And so we bid farewell to County Hall spin doctor Paul Masterman.

The £7,500-a-month PR guru left Leicestershire County Council last month.

Paul has long been a hot topic on this blog. His employers Westco had teamed-up with Leicestershire County Council in 2010 to find a candidate to head-up the slimmed-down communications and press team at county hall. No-one was ever interviewed for the job, which attracted 40 applications, and Westco were signed up for further £10,000-a-month stints to run the council communications team.

Opposition councillors say upwards of £100,000 has been wasted on the whole process at a time when the authority is making cuts to services.

Despite only meeting Paul once, he certainly left an impression. He once blocked me on Twitter after I mentioned a BBC report.

The report said that he was suspended during a disciplinary investigation at a previous council after it was discovered he’d attempted to influence a BBC online poll regarding a council merger.

You can’t keep a good man down, though. He’s now appeared, in the same role, up the road at Staffordshire County Council.

I was misled by Leicestershire County Council when it effectively told me that no records existed anywhere on county council hard drives of an FOI request I lodged just a few weeks ago, I can now confirm.

I suspected that their initial response wasn’t accurate and appealed the decision.

In the meantime a source at the council confirmed that I was on the right track, and that the county may have misled me in its original response.

After hinting at this development on Twitter, I’ve now had a response from the county council. It has admitted that it did hold the information I’d ask for, and has now handed it over.

The council’s explanation for the original response is that my original request had been “misinterpretated” and on reviewing the decision “it was acknowledged immediately that a mistake had incurred”.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to jump out is Paul Masterman’s involvement in the original request.

Different council’s deal with FOI requests in different ways. But at the county council, whenever I’ve called them about responses to FOI request that I’ve seen on the public disclosure log, they’ve never been aware of individual FOIs prior to my phonecall.

It suggests that the press office usually takes a hands-off approach to FOI requests, which in my view is good practice.

So it came as a surprise to see Westco man Masterman getting involved in my request before a response had been signed off and sent to me.

The emails are just one line of inquiry. I’ve now been contacted by a handful of people who were involved in campaigns for the other LGA chairmanship hopefuls – who have all provided me with further information.

There’s still a lot to work on, and it’s heartening to see new Westco-related requests appearing on the council’s FOI disclosure log from those who are interested in this issue.

No records exist anywhere on county council hard drives, or council premises, of an FOI request I lodged just a few weeks ago.

This means that the request was either dealt with entirely verbally – rare for an FOI request in my experience – or that all emails have already been deleted, hard drives thoroughly wiped, and documents shredded. Now, I want to know why.

My request regarded PR at the county council. To quickly recap Westco, the commercial arm of a London council, got paid to find a new PR boss for Leicestershire County Council. The ad attracted 40 applicants, no-one ever got interviewed, and the firm got another six month £60,000 stint at the authority.

The first interim PR guru supplied to the council by Westco, Fergus Sheppard, was replaced for the second six month stint by Paul Masterman, but still worked for the county council, one day each week, until fairly recently. He was not based at County Hall, and was instead down in London. Private Eye later alleged that he was effectively council leader David Parsons’ personal PR man, but the council denied it.

Now, this summer I attempted to use Freedom of Information laws to examine emails between Fergus and David to establish the exact nature of Fergus’ role.

But effectively I was told there wasn’t any communication between the council leader and one of the authority’s most senior PR chiefs, or that there were no records at all and all emails had been deleted from council servers.

I was surprised at this, so I lodged a new Freedom of Information request last month, asking for all correspondence relating to the original request. I hoped that it would shed more light on how my original request was dealt with internally.

The response has now arrived. The council says it doesn’t hold the information. Again.

I’ve now asked for an internal review, to establish who was contacted as part of this request, what their responses were, and how any paperwork or email records may have been disposed of.

If I don’t get any satisfaction the next step will be to report the matter to the information commissioner. Due to a backlog, an investigation by the commissioner is likely to report back just before the county council elections in May 2013.

I’m not stopping until I’ve got to the bottom of this one, David.

The press office situation at County Hall has bothered me for a while.

Last year Westco, the commercial arm of Westminster City Council, teamed-up with Leicestershire County Council to find a candidate to head-up the slimmed-down communications and press team at county hall.

The high-profile job vacancy, together with a salary of £65,000, attracted more than 40 applications, yet no-one was ever interviewed.

At the end of October, Westco were signed-up for another six month £60,000 stint, to continue to provide an interim communications chief and continue the search for that elusive candidate.

The job was never re-advertised though, and instead the post was quietly axed altogether. Opposition councillors say the council has wasted £100,000 on the whole process at a time when the authority is making cuts to services.

Westco’s original £7,500 a month interim boss, Fergus Sheppard, was replaced by Paul Masterman late last year.

But Fergus continued to work for the county council, one day each week, until fairly recently. He was no longer based at County Hall, however, and was instead down in London.

There were whispers around County Hall that while the situation may have been entirely innocent, it looked bad. Leader David Parsons was, at the time, one of the favourites to become Local Government Association chair. A personal PR man for the leader ahead of the election? All on the rates? Surely not.

Then in December last year Private Eye came out and alleged just that. The council denied it.

In March this year it emerged that Nottingham City Council leader Jon Collins used a taxpayer-funded consultant for party political election advice. The story was uncovered as a result of a Freedom of Information request from the Nottingham Post.

