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Councillor Paul Buchanan

The Minister is nodding; he is aware of that. The outfit is called Southwest One, and it is busy making a total hash of everything in the county. Its computer system does not work, it cannot place orders or pay bills and it is certainly not saving any money. Southwest One is the dubious end product of Alan Jones's desire radically to improve services—mad. The Jones philosophy is "anything goes", which explains how he was able to hire the wife of Avon and Somerset's chief constable to set it all up. Sue Barnes became Somerset's project director without any kind of formal interview. Her hubby, Colin Port, is now on the board of Southwest One. Funny old world, isn't it? Paul Buchanan was involved in assessing the merits of the commercial bidders back in 2006. He was, after all, deputy leader and he knows a thing or two about business. There were three rivals: Capita, which, as we all know, is a big player in local government; British Telecom, for which Alan Jones got a consultancy in Somerset; and IBM. With millions at stake, such companies spend hundreds of thousands of pounds polishing their bids. They twitch if anyone speaks out of turn because there is so much at stake. On 12 February 2007, Sue Barnes went to London with Paul Buchanan to meet IBM representatives. My sources in the industry tell me that IBM was badly rattled. It had heard rumours that Alan Jones had been singing the praises of BT during a late-night drinking session at a conference of chief executives. I forgot to mention that Mr. Jones likes to unwind with a glass in his hand—but this time, unfortunately for him, he was overheard. Sue Barnes and Paul Buchanan, to their credit, had to pour oil on IBM's troubled waters; otherwise, the whole project would have gone belly up. Within a day or two of that meeting, Jones's attitude changed completely; it was the trigger that launched the campaign to destroy Buchanan. Jones sent a letter to Councillor Cathy Bakewell, the leader, about Buchanan's behaviour and persuaded his four most senior directors to sign it. Then Bakewell came to talk to the management board—that is, Jones and his four toady directors. She promised to "deal with Buchanan". In fact, she called in the leader of the Lib Dems on the Local Government Association as a kind of mediator. Bad call. That particular individual, Richard Kemp from Liverpool—Jones's home town; they may even be mates—is known in Liberal circles as the Jackal. Assassination is his speciality, and Jones went to London to give him ammo—signed statements from people in and around Jones's office alleging Buchanan's "unspeakable" behaviour. Jones is a bully; his staff probably signed those statements in their own blood, for all I know. I apologise to the House, because I am forced to go into great detail in order to explain the way in which the chief executive has immersed himself in party politics and the political process. Chief executives, I had always thought, are meant to leave politics to the politicians, but at Somerset county council, with a weak leader on her way out, anything goes for Mr. Jones. The Jackal came to Somerset with a cunning plan: if Buchanan quietly resigned as deputy leader, promised to shut up and be a good boy, and accepted "mentoring" from Jones and the Jackal, then the charges would be dropped. Mr. Buchanan was not playing. If he had agreed to the Jackal's plans, he would have been accepting his own guilt—and, as we all know, he was not guilty of anything except swearing, once, under his breath. Mr. Buchanan suggested another mentor, a far more respected and accomplished figure—the former leader of Somerset county council, Sir Chris Clarke. Mentoring in local government is a semi-official process. A contract is drawn up between one of the major local government quangos and the council involved. Somerset did agree to sign up Sir Chris to mentor Paul Buchanan, but that did not stop Jones's campaign to destroy the man. On 27 March 2007—the very day that the Government announced a shortlist of councils seeking unitary status—the Jackal e-mailed Lib Dem leaders, copying it to Jones, urging a full complaint to the Standards Board. He said:""It is an ideal time to deal with this because of the Unitary News"." Sound familiar? A good day to bury bad news? Now we know why Richard Kemp is called the Jackal. No serious attempt was ever made to deal with Jones's complaints in-house—and that was what was meant to happen. Instead, Jones used the sledgehammer of the Standards Board, and the depths to which he and his henchmen have stooped are beyond belief. This is a passage from a transcript of evidence to the Standards Board, which seems to be a deliberate attempt to blacken Paul Buchanan's name by suggesting that he was romantically involved with Sue Barnes, the project director and wife of the chief constable:""Sue and Paul Buchanan were pretty much ensconced together at the back of the bus, sharing information and having a good time and having a laugh and a joke. I think what struck me was how close they were in terms of their body language...lots of whispers and laughter and what have you....I'm not suggesting for one moment it was inappropriate!"" Oh yeah? Pull the other one! The transcript was scored through, presumably by the man who gave the evidence—Roger Kershaw, Jones's No. 2. It looks like, and is, an organised dirty tricks campaign: first, someone uses innuendo in evidence, and then they are allowed to correct their evidence before the other side sees it. Somebody close to Kershaw sent it, anonymously, to me. The interview between Kershaw and the Standards Board was conducted in June 2007. It contains another glaring untruth. Mr. Kershaw states that after Sue Barnes and Paul Buchanan went to see IBM in February, Sue Barnes's contract was terminated. In fact, Sue Barnes served the entire term of her contract until the IBM deal was signed in late September. What on earth was going on, and why in the name of sanity did it go on so long? The Standards Board rejected the first batch of Jones's complaints because they were plainly ridiculous—so Jones started complaining about its decision. By now, the chief executive of Somerset county council was behaving like Victor Meldrew with a Kalashnikov. It is no wonder that Southwest One is regarded as a dismal failure. Jones was obsessed with his vendetta. Next, he unilaterally severed the mentoring contract between Somerset and Sir Chris Clarke that was established to help Buchanan. Buchanan hit back with a letter to the council citing incidents of drunkenness, womanising and bullying by Jones. He could not take them up with the Standards Board, because there is no mechanism to do so. Jones cross-volleyed with yet more complaints, this time claiming that Buchanan was bullying him by complaining about his behaviour. You could not make it up. It is a plot full of bureaucracy, bonking and a chief executive who has gone totally bonkers.