Joint Statement of apology from Cllrs Amanda Tame, Philippa Purchase and Jackie Diffey
In our rush and eagerness to try and organise a Christmas dinner event for vulnerable people in the community, we are sorry to say that we unintentionally put ourselves on the path to breaching the rules. As instigators of the event, we now realise that we should have declared an interest in the item requesting Council support and a £200 grant to help the event. We should have then withdrawn from the meeting to allow fellow Councillors to make the decision. We are grateful that our error was realised during the item and it was deferred so as not to compound matters.
Whilst we were seeking no personal benefit from the grant, we do accept that we were in breach of the code of conduct to which we wholeheartedly have signed up to support and we apologise to the Council and the residents of Bude-Stratton.
We will meet with the Town Clerk to review the chain of events that led to this situation and seek further training opportunities.
We seek to be open and honest in all we do in public office and have taken valuable learning from this experience.
