"Ban these people from the Town Hall"
Reporting team: John James, Kelvin Ross, Alison Shepherd and David Callaghan
The man who led the campaign to get the District Auditor to investigate Waltham Forest Council's refusal to advertise teacher jobs in the Times Educational Supplement on Friday offered an olive branch.
"I don't want old friends surcharged," ex-councillor Peter Leighton told the District Auditor's inquiry.
But he said the considerable extra cost of advertising elsewhere, with a dramatic fall in teacher applications was "something you cannot sweep away.
He continued: "I want to see them disqualified from office, because they know how to abuse power. They don't realise that power is a position of trust.
"Some of us believe passionately in the future of local government. Local government is under attack because people behave in this way. We want to see local government free, open and serving the people.
In a passionate speech he said 30,000 people had written to District Auditor Peter Hepplestone complaining that the Labour councillors had introduced the TES ban in support of the Rupert Murdoch printers' dispute at Wapping.
"They knew something was wrong. If that wrong is not put right, then it is a threat to the future of democracy.
Earlier, he had described former borough solicitor Peter North as "a voice crying in the wilderness as he sough to warn councillors of the legal complications.
Mr Leighton, a former education committee chairman, said there was no doubt of Labour's intentions.
Present education chairman Eddie Playfair, for example, had minuted that the TES advertisement ban would continue for the period of the printers' dispute.
The result was that the £53,000 recruitment budget exploded to £310,000 and the number of people applying for teacher posts dropped dramatically.
The ban, he argued, had been done without any research into the effects yet was not lifted until "all kinds of figures had been supplied-"a dragging of the feet said Mr Leighton.
But the council argued that even if the ban was wrong, the expenditure was not, since the money was spent for a proper purpose. Further it had to be proved that the councillors knew their decision was clearly unlawful.
Liberal Democratic councillor Philip Arnold claimed they did.
He said Councillor Steve Jacobs moved a motion at the education committee meeting in June 1986 to ban advertising in the TES and not have New International papers in the borough's libraries.
Legal advice had been given that such a policy would be illegal. Labour members reacted in a "quite cavalier way.
No education reasons had been given at the meeting for introducing the bans.
Said education committee member Irene Memory (Conservative): "I thought the legal advice was very strong indeed and I was surprised it wasn't accepted. There is no doubt we had problems recruiting teachers because of the ban.
And Liberal Democrat Terry Messenger, a former education chairman and ex-deputy council leader, agreed: "It was made clear to the members that the councillors would be putting themselves at risk. It seemed from the advice that there would be a risk of surcharge or disqualification, but the members just pressed on.
Mr North, giving evidence commented: "The council were sailing very close to the wind, if not actually acting illegally, then very close.
In November, 1986, the High Court ruled that several other London boroughs had acted unlawfully by banning News International publications from libraries.
Then, two months later, Mr Leighton wrote to the council and said that if council leader Neil Gerrard didn't issue an undertaking to stop the action within 48 hours he would take out a High Court injunction.
The undertaking was given "in the 59th minute of the 11th hour".
Waltham Forest College principal Jack Fuller said he wasn't consulted on the advertising issue and the college's governors disassociated themselves from the council decision.
The response rate to job advertisements for the college was 16 per cent down.
Chief executive Leonard Knox admitted that Labour councillors were looking for ways not to deal with Murdoch publications.
On the legal advice given, he said: "Looking at it now with hindsight, the report could have been fuller, but I can't think members were unaware of the consequences .
The District Auditor, concluding the inquiry, said he would make known his ruling "as soon as possible."
October 27, 1989.
