Cllr King Hits Back At Cllr Rogers’ Comments & Looks To Move Forward

In what has been an eventful two weeks at Wrexham Council, Councillor Malcolm King has hit back at Councillor Neil Rogers and looks to focus on the task of dealing with challenges facing Wrexham.

In August Cllr King was stripped of his Lead Member for Finance role following allegations made over the running of the local Child and Family Assessment Team. Speaking at the time, Council Leader Neil Rogers said he was concerned that ‘allegations are having a negative impact on staff’.

Following Cllr Rogers’ comments, Cllr King released a strongly worded statement stating his displeasure at the manner of ‘attacks’ on whistle blowers.

Last Wednesday Wrexham Council was thrown into turmoil after the Council Leader and nine Labour councillors left the Labour Party and Group. It was announced on Friday that the ten councillors would be joining Deputy Leader Mark Pritchard’s Democratic Independent Party.

On the same day Cllr Rogers released a statement regarding the decision to remove Cllr King’s Lead Member role. You can read the statement in full here.

However Cllr King has since responded to comments made by Cllr Rogers and had stated that the ‘least said the soonest mended’ is the best advice to follow, and that the attention should return to the challenges facing Wrexham.

Cllr King told Wrexham.com: “I still don’t really understand what is behind all this. So far as the very personal allegations that Cllr Rogers has made about me, I think that the least said the soonest mended is the best advice to follow. My record as Lead Member, I think is a very strong one, taking the Council through very difficult times with huge budget cuts. Our process is more advanced than most councils in Wales and has been praised by the Auditor General for Wales.

“My workload has been very large with me sometimes presenting more reports to the Executive Board and Council than all the other Lead Members put together.

“Cllr Rogers statements about the CAFAT report are simply wrong and I have now received detailed documents so that I can finally make a definitive reply, which will certainly include a fundamental rejection of many of the points that the author makes.

“So far as my support for the CAFAT team is concerned, I wrote to all the councillors several weeks ago trying to clarify the position, setting out my strong support for the team and the vital work they do. It is still extremely difficult to understand how social workers have been led to believe that my report was in any way critical of them. I understand they have not seen my report, so I continue to wonder how they could have reached such an inaccurate conclusion, if indeed they have.

“Cllr Rogers claim that I have not raised my concerns about the financial pressures on children’s services is ridiculous and utterly untrue. I have spent the last 25 years doing so and I have never stopped.

Cllr King added: “I have been very heartened by the support I have received from many people and organisations in Wrexham and around Wales, all of them expressing amazement and shock that someone could be sacked for raising concerns about child protection, particularly in today’s climate when we have all become more aware of the importance of not trying to silence whistle blowers.

“What is important now is to return to the task of dealing with the huge challenges facing Wrexham.”

The events of the past two weeks have caused quite a debate on the Wrexham.com Forums. You can take part in the discussion here…