Dudley’s Reform UK leader has accused his political opponents of doing a ‘grubby deal’ to keep his councillors out of scrutiny roles.
At Dudley Council’s AGM on May 28, Conservative and Labour groups voted together to approve which councillors will be members of committees like the cabinet and scrutiny panels which hold decision makers to account.
Of 14 statutory, scrutiny and other committees where chair and vice chair roles were approved, Reform got just one job with Cllr Angela Blythe becoming vice chair of the Children’s Corporate Parenting Board.
Labour, the third largest group on the council, behind the Conservatives and Reform, got control of vital watchdog committees like core business scrutiny, audit, health and adult social care and standards.
Dudley Reform UK leader, Cllr Marco Longhi, said: “Reform UK are the second largest Party with 23 councillors, just four short of the minority administration Conservatives.
“It was very amusing, but completely expected, when we saw the Tories and Labour stitch up a deal to control all the positions of influence on all committees to the exclusion of the second largest party on the council.
“The people of the borough put us here to do a job, we want to challenge this administration’s grubby deal with Labour, through its desperate attempt to retain control.”
A named vote on the appointments was supported by the Conservatives, Labour and The Black Country Party while Reform and the Liberal Democrats voted against.
The vote also asked councillors to approve appointments to the cabinet and shadow cabinet.
The shadow cabinet is formed from members of the official opposition group, which is Reform.
Scrutiny committee chairs and vice chairs, cabinet members and shadow cabinet members get a special responsibility payment on top of their basic councillors’ allowance of £12,500.
Dudley Council leader, Cllr Patrick Harley, said there was no deal with Labour and his door was open to all fellow group leaders, including Cllr Longhi who he said he had no direct contact with.
Cllr Harley said: “The offer was there to work with all groups from myself after the May local elections.
“Although he is moaning about a stitch up, he gets an allowance, his deputy gets an allowance and around eight others get an allowance for being an opposition spokesperson.
“It’s only fair these seats are dished out proportionally, to give them anything else on top of that is disproportionate.
“He is crying about nothing, it’s a matter of fairness, every group has something.”
Labour group leader, Cllr Shaukat Ali, highlighted that Reform councillors voted against a list of appointments which included their own.
Cllr Ali said: “If he is saying people put them in to do a job, they failed to take the opportunity. In effect they voted against their own positions, it will be interesting to see if they withdraw themselves from those.
“Where was the alternative, if they were saying they know how to do things better they should have told us how they would do things better; it was completely inept on Reform’s part.”
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