Councillor attacks slow council complaint response

Jane Bryne, who has grey hair and black shirt.Image source, Newcastle City Council
Image caption,

Jane Bryne quit her cabinet position last year

  • Published

A councillor who resigned from her cabinet position last year has criticised the local authority for being slow to resolve her complaints.

Newcastle City Council Labour member Jane Byrne quit the body's cabinet in October 2023, saying she could not "trust" staff.

Byrne posted an open letter on X on Tuesday which said she was still waiting "almost a year later" for the resolution of an investigation into complaints she had made.

The local authority said it had investigated Byrne's complaints, but admitted it had not responded to the councillor's calls for further clarity.

The Labour-run council said none of Byrne's complaints which it investigated had been upheld.

But a spokesperson said the authority wanted to apologise for not replying to Byrne's calls for "further clarity".

"A response will be sent in due course," it said. "We have written to councillor Byrne to clarify what matters she is waiting for a response on."

'Number of concerns'

Byrne said in her letter that recent coverage about alleged bullying at the local authority meant "remaining silent" had the potential to give credibility to the "anonymous smears circulated" when she quit.

She said she resigned because she had a "number of concerns about actions taken by some officers" when she was a cabinet member.

"I thought that these actions risked undermining council projects," she said.

She alleged she had "repeatedly" raised these concerns internally.

"When I realised that the council's leadership was more troubled by my raising concerns than they were with the reasons I had for being concerned, I resigned," she said.

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