Action is under way to change the “toxic culture” at Cityclean – Brighton and Hove City Council’s rubbish and recycling service – and to end political interference in personnel decisions there, councillors were told.
A £266,000 independent report by barrister Aileen McColgan was presented to councillors for debate at a meeting of the full council at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (14 December).
The Labour leader of the council Bella Sankey said that one of her first decisions when she took charge after the local elections last May was to start the investigation into complaints about behaviour at Cityclean.
Ms McColgan’s investigation found deep-rooted issues with bullying, race discrimination, sexual harassment, intimidation and violence. Managers were unable to respond to issues because of the realistic threat of industrial action.
Last night, Councillor Sankey said that Ms McColgan heard from 70 people who had not spoken out before because of their fear of reprisals which was described in the report as “well-founded”.
She said that the report highlighted a “toxic culture” at Cityclean involving GMB union reps and a group of about 10 white men who were particularly protected by the union reps.
Councillor Sankey said that an independent security check found illegal weapons in the GMB office including a samurai sword, nunchucks, knives and other weapons.
She said: “I have apologised repeatedly to staff who have been affected by these behaviours and I do so again tonight. I also apologise for the wider culture and to everybody who has been affected by it.
“In turn, I’ve been struck by the many members of staff and residents who have come forward to thank our administration for gripping this issue which has dogged our city for so long.
“I am also struck by the number of people that have come forward to raise their mistreatment at Cityclean since the publication of the interim report in October.”
Councillor Sankey said that a confidential disciplinary process was currently under way and that the barrister’s recommendations had been accepted.
A full report is due to be presented to the Strategy, Finance and City Regeneration Committee on Thursday 25 January including an action plan.
Councillor Sankey said that action was already taking place and a web page would keep the public and councillors up to date with the action plan.
Green convenor Steve Davis said that the report made regular references to political interference after councillors overturned personnel decisions – and “mentions dodgy relationships between some councillors and some union members”.
Councillor Davis called for full disclosure and accountability for the previous Labour council’s dealings with GMB representatives.
He said: “If we are to have confidence that the current Labour administration can be trusted to tackle the problems at Cityclean, then we need full accountability over the roles that Labour councillors past and present may have played in Cityclean issues.
The Green Group had years to tackle this.
Too busy rolling out unused cycle lanes, hangars and the wonderfully expensive Beryl Bike schemes. All a product of Steve Davis’ twisted and feeble mind
I think it is called “gesture politics”
What happened to the Supremo that was appointed about 2 years ago on a £100k + salary who vowed to sort the Cleansing section out because I never heard of her again whilst the problems escalated, is she still employed in that capacity or been ” Let Go ” with a nice pension and pay off or relocated to the Typing pool ?
Oh, she’s now Assistant Director of City Environment – whatever that means – on a tasty salary
That means she assists the director of the city environment department.
Hahaha ha….. love it. Some people need it spelling out. 🤣
And suspending the award-winning park keeper of Wish Ward for no valid reason while everything he built up there is left to fall apart. Sack this useless council officer now.
Are there ANY parties left? I say it because Q. Park is in a Sh%t state.
The 10 whitemen [notice thiet skin colour is a problem) have already been found guilty by bella & the 260 grand lawyer without being questioned. Sankey is a stooge of tory starmer.
Their skin colour is relevant when they’re accused of racism. If due process isn’t followed, they can sue.
Lol.. it’ll take more than two years to sort sh*tty sheen out.
No wonder the councils skint. 266k wasted.
Actually the greens tackled the GMb in 2014 over unequal oay. They went on strike. Labour said it was our incompetence. Labour was in power from 2015 to 2020 when they gave up during the pandemic Yes we should have arguably stood up but we were in a minority situation. We were also bullied by these thugs.
Members of the public who’ve come forward to thank City Clean?
Are they being serious?
I don’t think thanking them for a second rate service all year round is the word to use?
And considering the news about what’s been going on within City Clean, it seems a whole root and branch sort out is needed!
But for some reason, City Cleans employees have a stranglehold on the City of Brighton & Hove?
And I say that as a advocator of Trade Unions!
Sh%£tyclean are lazy. Pure and simple. Inside and out. Brighton is disgusting, even on a good day. Foxes and seagulls to blame though, apparently.
It’s been reported that there was a meeting behind closed doors at Brighton Town Hall between the GMB and the council which got a bit lively.
Maybe there are minutes or reports that can now be disclosed. Or councillors who were present could reveal what happened
So much for all the undisclosed millions thrown at Cityclean to sort them out during the rubbish strike. Just goes to show that throwing money at a problem is no solution.
Their service is embarrassingly bad.
I know they have a long term contract, but surely there is an agreement that they must provide a basic level of service to keep that contract.
Here (in the Brunswick area) our recycling bins have not been emptied for over a month. If you go to the City Clean web page to report it, it just comes back with a message that they know about it. Yet nothing happens and each time the wind blows the recycling gets blown out of the bins and ends up everywhere.
I have stopped going to the Hove “recycling centre” because I’ve been turned away multiple times for not having the right rubbish by the power tripping stuff there. Last time was because I had taken motor oil in the wrong type of container (a plastic bottle with screw lid) and was told I could only being bottles bought from Halfords. Now I go to the Brighton tip and never had any issues. Ridiculous that I have to drive twice as far to get there…. I sometimes work in Newhaven and the tip there is so much better designed than either the Brighton or Hove ones.
Still no food waste or Tetra Pack collection? Barely any plastics collected because they only want the “high quality” stuff? Come on- sort it out!
We could have repaired the Madeira arches with the money wasted over the years of the Green and Labour administration. Now look where we are.
Just pause for a moment to consider how someone appointed a man who had previous extremely negative form re bin strikes to be CEO of the council and his tenure went on for years without any evidence of even basic competence at anything. When he fled in May, not one person on this website had anything positive to say about him and there were very few commentators anyway. Similarly, the Head of Planning and City Regeneration got out suddenly and very recently, mostly unmourned. Hopefully, that person’s incompetence and/or questionable activities will be exposed in due course. The point is that not everything has to do with politicians, although they have a lot to answer for, including questionable appointments of very senior officers. B&H deserves much better, but I doubt we’ll get it.
Being a chief executive of any council is the golden ticket, whether you’re competent or not. CEOs are a political appointment (John Barrowdale – Tory, Penny Thompson – Green) etc. Administrations change and if they (the politicians) don’t like the cut of your gib, then it’s a big pay day. Didn’t Warren cost us tax payers £275,000 to get rid of Penny Thompson. Not sure what, if any, Geoff walked away with. On the wider subject of Cityclean, it has been toxic for years, HR (scared of its own shadow) senior managment and councillors have known this. Nick probably had enough and went to save Croydon from bankruptcy!!!!
Cityclean staff are directly employed by the council, Veolia will be contracted. Personally I find staff at Hove recycling pleasant and helpful as are those of Cityclean when they turn up for the bins.