No control over gagging orders at Suffolk County Council - Liberal Democrats Reveal

5.11.32pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 30th Sep 2009

Further to news last week that Suffolk County Council (SCC) has spent £200,000 in the last 18 months on gagging orders, the Liberal Democrats have discovered there is no policy on their usage.

Cllr Andrew Cann Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Resources and Finance said: 'As revealed last week it's shocking enough to discover that Suffolk County Council has spent £200,000 on gagging it's own employees at a time of recession but now we find there is no policy on the use of such orders. That means that the Tory administration can abuse the use of public money in this way to cover their mistakes without any recourse to the public."

"Suffolk Liberal Democrats believe that public money should be spent on public services, not in covering up mistakes made in delivering those services. For that reason we call on the Tory administration to implement a simple policy on use of gagging orders or 'compromise agreements' as they call them: namely that they are not to be used under any circumstances.'