To Graham Smith (Cornwall Reports): Congratulations on your dogged pursuit of the undoubted shenanigans and irregularities orbiting around the unacceptably opaque ''arms length'' CorServ corporate structure. Most particularly those responsible for its dis-organistation.
The whole thing is a farrago of falsehoods and illusions in the finest tradition of smoke and mirrors so beloved by incompetent, politically-motivated ''truth brokers'', like councillor Paynter and Cornwall Council CEO Kate Kennally.
So Councillor Julian Rand knew nothing?
Well, what the hell was he doing on the CorServ board?
Cornwall Council has a lengthy track record of spurious threats of legal action in the finest traditions of the bully that it is.
Indeed, it could be legitimately argued that Cornwall Council in its present form is a mortal enemy of Cornish people.

“Clarification is not to clarify things. It is to put oneself in the clear” – why the Cormac-gate review must ask the right questions
Posted by Graham Smith on 14th November 2020

Cornwall Council’s concession that there are useful lessons to learn from its review of the four-year-old “Cormac-gate” industrial accident at Grampound Road is to be welcomed. It is a small but important step in the right direction.
Over the next few days, County Hall’s political group leaders have the opportunity to ensure that this “review” does not become just another coat of whitewash.
Just as important as the “independent person or persons” who will lead the review, and whose identity must now be agreed, are the terms of reference for that review.
It is vital that the review should look beyond the accident itself – whose cause will almost certainly remain a mystery. Instead, the review must investigate the cover-up which followed. It was a cover-up which started immediately and which continues to this day.
Some very senior people at Cornwall Council and Corserv have said things about Cormac-gate – and said them quite recently – which they probably now regret.
Why did they say these things?
If lessons are to be learned, and the health and safety stable properly scrubbed as it should be, it is important that we identify precisely who knew what, when did they know it, and why did they carry on claiming that there was nothing wrong long after the contrary evidence was dragged into the public domain.
The review must also have the teeth to recommend disciplinary action against anyone found to have misled, no matter how senior.

The accident

On 16th December 2016 Andrew Richards was working alone at Cormac’s Grampound Road yard. The site was littered with all sorts of scrap. It was a windy day. The closed-circuit video cameras had been removed. The yard was due for demolition and had been declared unsafe.
At some point, something hard and heavy hit Mr Richards on the back of the head. He was knocked unconscious and has no idea what happened. There were no witnesses.
What is not in dispute is that Mr Richards, aged 52, was so badly hurt that he never returned to work. He went to hospital in an ambulance and doctors confirmed he had a fractured skull.
Cormac knew these facts at the time. It is what happened next that starts the major scandal.
The cover-up

Why would anyone put their name to an official RIDDOR accident report form which so blatantly misrepresented the accident? This is the document which ensured there was no Health and Safety Executive investigation, and which helped Cormac escape prosecution for operating an unsafe site.

If this false RIDDOR report was just “an honest mistake” it reveals such a staggering and woeful culture of disregard for health and safety that even now, four years too late, it merits disciplinary action.
Deliberately filing a false RIDDOR report is itself a criminal offence.
The handling of this RIDDOR report, within Cormac, should be a matter of record and demands to be investigated. We need to know names. As well as the author, who supervised it or reviewed it? Did anyone on the Corserv board ever ask any questions about it? If not, why not?

There is a compelling case for much greater transparency. Instead of simply noting bland assurances that “RIDDOR accidents are at an all-time low” the Corserv board should examine each and every RIDDOR report and sign-off on its authenticity.
Those reports should also go to Cornwall Council for scrutiny by elected councillors.

At the end of the day, the buck stops with the chief executives of both Corserv and its only shareholder, Cornwall Council.
Nine months after the accident, as a result of pressure from Andrew Richards’s trade union, Cormac admitted that the original RIDDOR report was false. You can download Cormac's own incident report here: Incident-report-Cormac-August-2017

The false RIDDOR report was, however, just the start of the cover-up.
The relationship between Corserv and Cornwall Council
In June, Cornwall Council’s monitoring officer, Mel O’Sullivan – the authority’s top lawyer – gave a remarkable answer when asked why members of the public should not be allowed to ask questions about the Cormac-gate cover-up at a full council meeting. "The questions are rejected on the basis that they relate to matters for which the council is not responsible, as the employer at all material times was Cormac and not the council,” she said. “It is not therefore appropriate for the council to accept or respond to public questions relating to matters that fall within the responsibilities of Cormac."

Clearly, this answer has not aged well over the past five months.
A question for Ms O’Sullivan now might be why did she advance such a foolish response in June? Did she really come up with this all by herself? Were any other senior officials involved in making this declaration of strategy?

County Hall clung to its “nothing to do with us, guv” line for as long as possible, seeking political cover from friendly cabinet members such as councillor Mike Eathorne-Gibbons. A question for Mr Eathorne-Gibbons now might be why, as the cabinet member responsible for Corserv, did he go along such obvious nonsense?

