Somerset council officer dismissed after using staff for work on private vineyard

A senior council official in Somerset was dismissed after using staff for work on her Dorset vineyard - including building glamping pods, laying turf and removing a dead pig.

Clare Pestell joined South Somerset District Council in 2012, eventually becoming its director of commercial and income generation.

But she was dismissed in October last year following a letter from a whistleblower, which alleged Ms Pestell had misused council money and resources.

The council official denied the claims and appealed the dismissal - but it was upheld by a council committee.

'Reputational risk'

In a confidential report seen by the Somerset Local Democracy Reporting Service, external investigator Richard Penn ruled: “My conclusion is that, taken as a whole, the cumulative conduct of the director amounts to gross misconduct.

“I conclude that there is evidence that Ms Pestell has abused her position as a council director and has failed to ensure that the correct information was documented and declared.

“She has also disregarded Government guidance and paid council employees who were in receipt of furlough payments as part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme for work which could be seen as enabling benefit fraud and a reputational risk to the council and the spirit of the scheme to preserve employment.

“She has been negligent to the council in that she failed to take the appropriate steps to ensure that employees were not working for her and using council resources at the same time as being paid by the council, thereby resulting in a loss to the council.”

She failed to declare that council staff had been used to build glamping pods, strim grass, lay turf outside her cottage and - on one occasion in February 2020 - remove a dead pig from her land, the report found.

According to the report, she sent a message to an officer on February 24, 2020, asking them to take the pig to the Frome Vale livestock dealer near Maiden Newton.

The officer, who was not identified, responded: "I can be with you no later than 10am and will bring everything we need (rope etc.). If you say where we need to get her to, then you can leave it with me."

The glamping pods were granted planning permission by the then-North Dorset District Council in May 2018, before the current Dorset Council unitary authority was formed.

Ms Pestell also failed to declare one of her relatives was appointed to the council's commercial services and income generation team, having been recruited out of the council's normal recruitment processes through an external agency - which charged the council for its services.

Credit: Daniel Mumby, Local Democracy Reporting Service