Steve Markiewicz in his prime before his final tragic illness.

Steven Markiewicz was my friend, and a Conservative Councillor. He tragically passed away in October 2021. He was a good and diligent councillor and was decent to me on many issues when others were harder to find – not just paying lip service but taking action I could verify. Steven also shared an interest in gaming and had a gaming PC although towards the end he told me he had not had the time or energy to play. More importantly, he was a councillor of the old Conservative school who thought it was a councillor’s role (respectfully) to hold council officers to account, not just champion them. He was my go to, often.

I was not sure if I should write about him at the time. However, he came to my mind today. Whilst investigating a council mess-up, I used the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 to obtain information. I discovered a vast number of emails from councillor officers. In particular, one officer had asked councillors not to reply to me on an issue and appeared to state this was something they would do regularly (that is, ask councillors not to reply to complaints from members of the public). Given councillors are supposed to support members of the public, hold officers to account and deal with complaints when members of the public are dissatisfied with handling by officers, this seems to me improper.

I suspect Steve would respond badly to such a request. Sadly, not all our modern councillors take the same approach. So, I thought I would raise a glass to him tonight. He is missed. I will not name the officer here, but I will deal with them appropriately in due course.