Thank you for your complaint dated 1st October 2018 which has been logged at Stage 1 of our procedure and has been investigated in line with our Complaints policy.
I understand that your complaint relates to the cancellation of a booking for a Woman’s Place meeting to be held at the Leeds Civic Hall on 28 September 2018.
The booking enquiry was made by an individual in April and provisionally entered into the diary, subject to completion of the booking form. While this is the usual procedure, the booking was not completed and returned as expected. The individual who had made the booking was contacted and asked to complete the booking form and this was done on 21 September, a week before the event was scheduled to take place.
The venue was not disclosed to those attending until the morning of 28 September due to concerns by the organisers about security. Once the venue was confirmed news of the event quickly spread and calls to cancel the event were made to the Council on social media and by e-mails to elected members and officers.
From midday onwards, a number of communications were received alleging that Woman’s Place UK had held similar events elsewhere in the country which gave a platform to speakers that used potentially discriminatory language particularly in regard to the transgender community. It also became apparent that a number of these events had attracted controversy, demonstrations and/or the cancellation of meetings and a Police investigation into a bomb threat made in advance of an event in Hastings.
Officers had to quickly consider whether allowing the group to hold its meeting at the Civic Hall would represent a significant security risk and also impact the work to tackle prejudice and promote understanding in the city.
In considering these issues a decision to cancel the event was made primarily as the Council was concerned about the potential safety and security risks to the building, its staff and users. At that late stage it would not have been possible to determine and mobilize sufficient resources to afford the correct level of protection to mitigate such risks and therefore there was no option but to cancel the booking.
The Civic Hall is the key public building in the city and a symbol of democracy and Leeds City Council is a large local authority with a high profile and as such could potentially be a target for acts of terrorism. The Council’s Building Security Policy identifies the actions to be taken in line with the threat levels set by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and the Security Service (MI5). The threat level informs decisions on protective security measures taken by public bodies, the police and the transport sector. The United Kingdom’s current threat level is severe, meaning that an attack is highly likely. This requires a heightened response level for high risk events which includes issuing visitor ID badges, accompanying visitors to the event area and risk based bag searches.
The investigation revealed that there were a number of factors that contributed to safety and security concerns that led to the cancellation of the booking on the afternoon of 28 September when the meeting was scheduled to be held:
· It was clear that information to support confirmation of the booking was withheld until a week before the event, when provided this was incomplete in that it failed to identify the organisation and nor was any information provided about the potential for threats of harm or demonstrations as experienced at previous events held by the organisers.
· The withholding of information by Woman’s Place UK resulted in insufficient time to undertake a risk assessment to arrive at a considered view of the risks and whether any actions that could be taken to mitigate these and identify and mobilise resources to achieve this if appropriate to do so.
· The Council had a duty to ensure the safety and security of the building, its staff and visitors. At the present time this duty requires a heightened response level and must take seriously the threat of harm including the potential for bomb threats.
The e-mails sent by the office of the Leader of the Council, were sent on her behalf as responses to concerns raised by e-mail about Woman’s Place UK. It appears the text extracted from the e-mail response has been made public on social media giving the impression that the Leader of the Council made a public statement, but this was not the case.
There was effort made to ensure that there was clarity and consistency in all communications. However given the number of individuals involved and the speed of events, the specifics of the decision making and the commentary or views of individuals on social media may have been conflated.
For clarity, the official council statement released to the press on the day of cancellation was as follows:
A Leeds City Council spokesperson said:
“We recently received a request for a meeting to be held at Leeds Civic Hall by Women’s Place UK. Since accepting the booking, we have been made aware of further details regarding some of the views which have been raised by this group previously that are not in line with Leeds City Council’s values and policies on equality and inclusion.
“We understand these views have attracted controversy and led to safety concerns at other venues hosting similar events. We have therefore decided that Leeds Civic Hall is not an appropriate venue for this event and have informed the organisers that their booking has been cancelled.”
On issuing this statement we received further questions which again we responded to publicly through the press office. A further statement was issued providing more detailed information as follows:
A Leeds City Council spokesperson said:
“Leeds City Council received a booking for an event to be held at Leeds Civic Hall on 28th September 2018 several weeks ago which was booked in the name of ‘Woman’s Peace is Speaking the Truth’. Details about the venue were not released to the attendees by the organisers until the day the event was due to be held (last Friday).
“Once those details were published, it became clear the event was to be hosted by Woman’s Place UK and that the organisers had not been open to the council about the nature of the booking, including the fact that previous events had been the subject of bomb threats and serious protests.
“The council also received a number of complaints from people concerned about the alleged use of controversial and potentially discriminatory language at similar events that had been organised by the group in other parts of the country.
“The council is committed to public sector guidelines on equality and does extensive work towards eliminating harassment and discrimination in Leeds.
“At that late stage, and in light of this new information, the council had to quickly consider whether holding this meeting at the Civic Hall would represent a significant security risk and if it would have a detrimental impact on our work to tackle prejudice and promote understanding in our city.
“With this in mind, and in the absence of relevant security, risk and equality assessments being carried out due to misinformation by the event organiser, on the advice of officers and in consultation with elected members, the council’s chief executive took the decision to cancel the meeting.
“We would emphasise that had the group making the booking being more open and transparent with us, it would have given us more opportunity to work with them to fully consider all security, safety, risk and equality concerns.”
It is regrettable that this event had to be cancelled and as a Council it is clear that our processes at the time were a contributing factor in the cancellation. I can assure you that changes will be made to minimise any future short notice cancellations.
I also wish to apologise for the delayed response to your complaint. With a sensitive issue of this nature I wished to ensure I had full details of the events leading up to the cancellation before responding to your concerns, which on this occasion has taken longer than expected.
I hope the above information addressed your concerns around the cancellation of this booking. If you wish to request a review of my decision, you can contact Customer Relations either in writing, by telephone or e-mail within 28 days of receiving this letter. However, please be aware that consideration will usually only be given to new facts or evidence, or to comments on the above facts and evidence which I have relied on as part of my investigation.