FHDC HR Reports Reveal Disciplinary Resignations and Governance Failures

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s own HR reviews show a sharp rise in disciplinary cases, complex investigations involving Internal Audit, staff resignations before conclusions, and mandatory governance training on declarations, contract management, officer conduct and financial procedures. During the period covered, Dr Susan Priest was both Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service.

This isn’t a normal HR footnote. It’s the sort of paragraph that walks into a committee report wearing sensible shoes, carrying a clipboard, and quietly places a large red flag on the table.

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s annual HR reviews, covering the years 2018/19 to 2025/26, show two striking disciplinary peaks. In 2022/23 there were 16 disciplinary cases. In 2025/26 there were 15. Between those two figures sits the real story: complex investigations, Internal Audit involvement, staff resignations before cases were concluded, and a governance training programme telling staff to get declarations, contracts, officer conduct and financial procedures right.

The council’s HR service describes these annual reports as a way for Personnel Committee members to be satisfied that the HR team is appropriately supporting the council. Fine. But if these reports are meant to give assurance, then residents are entitled to ask what assurance they really provide.

The 2022/23 HR Annual Review is the one that matters most. It says the HR team supported “16 disciplinary cases resulting in 4 verbal warnings and 4 first written warnings”. That already leaves a question, because 16 cases and eight recorded disciplinary outcomes don’t match neatly.

The report then explains why. It says the year saw “a number extremely complex and high profile disciplinary investigations” in which “HR and Internal Audit” worked closely with managers appointed to investigate allegations. It adds that some investigations were “very time consuming”, with two of the particularly complex cases taking “in excess of 6 months” to conclude.

Then comes the sentence that should have made every councillor sit up straight. The report says that, although 16 disciplinary cases were stated, “only 8 outcomes are recorded”. It adds that six of the remaining eight cases were linked to the complex investigations and resulted in employees resigning “either before the investigation completed or before a formal hearing could be convened”.

That isn’t business as usual. That’s a governance alarm bell.

It isn’t proof, on its own, of wrongdoing by any named individual. The HR report doesn’t name staff, departments or allegations. It doesn’t say whether any money was lost. It doesn’t tell the public whether any matter was referred externally. But it does tell us enough to know that this was serious. HR was involved. Internal Audit was involved. Investigations were complex. Two took more than six months. Six staff resigned before the process could finish.

The public doesn’t need gossip. It needs assurance.

And here’s where Shepway Vox’s earlier reporting becomes important. In June 2022, we reported that the council had publicly admitted “instances of irregularities” within Housing and Operations. The wording referred to “separate HR disciplinary and Internal Audit reviews” and said the nature of the issues related to “contract management and procurement irregularities”. The HR report doesn’t expressly say those are the same matters. But when a later HR report describes complex, high-profile disciplinary investigations involving HR and Internal Audit, it’s difficult not to read the two alongside each other.

This is exactly why public bodies should explain governance failures properly. Not to feed rumour. To stop rumour filling the hole left by official silence.

The 2022/23 HR report says that, since the investigations in 2022, a governance action plan had been implemented by the Director of Corporate Services and Assistant Director for Governance & Law. As part of that plan, HR designed a “Getting it Right” session. The content is revealing. It covered “declarations, contract management and compliance with the officer code of conduct and financial procedures”.

That’s not a training menu chosen at random. Councils don’t suddenly make staff sit in a room to learn about declarations, contract management, officer conduct and financial procedures because someone forgot to bring biscuits to a meeting. They do it because something has gone wrong, or because those in charge fear it might go wrong again.

The report says attendance was mandatory. Seven face-to-face sessions were held at the Civic Centre in May 2023, followed by a remote Teams session in June. Including agency workers, 480 staff were invited. At the time of the report, 437 had attended. Of the 43 who hadn’t, 19 were on casual zero-hour contracts, eight were on maternity leave, eight were due to leave the council before the end of June, two were on long-term sick leave, and six couldn’t attend because of shift patterns.

The obvious question is whether it worked.

Because by 2025/26, the disciplinary numbers were almost back where they had been in the governance-shock year. The latest HR review records 15 disciplinary cases. It says they resulted in two verbal warnings, eight first written warnings and one final written warning. It also says “3 staff left the council prior to the conclusion of the disciplinary process” and “1 case remains ongoing”.

