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Should council taxpayer pay for the court action in America to uncover the idenity of the blogger Mr Monkey
Letter Sent 16th July 2011 Dear M/s Twomey Re South Tyneside Council (STC) – Mr Monkey I thank you for your letter of the 13th July. I am please to note that the Secretary of State has “recently criticised councils for using taxpayer’s money to employ security firms to monitor local bloggers”. I know the Council publish details of their spending of over £500 but to try and find the payments to British and American lawyers and all the court fees over the past three years is like looking for a “needle in a haystack”, to publish all these payments is all just a waste of money. I understand the STC have refused to disclose the amount of paid in costs for this court action, which could be as much as £250,000, but I have made a request for this information under the Freedom of Information Act and will let you know the result. It is all very well to say that “citizens should hold the councils to account not Whitehall departments” but out of 69,293 households in South Tyneside 5,010 pay a reduced charge under the government schemes to help people on low incomes and a further 18,300 do not pay any council tax at all under these schemes. These “citizens” will have little or no interest in how our Labour council waste our money. As Whitehall pay most of the money for council services, in the case of STC council taxpayer’s pay £58.76m and Whitehall and business pay £90.057m so the government should they should have some interest in the misuse of taxpayer’s money. I think at the very least the Secretary of State on behalf of the taxpayers and the business council taxpayer’s, should be asking STC why they should be paying the legal costs of these three councillors and the council official for what is a “frolic of their own”. Yours sincerely
M/s Anne-Marie Twomey Department of Communities and Local Government 3/H10 Eland House Bressenden Place London SW1E 5DU
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