Whistleblowers can’t trust the chair of scrutiny at the West of England Combined Authority
A whistleblower has put a cat among the Redcliff pigeons. It turns out that scrutiny chair Jerome Thomas could not be bothered to reply to the whistleblower despite fears that he and two other former officers were being subjected to a vendetta by then mayor Dan Norris
What should the duties of the chair of West of England Combined Authority overview and scrutiny committee be to a whistleblower?
On Nov 25 last year a former senior officer at Weca wrote to Jerome Thomas, after a conversation five days earlier.
He was worried that an employment investigation into alleged misconduct had been launched Weca monitoring officer Bob Brown (at the behest of former mayor Dan Norris) into the whistleblower and two other senior former officers…
Coincidentally, all three former officers were involved in the report showing unlawful behaviour by Norris over the so-called bus wrap. It looked like a vendetta. Norris wanted his revenge…
I am going to park details of the investigation – by former senior fire officer Stuart Errington – for another day. But the whistleblower surmised that the Weca employment committee (of three unitary council leaders) was not given a full picture of what was going on.
Back to Thomas. What should he have done? Several things, including seeking some legal advice – but not from Weca’s monitoring officer Bob Brown. But most importantly, Thomas should have replied. He didn’t bother.
So the whistleblower wrote to Thomas again on Jan 15 this year. (By this time the Errington report seemed to be gathering pace.) Weca had contacted the whistleblower asking him to take part in a historic HR “investigation” without supplying further details…
Dan Norris addressing a parliamentary committee – when he was allowed to attend – with a veiled threat of calling in the police over actions by former officers. Didn’t turn out that way.
The whistleblower had his suspicions that it was designed to win a payout to Norris’s former political assistant, Alex Mayer, who, paradoxically, had been behind much of the bullying that went on during Norris’s term. The whistleblower was getting twitchy over Thomas’s silence.
Finally, Thomas replied to the whistleblower – FIVE weeks later. His response? “Apologies that I overlooked a response to your email. Yes I can confirm that I received it. Kind regards, Jerome” That’s all.
There you have it. The chair of Weca scrutiny ignores a whistleblowing former senior officer. When prompted, takes a full five weeks to respond – and then says absolutely nothing.
I know that Thomas knows all about the Errington investigation, which Weca would not confirm or deny in an FoI request I made in December 2024.
Since then, the inquiry seems to have run into the sand. As indeed it would, with Norris out of Weca. I am trying to discover how much it cost. But as well as Jerome Thomas, who has fallen down on the job, chief executive Stephen Peacock and monitoring officer Bob Brown have serious questions to answer.
If a whistleblower can’t trust the chair of overview and scrutiny, why would they speak to anyone?
