Leader dined at CEO's hotel before £215k hiring

The leader of a council was given dinner at a five-star "luxury" hotel shortly before the authority controversially appointed its owner as a £215k-a-year chief executive, the BBC has learned.

Reform UK's David Bick had previously said he had not met Dennis Bacon before he was given the job at Norfolk County Council after an interview which lasted just one hour.

Council records show that Bick and another senior councillor accepted £100 of hospitality at Bacon's boutique hotel a few weeks before he was hired.

Bick said he had been to the venue in Norwich for a dinner with local businesses and could not recall meeting Bacon there. The BBC contacted Bacon via the county council but it declined to say if he had been present.

According to the council's hospitality register, Bick and fellow senior councillor Kabeer Kher visited the 38 St Giles establishment on 1 July, with both receiving dinners valued at £50 each.

The next day, the role of council CEO was publicly advertised, with Bacon appointed the following month.

Labour councillor Ben Weston - who found the details on the authority's website - questioned why the pair went for a meal at the venue.

He said: "There may be an entirely innocent explanation, but there are obvious questions which now need answering: who arranged this dinner, who attended it, why was it provided and what was discussed?

"The public are entitled to complete transparency about the process," he added.

Controversy had already surrounded the appointment of Bacon, whose interview with a panel of five council members lasted one hour.

At a council meeting confirming the decision, Liberal Democrat Dan Roper argued that bin-collectors faced a more rigorous recruitment process.

Also founder of the care firm Apple Homecare, Bacon ran a hotel - which is described as "a luxury five-star hotel" on its website - and won on the Channel 4 reality show Four in a Bed last year.

He has since resigned as a director from both businesses.

Alongside his business ventures, he spent 19 years as chairman of the Norfolk Independent Care Association, which supports more than 600 organisations and 11,000 staff in the social care industry.

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Bick later said he had "never been more pleased" with the appointment of Bacon, who oversees the council's £2.3bn annual budget and 8,000 staff.

He said council officers had put a "heck of a lot of work" into selecting and scrutinising the final four candidates before they were interviewed by councillors.

A council report said the recruitment process was managed by staff and the assessment of candidates was "based wholly on merit and was evidence based."

The council's monitoring officer also told a meeting the process was "safe and legal".

Bick insisted that there was "an entirely innocent explanation" for his visit to 38 St Giles as he had been to meet "businesses which felt they had been ignored by the county council" in recent years.

"One of the reasons they wanted to speak to us was to see if Reform would have a different attitude to business, which we most certainly do," he added.

Asked if he had met Bacon during the dinner – or prior to that – he insisted: "I don't recall if I'd met him before or if he was at the meeting."

However, Kher said he was "pretty sure" that Bacon was present.

Kher, who is the cabinet member for business at the council, said he had invited Bick to join him at the meeting.

"It was just some local business people I knew that had asked me to come along," he explained.

"I pretty much spoke to everyone."

The BBC asked Bacon, via the council, if he had been present at the event and if he had spoken to Bick there or prior to the recruitment process beginning.

A council spokesman said "the event included a number of business leaders from across different sectors".

"Members of the new county council administration were invited so they could hear concerns about the current trading environment, and how they could support the local businesses.

"38 St Giles has hosted similar events over a number of years, involving business leaders and politicians from various parties," they added.

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