That means 2025/26 wasn’t a quiet year either. It was not a tidy little HR year of minor misconduct, a few warnings and everyone home in time for tea. It was a year in which disciplinary activity rose sharply again, three staff left before the disciplinary process was finished, and one case still hadn’t been concluded when the report was written.

The council may argue that disciplinary cases prove systems are working. Sometimes that’s true. A council that never disciplines anyone may be asleep at the wheel. But a council that repeatedly records high numbers of disciplinary cases, resignations before conclusion, and governance training after Internal Audit involvement also has questions to answer.

That brings us to section 4.4 of the disciplinary procedure.

Across the HR reviews, the council repeatedly relies on a mechanism allowing a penalty up to and including a final written warning to be agreed outside a disciplinary hearing if the employee agrees. In 2022/23, seven of the eight recorded disciplinary outcomes were issued this way. In 2025/26, the report says all of the warnings were issued this way.

Let’s be clear. There may be nothing inherently wrong with that. If facts are accepted, if the employee agrees, and if the sanction is proportionate, it may save time and money. No sensible person wants a full disciplinary theatre production every time a warning is plainly justified.

But public assurance isn’t the same as administrative convenience.

When warnings are agreed without hearings, and when some staff resign before investigations or hearings conclude, the public sees less. Councillors see less too, unless the committee is given proper thematic reporting. How many cases involved procurement? How many involved declarations? How many involved financial procedures? How many involved conduct towards colleagues? How many involved repeat failures in the same department? How many were caused by poor supervision, weak management or a control system that didn’t work?

The reports don’t answer those questions. They give numbers. They give broad process descriptions. They give enough to show concern. They don’t give enough to show whether the underlying problems were fixed.

That matters because Dr Susan Priest (pictured) was both Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service during this period. This article doesn’t suggest she personally handled the disciplinary cases. That would be a lazy point and, more importantly, an unsupported one. But the Head of Paid Service isn’t a decorative title. It’s the statutory corporate leadership role for the council’s paid officer body. When officer culture, compliance, conduct, contracts, declarations and financial procedures become live governance issues, the question of corporate leadership is unavoidable.

Shepway Vox has written before about Folkestone & Hythe’s pattern of contractual and financial irregularities. We’ve written about procurement breaches. We’ve written about unexplained payments. We’ve written about the statutory officers. We’ve written about the difference between a council saying it has “highest standards” and the documentary trail showing repeated failures in the machinery below.

The HR reviews now add another layer. They show that behind some of the neat committee language sat real disciplinary activity. Not theory. Not gossip. Not political knockabout. Actual HR cases, actual Internal Audit involvement, actual resignations before conclusion, and actual remedial training.

The council’s defenders may say: “But the staff were trained.” Yes. That’s true. The council did roll out “Getting it Right”. It invited 480 staff and agency workers. Most attended. New starters were to receive the recorded session. That’s evidence of a response.

But a response isn’t the same as resolution.

The harder question is whether the council has shown, publicly and clearly, that the weaknesses which required that training have been fixed. Has Personnel Committee received a proper thematic review of the disciplinary cases? Has Audit and Governance Committee been told what Internal Audit found across those investigations? Were contract management weaknesses closed? Were declarations properly reviewed? Were financial procedure failures tracked? Were any cases linked to earlier public warnings about Housing and Operations? Were councillors given enough information to scrutinise the Head of Paid Service’s corporate assurance on officer conduct?

If the answer is yes, the council can publish the evidence.

If the answer is no, residents are being asked to accept a familiar local-government comfort blanket: lessons have been learned, training has been delivered, procedures have been followed, please move along.

At Folkestone & Hythe, that blanket is now looking threadbare.

The point isn’t that every disciplinary case is a scandal. Most won’t be. The point is that the council’s own reports show a serious pattern at the intersection of HR, governance, Internal Audit and financial control. In a public authority, that’s not internal housekeeping. It’s public business.

The people of Folkestone, Hythe, Romney Marsh and the surrounding villages pay for this council. They’re entitled to know whether officer conduct is being managed properly, whether contract and financial controls are robust, whether staff leaving before disciplinary conclusions are still fully investigated where public interest requires it, and whether elected councillors are asking the right questions (most definitely not – quelle surprise).

Because the phrase “Getting it Right” only works if someone is prepared to say, clearly and publicly, what was wrong.

Seen something the public should know about? Send tips, documents or concerns to TheShepwayVoxTeam(at)proton(dot)me. You can contact us in confidence, speak off the record in the first instance, and help us follow the evidence where it leads.

The Shepway Vox Team

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