Investigation into whether all three Luton councillors made charity donation after breach of Covid rules

A council adjudication panel last October decided it lacked the powers to impose a formal sanction on former mayor Tahir Malik, Waheed Akbar and Asif Masood, after they were photographed at a garden party last summer.

But the panel recommended all three councillors make a voluntary contribution to a local charity, worth at least one month’s allowances.

The sum amounts to around £450 after National Insurance and tax deductions, according to the town's Liberal Democrat opposition group, which described the event in breach of lockdown as "a mass tea party".

Two of them have made a donation already, a meeting of the local authority's standards committee heard.

But it appears unclear whether the other has, unless a payment was made recently, according to the council's monitoring officer Angela Claridge.

Labour Leagrave councillor Sameera Saleem, who chairs the committee, asked her to give an update on the adjudication panel meeting.

She replied: "The October 12th hearing was the one that you'll recall we had an unprecedented amount of interest in, which related to three councillors who'd been accused of breaching social distancing under the Covid regulations.

"The outcome of this was that the three councillors were deemed not to have been acting in an official capacity as a councillor at the time of the incident, which means the code of conduct doesn't apply.

"But they were called upon to adhere to all the coronavirus social distancing, to reinforce this, and they were asked to consider making a voluntary donation to charity.

"It wasn't mandated. I'm aware that two of the three councillors have made donations to charity.

"I'm not aware of the third, but that may have happened more recently."

Councillor Saleem said: "In those circumstances, can I please ask you to chase the last councillor?"

The monitoring officer answered that she would do so.

The panel's statement said it was "in unanimous agreement the actions of the councillors were ill-advised, caused distress, broke trust in our communities, and brought themselves and the council into disrepute".

It added: "There was no evidence provided to the panel that could make us conclude that the councillors were representing Luton Council at the event."

The panel called on the government "to strengthen and extend the powers available to local standards committees when writing the new code of conduct" for the benefit of future hearings of this nature.

Conservative Icknield councillor Jeff Petts said: "I was on that adjudication panel and I was the one who suggested, at the time, we should have something contributed to charity, and that it should be one month's allowances."

Councillor Saleem confirmed it, saying: "That's correct."

The adjudication panel is a sub-committee of the council's standards committee.