One of the council’s voices on the Corserv board is councillor Julian Rand, who genuinely believed that the Health and Safety Executive had “fully investigated” the accident – until Cornwall Reports convinced him that there had never been any kind of H&SE investigation at all. He also did not know about the false RIDDOR report.

The length of the arm between County Hall and its arm’s-length wholly-owned company Corserv appears to be remarkably flexible – to the point that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing.
There is a compelling case for tightening the council’s supervision of Corserv.

“Cabinet member responsible.” The clue is in the job title.
Whistleblowing

Ms O’Sullivan’s boss is the council’s chief executive, Kate Kennally, who has ultimate responsibility for implementing a raft of County Hall policies relating to health and safety, including its procurement and “whistleblowing” policies. The purpose of these policies is to ensure that Health and Safety is ingrained into every waking breath at County Hall.
Ms Kennally has been at Cornwall Council throughout the entire Cormac-gate saga. If she did not know about the false RIDDOR report, then an obvious question is why did she not know?

In March, a whistleblowing letter signed by 18 Cormac workers, who between them have 400 years of service, was presented to the council’s cabinet.

The cabinet ignored the whistleblowing letter. Every single cabinet member, and Ms Kennally, and Ms O’Sullivan, should now be required to explain why they took no action when they had that opportunity.

The council’s own whistleblowing policy, published in 2015, promises explicitly to investigate all complaints raised under this procedure. The policy applies not only to the council, but to all of its contractors. Instead, Ms O’Sullivan advised the whistleblowers to take their complaint to a charity and offered to pass on their letter to Corserv.

In April, the council leader, councillor Julian German said he had “reviewed the actions of the chief executive in relation to this matter and I am satisfied there is no evidence of any negligence on her part.”
Mr German was later forced to admit that his “review” had not produced any kind of report. Did this “review” consist of anything more substantial than a conversation with Ms Kennally? Are there any notes recording that conversation?

From the frying pan to the fire

More recently, Cormac-gate has gone from bad to worse. Which Corserv official sanctioned the spending of £2,000 on a solicitor’s letter, threatening libel proceedings against councillor Bob Egerton? Did the Corserv board know about this threat before it was made?
What role, if any, did Ms O’Sullivan play in advising Corserv about its response? If Corserv can threaten libel proceedings against councillors without first clearing such action with the council, that is almost as remarkable as the act itself.

The politics

One hitherto unsung hero, perhaps rather late in the day, could turn out to be the St Austell councillor and Liberal Democrat group leader Malcolm Brown. His conversation this week with the council’s deputy leader, fellow Lib Dem councillor Adam Paynter, must have been fascinating.
Whatever was said between them about the council chamber arithmetic, which now commands a majority in favour of a full-blown external independent inquiry, it helped convince councillor German that all of the previous positions on Cormac-gate were no longer tenable.
Andrew Richards was so badly injured that he never returned to work. Four years later, council leader Julian German has ordered a "review" of why the accident has never been investigated.

NOT TRUE: The original Cormac RIDDOR report falsely claimed that Andrew Richards had "passed out" rather than been struck on the head. He was taken to hospital by ambulance, not by a work colleague. The report also falsely described the accident as "over 7 days off work" rather than a more serious head injury, a statutory accident definition which would have triggered a full H&SE investigation
Councillor Adam Paynter was the council leader at the time of the accident, and has led political resistance to any new inquiry. Chief Executive Kate Kennally has ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the council complies with its own policies on health and safety, including whistleblowing
Cornwall councillor Bob Egerton resigned from the ruling cabinet in protest at the cover-up
The review should examine the wider relationship between Cornwall Council and Corserv. Councillor Julian Rand, who sits on the Corserv board on behalf of the council, was not aware that the accident had never been investigated by the Health & Safety Executive.
In June, Cornwall Council's top lawyer, Mel O'Sullivan, said the council could not hear questions about Cormac-gate and ruled them out of order. Now the council leader himself has ordered a review of the accident
Mr Paynter had been leader of Cornwall Council at the time of the original accident. He had been particularly bullish in his dismissal, earlier this year, of any calls for an inquiry.
Cormac-gate has put relationships within the Lib Dem group of councillors under great strain. Mr Brown has good reason to believe that if it comes to a full council vote, the “no inquiry” argument would now be heavily defeated.

It would be nice to think that a similar fate awaits the report of any review which fails to ask, and answer, the questions suggested above.
The purpose of the review is to bring as much clarity as possible. But as County Hall ponders the terms of reference for its “review” some will be looking to Britain’s exemplar civil servant, Sir Humphrey Appleby, for inspiration. He once famously observed: “Clarification is not to clarify things. It is to put one’s self in the clear.”

Next week could be a long time in the continuing politics of Cormac-gate.

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