Somerset Council officers have been criticised for accepting gifts and hospitality, including a dinner from a consultancy firm working closely with the council. The revelations come from the council's half-yearly gifts and hospitality register, which lists all items worth £25 or more offered to officers.
Gifts include dinner, event tickets, and accommodation
Over the past six months, officers received invitations to award ceremonies, overnight accommodation, John Lewis gift cards, and bottles of wine, though not all offers were accepted. Among the accepted gifts were a £40 dinner with representatives from Newton Europe, which is leading the council's transformation programme, £130 for a group invite to a Yunex traffic signals event in Bristol, and £285 worth of tickets to a national governance conference.
Officers also attended the Civil Engineering Contractors Association's annual dinner in Cardiff, with overnight accommodation provided. This disclosure revealed that Centregreat would carry out upcoming improvements to the Edithmead roundabout in Highbridge.
Criticism from committee members
Alan Hemsley, a co-opted member of the council's standards committee, used a public meeting on July 23 to criticise the acceptance of gifts, though he clarified he did not believe any crime had been committed. He said: "The Newton Europe declaration appears to be an officer taking a dinner from a company that is employed by the council. That is dodgy in my books."
He also expressed concern about the Centregreat gifts, stating: "I have great difficulty in accepting that three officers should be having a dinner paid for by contractors that has done work with the council and are probably going to do more work with the council. The whole thing is looking, to somebody out there, like officers are taking money from prospective or existing contractors. That's what it looks like to the public."
Council defends transparency
Scott Wooldridge, the council's head of governance and democratic services, defended the publication of the register, saying the council was "being more transparent than many of its peers." Regarding the Centregreat gifts, he explained that officers working outside the county are allowed to claim for evening meals and lunch within an allowance period, and that the accommodation and food were associated with a conference hosted by the organisation.
Councillor Bente Height (Shepton Mallet, Reform UK) called for more transparency, warning that the public might otherwise "think this smelled a little bit." She suggested the council should reassure the public that officers were accepting gifts in good faith, adding: "If I was a member of the general public and not a councillor, I would think that it smelled a little bit, to be quite honest. We should put something that could be sent out to the public so they know we are not dodgy here."
A further report on these issues will be discussed at the committee's next meeting in October.