I spoke to the reporter at the Post who uncovered the story. He’d simply requested email correspondence between the council leader and the consultant and the council had delivered. He supplied me with the wording of the FOI request for my own use.

I lodged the same request to the county council in June this year, asking for correspondence between Parsons and Sheppard. A recent response from Graeme Wardle, in member support, said:

“Your request for information has now been considered. However, unfortunately we do not hold the information.
I apologise that your request cannot be met but if you have any further information needs in the future then please contact me quoting the FOI Request Number 2740.”

Effectively I was being told there wasn’t any communication between the council leader and one of the authority’s most senior PR chiefs, or that there were no records at all and all emails had been deleted.

In the past, the usually talkative council chief David Parsons has declined to discuss the communications team issue in any depth with me, and a recent request to the council’s press office on the issue was returned half-answered.

Last week I lodged a new Freedom of Information request, asking for all correspondence relating to 2740. It should shed more light on how my original request was dealt with internally.

In the words of Alistair Campbell, I’ll keep banging on about this one.

With one eye on potentially securing the chairmanship of the Local Government Association, there are manoueverings closer to home.

Rumours are swirling that he could face a leadership challenge at the local Conservative AGM in a few weeks’ time.

Two years since the last local elections, and two years until the next local elections means it would be a timely moment politically.

And who’s seen as one of the frontrunners to replace him? Step forward council chairman Peter Osborne.

From chains of office to the power of office.

The basic law of council reporting is this: the local newspaper’s specialist correspondent covers hundreds of meetings every year, deals with senior city politicians on a daily basis, and knows what’s going on at the authority like the back of his or her hand.

At every meeting, no matter how important, you’re unlikely to see a rival reporter. Broadcast media just don’t want to know.

Then, once a year at budget briefing time, a couple of telly reporters and a radio reporter turn up and act like they own the town hall.

TV reporters, mainly because they appear on the gogglebox most evenings and probably get recognised in Waitrose as a result, are usually the worst. “I’m on a deadline”, they tell press officers breathlessly, as if to distinguish themselves from the rest of the media pack who are also working to deadline.

Time always seems to be short for these hacks – despite usually only covering a single story in a day – so they don’t have time to do nitty-gritty.

The best and most recent example of this was at the county council’s budget briefing last week.

Myself and the radio reporter from BBC Leicester were going through the budget line-by-line, asking for clarification on each bit of information. The officers were patient, the press officer helpful, we ploughed through lines of incomprehensible council-speak and made sense of it. The dense document was becoming clear.

Then a local BBC TV reporter – who shall remain nameless – bounded in half an hour late. He sat down, quickly glanced at the report, then said:

“Right how many old folks homes are closing?”

“Er, none” the officer replied.

“Right how many youth clubs are closing?”

“Er, none. Actually we’re just covering all this now.”

“Right what’s closing then. Come on, something must be closing. What’s closing?”

“Nothing that hasn’t already been announced,” the press officer interjected.

“Right well what’s being cut back?”

It was straight out of the booklet on how not to conduct interviews. You’re supposed to start with big open questions then move on to nail down the specifics, not the other way round.

Perhaps it’s the symptom of rehashing stories nicked from the local press on a daily basis – there’s less time to do original news and you forget how to interview primary sources.

Please supply the following information:

1: The number of gloryholes found in restrooms, specifically:

a: Restrooms operated as public conveniences by the authority

b: Restrooms within authority buildings, but not accessible to the general public

2: The number of investigations (either internal or criminal) made in relation to use of the gloryholes, or damage to authority property in creation of these facilities

3: The sum of expense caused by preventing (such as CCTV, or metal privacy wall reinforcement) and repairing damage caused by creation of gloryholes

The council does not have the figures.

Meanwhile I’ve been doing a bit of digging with colleagues in the North West.

It seems that Masterman ended up at Lancashire County Council in similar circumstances last year. He worked a four day week, for six months, while being put up in a hotel, all because the council and a contractor failed to recruit a new PR chief despite a pretty decent salary.

More on his time there to follow…

Private Eye claimed this week that Fergus Sheppard is acting as Leicestershire County Council leader David Parsons’ personal PR man one day a week, paid for by taxpayers.

Yesterday the press office denied that this was the case, saying he had a more general role overseeing the council’s reputation.

I followed this up with a simple query today, to clarify the situation. My message read:

Private Eye stated that Fergus was working as David Parsons’ personal PR man. At a time of cuts that’s a statement likely to damage the reputation of David Parsons and the council itself.  As one of the communications department’s roles is to promote the authority as a “well-respected authority” on the national stage, one would expect the council to have requested a full correction of this alleged error.  Could you confirm this is the case? Could you also confirm when we can expect to see the apology and correction in print?

A simple question. If the council has been lied about, surely it will be demanding a correction and apology. After all, we’ve got two top communications “gurus” in charge whose job it is to defend the council’s reputation on the national stage. This would be a no-brainer for most PR chiefs.

Sadly, I’ve just received a response which began: “Nothing to add on Private Eye, David. You have our answers to all your questions on the facts.”

Why not? If the council isn’t demanding an apology then one must ask why it is hesitant to press the issue. As they’re unwilling to respond fully, feel free to draw your own conclusions.

What breathtaking arrogance from a public body.