{"id":767032,"date":"2024-12-09T08:57:09","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T08:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=767032"},"modified":"2024-12-09T11:27:54","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T11:27:54","slug":"leeds-planning-staff-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/leeds-planning-staff-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences","title":{"rendered":"Leeds planning staff arrested over suspected bribery offences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>West Yorkshire Police confirmed that it made a number of arrests between 26 and 28 of November as part of a \u2018complex investigation into reported corruption offences in West Yorkshire\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Nine people in total were arrested on suspicion of bribery offences, including the four council staff members, who the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cx264y0n9xzo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC\u00a0reported<\/a> as being members of the council\u2019s planning department.<\/p>\n<p>Police said all nine people have now been bailed \u2018pending further enquiries\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Confirming the four arrests, Leeds City Council said it had since suspended the staff members.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A council spokesperson said: \u2018The council is aware of an investigation that is being carried out by West Yorkshire Police\u2019s Economic Crime Unit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018We can confirm that four members of council staff have been arrested. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The staff were subsequently suspended from their roles at the council in line with our established policies and procedures.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The spokesperson said the council was <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">unable to comment further while the police investigation was ongoing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>West Yorkshire Police was unable to confirm whether any of the arrests were made on council property.<\/p>\n<p>A 2021 study by Transparency International found that half of English councils had planning policies that left them liable to \u2018corruption risk\u2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lgcplus.com\/politics\/governance-and-structure\/half-of-councils-face-corruption-risk-on-planning-30-03-2021\/\">according to the Local Government Chronicle<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a 2020 study by the non-government organisation on the risk of corruption in local planning, which sampled 50 councils, graded more than half of the councils an &#8216;E&#8217; for how well they met best practice &#8211; with a score of less than 40 out of 100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>West Yorkshire Police confirmed that it made a number of arrests between 26 and 28 of November as part of a \u2018complex investigation into reported corruption offences in West Yorkshire\u2019. Nine people in total were arrested on suspicion of bribery offences, including the four council staff members, who the BBC\u00a0reported as being members of the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138919,"featured_media":767051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[681],"tags":[2781,1748,3553,1489,2625],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Leeds planning staff arrested over suspected bribery offences<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Police have arrested four planning staff at Leeds City Council over suspected bribery offences\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/leeds-planning-staff-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Leeds planning staff arrested over suspected bribery offences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Police have arrested four planning staff at Leeds City Council over suspected bribery offences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/leeds-planning-staff-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Architects\u2019 Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-09T08:57:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-09T11:27:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2024\/12\/06165512\/shutterstock_1975594556-1-1024x683.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anna Highfield\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anna Highfield\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/leeds-planning-staff-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/leeds-planning-staff-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences\",\"name\":\"Leeds planning staff arrested over suspected bribery offences\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-09T08:57:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-09T11:27:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/a0c53f8ef918e29ea9d62857f8525eb3\"},\"description\":\"Police have arrested four planning staff at Leeds City Council over suspected bribery offences\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/leeds-planning-staff-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/leeds-planning-staff-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/leeds-planning-staff-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Leeds planning staff arrested over suspected bribery offences\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Architects\u2019 Journal\",\"description\":\"Architecture News &amp; 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