Philip Grant added a comment to a previous blog yesterday which contains some new information about the likely “pay off” by Brent to Cara Davani. So that all Wembley Matters readers are aware of this new development, I am posting his comment here as a separate guest blog:-
Despite a reminder to Christine Gilbert this afternoon (Friday Aigust 7th) that I was expecting her reply 'by the end of this week', I have not heard anything further from her, and so am still waiting for her answers to my two simple "yes" or "no" questions. See LINKif you don't know what these are.
Cllr. Warren copied to me an email he sent to Brent's Chief Legal Officer on Wednesday, referring to my email above of 3 August and supporting the arguments I had made. Calling for Christine Gilbert or Fiona Alderman to provide the answers to my questions, he said: 'It cannot be right to deny both Members and Brent Council tax payers such basic information.' Ms Alderman copied to me her acknowledgement, saying that she would reply to Cllr. Warren shortly, but if she has replied, I am not aware of what she has said.
I can now say for certain that there WAS an agreement between Brent Council and Cara Davani. Some WM readers have said that the continued mantra from Ms Gilbert, Ms Alderman and Cllr. Butt of: ‘The council cannot legally disclose any details of the arrangements relating to Ms Davani’s departure,’ meant that there must have been "arrangements". They were right.
A reliable source has now told me that when she left Brent in June 'both Cara Davani and the Council signed an agreement. One clause of this restricted either party from disclosing the details of the agreement.' So much for openness and transparency! Both parties had something to hide, so they both agreed to hide it.
Despite this, it is NOT the details of the agreement that my two questions are asking for, so there is no valid reason why Christine Gilbert should refuse to answer them. It seems highly likely that the agreement involved some financial benefit to Ms Davani, so that the answer to at least one of the questions must be "no". In that case, Christine Gilbert also needs to tell Brent's councillors, its staff and its residents what the justification is for the Council giving that financial benefit to Cara Davani, so that councillors in particular can satisfy themselves that this is not a misuse of Council funds.