Officials 'used GLA facilities to campaign'

Redmond O'Neill, Neale Coleman and John Ross are "politically restricted" officials funded by the taxpayer - meaning they are banned from political work including writing and publishing articles.

Dispatches claims to have proof that they were involved in running the 2004 campaign from within City Hall. Mr O' Neill is public affairs director, Mr Coleman is director of business planning and regeneration, and Mr Ross is director of economic and business policy.

In a fax dated 25 May 2004, Mark Watts, helping on the campaign, asked Mr O'Neill to prepare a briefing for the Mayor ahead of the CND hustings, and to write articles for Something Jewish website and the Jewish News. They were asked to respond to a ken4london email address. In an email dated 7 June, just three days before London went to the polls, Mr Coleman was asked to draft an answer to a question on stimulating construction in the capital.

In the Channel 4 documentary, a Greater London Authority whistleblower claims that in the weeks before polling day, the officials held a daily 9.30am campaign strategy meeting at City Hall. The advisers then went from there to the London Labour Party to continue work on the campaign, the unnamed whistleblower claims.

"We got an email from the Mayor's office saying we had to prepare briefings as if it were the normal GLA and prepare them in the same format," the source tells Dispatches.

The whistleblower claims the officials - including himself - raised campaign money, wrote speeches and prepared attacks on other candidates using GLA facilities and during GLA work time.

Asked by presenter Martin Bright whether he knew this was against the rules, the source replies: "Yes."

Last night one of Mr Livingstone's senior advisers said that under the GLA rules they were entitled to get involved in political activities before an election, as long as it was in their own time.

"The Dispatches programme does not appear to understand the law," the adviser said. The adviser denied the allegations and pointed out that just because they had been asked to provide the briefings and articles it did not mean they had obliged.

Under City Hall rules - published jointly by the GLA's chief executive, director of finance and head of law before the 2004 election - staff in "politically restricted" posts are banned from electoral campaigning. The rules apply to the majority of the Mayor's senior staff.

The official guidance reads: "Normally staff are free to do what they like in their own private time, i.e. after work hours or during leave. However, the law imposes restrictions on the activities of staff in politically restricted posts. Such staff cannot in their private time do anything that the law regards as "restricted activity".

Restricted activities include speaking to the public, giving interviews, and writing and publishing political material. What it fails to make clear is whether GLA employees are permitted to write articles and briefings for candidates as long as they do not appear under their own names.

The guidance also makes clear that the GLA's facilities and resources - staff, funds, buildings, equipment and supplies - cannot be used for electoral campaigning or political purposes.

Should staff break the rules they could be subject to normal disciplinary procedures. Depending on circumstances, action could also be taken by the GLA's auditor, the Ombudsman, the Electoral Commission and the courts.

Len Duvall, chairman of the Greater London Labour Party, said: "There would have been an expectation that anyone who helps Ken would have done that in their own time and would have observed the rules pertaining to their own job."