A councillor who told a council call handler to “speak English” has been reprimanded and must complete extra training.<\/p>\n
Independent councillor Janet Cleverly made the comments when she was reporting a fly-tipping incident to Newport City Council.<\/p>\n
An ombudsman’s investigation described the Bettws ward councillor’s comments as “derogatory and humiliating” and “not what is expected of an elected member”.<\/p>\n
Cleverly apologised and told a council standards committee she was “mortified” by her actions.<\/p>\n
During the phone conversation, the call handler tried to tell the councillor about “disruptive sounds” on the line and asked her to repeat certain information.<\/p>\n
According to the ombudsman’s report, Cleverly then interrupted the call handler and said: “I’m sorry, can I speak to somebody who’s speaking English?”<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, the call handler was clarifying details when Cleverly said: “Sorry? I can’t understand anything you’re saying. Speak English.”<\/p>\n
Cleverly emailed the council’s cabinet member responsible for environmental matters latter that day in which she wrote: “I am all for equal opportunity but this person took all my information wrong after I had to repeat everything 3-4 times and spell everything lots of times.”<\/p>\n
A manager in the customer services team listened to the recorded call and flagged concerns about the councillor’s “unnecessary” tone, prompting a probe.<\/p>\n
A council monitoring officer said he considered the call handler’s English to be fluent and Cleverly’s comments to be “consciously or otherwise, racially motivated” and “discriminatory”.<\/p>\n
‘Lots of BME friends’<\/p>\n
According to the report, the call handler was “very emotional and upset” about the incident, but went on to withdraw from the investigation.<\/p>\n
Cleverly later told the ombudsman’s office she had “worked in BME communities” – black and minority ethnic – in her career as a youth and community worker and had “lots of BME friends”.<\/p>\n
She described the call as a “really bad line” and apologised if she had upset the call handler as it was “not my intention”.<\/p>\n
Parts of Thursday’s committee hearing took place in private to protect the identity of the call handler, who was not present.<\/p>\n
“I was absolutely mortified by my actions that day,” Cleverly told the panel.<\/p>\n
The committee found Cleverly had breached three areas of the council’s code for members relating to equality, respect and consideration of others, and disreputable conduct.<\/p>\n
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