THE weekend brought the startling revelation that the chief executive of Northumberland’s unitary authority had ‘commenced a period of extended leave’.

Immediately, questions were asked about what the term meant and if Daljit Lally, the CEO of Northumberland County Council, was unwell and needed time away from work. It soon transpired, through leaked emails from councillors, that all was not as innocent as what first might have been expected.

Emails and letters shown to the Hexham Courant proved that Mrs Lally had raised concerns about the actions of the authority’s development arm, Advance Northumberland, to other members, and, more drastically, to Northumbria Police.

In fact, correspondence pointed out the fact that the chief executive was pointing the finger at the council’s leader Peter Jackson for displaying ‘possible bias due to a possible conflicted personal relationship’. As a result of her whistleblowing actions, it would seem Mrs Lally was suspended by the council for raising the alarm.

Whatever has gone on at the County Hall HQ, it is obviously unsavoury and it puts the council in the firing line for fierce criticism once again from the tax-paying public.

After the well-publicised scandal of the previous Labour administration displaying nepotism and giving ‘jobs to the boys’ in the authority’s former development company Arch, which the Tory administration rightly scorned, it seems to all that it may be the case of the same again with replacement firm Advance, under the Conservatives’ leadership.

Hexham West’s indepedent county councillor Derek Kennedy is right to lead calls, along with four other members, for immediate answers about why exactly Mrs Lally has been suspended from the role.

Whatever the outcome, this is a fine mess Northumberland County Council finds itself in.