Foot Anstey’s illustrious old Alumni

Number 1: Sir Anthony Holland

Sir Anthony Holland is a man who has risen to great power in the land. He became Financial Services Complaints Commissioner in 2004. He was reappointed in 2007 and will be in the role, God willing, until 2010. Up to 2008 in fact, he was a very busy quangoista indeed, being also in charge of two Ulster quangos, and Chairman of the Standards Board for England, which oversees how local authorities promote and improve the ethical behaviour of their members.

Sir Anthony worked for Foot Anstey until 1997. The firm is of relevance to these annals because it acts for Plymouth City Council on a variety of issues. You’d expect an ethical and ambitious Council like PCC to work with those of a similar bent, and Foot Anstey appears very ambitious indeed. A senior member of a practice nearly taken over by them some years ago described the firm as….

“…hell bent on running the world…”

…among other similar descriptions. According to its own figures, Foot Anstey has taken over or merged with five other law outfits since 2007. In 2008, turnover increased by 21% to £19m.

Sir Anthony's time at the Prescott-created Standards Board (SBE) has been fairly high-profile, but not without criticism. In 2006, two Tory front-bench MPs, Owen Paterson and Gerald Howarth, published a highly critical pamphlet on the activities of the SBE. Daily Telegraph campaigner Christopher Booker later described the pamphlet as

'...show(ing) how Mr Prescott's system has been used to undermine local democracy by imposing often bizarre curbs on free speech. By inciting officers, councillors and members of the public to complain about the conduct of councillors to the Standards Board, the code has created a "sneaks' charter" which is poisoning the atmosphere of local government to a barely credible degree.'

The methods used by the Standards Board to investigate the hundreds of complaints it received are not good news for those of a l ibertarian persuasion. After one particular case against five Libdems on Islington Council, a tribunal for the Adjudication Panel for England not only threw out all the charges but was highly critical of the way the investigation had been "directed to obtaining evidence to support conclusions which the Ethical Standards Officer had already reached".

Another case concerning a former North Dorset councillor, David Adami, cost taxpayers £65,000. Although Mr Adami was twice found guilty and disqualified by the Adjudication Panel, when his case was heard outside the Standards Board system, a High Court judge rejected the case against him and reinstated him as a councillor.

Booker goes on to observe that

'another accused was told by his [SBE] "monitoring officer" that he must not speak to anyone about Mr Prescott's plan to build a new town for 25,000 people next to his village – even though this was the very issue on which his neighbours had elected him to the council.

Ah yes, that fine old West Country tradition of Free Speech bubbling to the surface again. I wonder if Sir Anthony Holland and the highly-paid PCC CEO Barry Keel are by any chance acquainted?

Related articles involving Foot Anstey and Plymouth City Council:

Five cops, five kids and an uncaring MP: why have Bernadette McManus' children been put into care?

Gary Streeter: an apology

Shock new report on Plymouth failings

Plymouth Council and the murky sale of Citybus