader Cllr Werner said he has not seen the report – and to his observation at the time, Mr Baldwin was ‘robust but he wasn’t bullying.’
He said that, as a councillor, this was sometimes necessary, and Mr Baldwin’s actions were effective in stopping the development of Deerswood Meadow.
“We’ve got to be robust when we see something wrong – it’s our job. If you’re not heard, you need to say it louder,” he said.
“There was only one Code of Conduct [action] that came out of that whole thing – and that was [against] Ross McWilliams, not John,” he added.
“I never felt John was being inappropriate – he was there for the residents. When he did overstep the mark, I removed him from all committees.”
The Royal Borough has declined to comment on the matter.