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Shamed councillor expelled after weekly’s investigation

Councillors exposed by a weekly newspaper for attending just a fraction of scheduled council meetings are facing disciplinary proceedings – and one has even been kicked out by his party.

Labour councillor Amritpal Sandhu came top of a list of “worst offenders” compiled by the Slough Observer in a special investigation examining attendance at council meetings.

He turned up to just eight of 29 meetings, despite receiving the full £7,100 allowance paid to councillors.

Since the story was published, the Labour Party has confirmed it has expelled the councillor and he will now have to sit as an independent.

The expose was put together by Observer reporter John Dickens.

He said: “Councillors are elected on their promises to provide a voice for their constituents and our role as a local newspaper is to hold them to account,” he said.

The Slough Observer's splash exposed the councillors who had attended just a handful of council meetings

“We wanted to show our readers which councillors were duly providing what they had promised and which were not – from our investigation it was clear some councillors were neglecting their duty.

“Our investigation focused on how many meetings each councillor was expected to attend, did attend and the percentage. We ran a double page feature with a table including every councillor’s attendance record during the past year and ran a story on the best and worst five.

Added John:  “We also splashed a story focusing on the three worst – who had appalling records which showed they were blatantly disregarding their public duty.

“After our investigation we heard the councillor we had exposed as the worst performing had been expelled from his political party – which provided another exclusive page lead for our newspaper.”

Councillors are expected to attend meetings so they can contribute to debates on key issues, scrutinise decision-making and represent their constituents’ concerns.

Following the initial investigation, the Observer discovered the worst-performing councillor had been expelled from the Labour party

2 comments

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  • May 20, 2013 at 12:13 pm
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    This is what true journalism is all about, and why we should never be controlled by politicians of any flavour. Well done John!!!

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  • May 20, 2013 at 5:29 pm
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    The Slough Observer used to have a sharp consistent reputation for years for digging up many good useful “hey Doris listen to this” stories and then in recent years it’s been a pale weak version.
    But those of us who worked for it years ago should now applaud this at least brief flash of medium good stuff.
    Well done – but will the paper keep it up as its circulation has plunged from what it used to be? Now it has a few staff and a remote office, I hear. It used to beat the socks off the Slough-Windsor Express nearly every week for years.
    I even remember when the Observer published grudging and disguised apologies for legal-dodgy blunders and the editor of the Express used to thump his desk and shout: “Why the hell didn’t we get this story?!”
    Intro to the apology/stories used to read something like: The Vicar of X yesterday refuted claims published by us last week that he was involved in an emotional weeping scene with a teenage boy in his vestry.
    or
    The chairman of X Council this week spoke exclusively to the Observer and denied our report last week that he had misappropriated funds before leaving town suddenly with his secretary.
    Oh those were the delicious days – or were we awful irresponsible hacks?

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