EAST Hampshire District Council leader has made a public apology to council staff and residents after a report outlining costly improper past behaviour at the local authority.

Councillor Richard Millard said: “I am responsible for behaviour within the administration I lead.

“So I would like to extend a public apology to staff and residents across the district.

“I take responsibility for the report and apologise for the issues raised in it.”

Cllr Millard was praised for taking strong action when he became leader in 2017 to change what is described by report author David Bowles as a historic ‘intimidatory culture’– one whose after-effects may dog the council for some time.

Mr Bowles said: “A picture emerged of an organisation that now has a top team of councillors and officers who recognised past problems, have already taken a number of steps to respond to them and are committed to transforming the culture of the council.

“While progress is being made on that transformation, it is still work in progress.”

In a separate accompanying report, the council has outlined what it has done already, and is proposing to do, to change the way councillors and members interact with each other.

Part of it reads: “The organisation has been aware of long-standing issues for some time and the new senior management team, appointed in January 2019, has made concerted efforts to address these by building on the work carried out in previous years (since 2017).

“Improvements, in particular those that relate to cultural matters and behaviours, can take a number of years to fully embed within an organisation and therefore continual review will form a key part of improvements as the organisation progresses.

“Continual review will be conducted not only through existing mechanisms, but also through a commissioned Peer Review by the Local Government Association which will take place in 2021-22.”

¦ To read the draft final report by Mr Bowles, and to find out what steps the council has taken, and proposes going forward, to change its working culture visit the webpage at https://easthants.moderngov.co.uk/documents/b9669/Supplementary%20Information%

2008th-Dec-2020%2018.30%20Standards%20Committee.pdf?T=9 which is the Standards Committee.