A COUNCIL meeting descended into farce as confusion and bickering overshadowed the removal of a monitoring officer.

Councillors opted to remove Gurpreet Anand from his role as monitoring officer at Slough Borough Council, replacing him with his deputy Linda Walker.

Council leader Sohail Munawar and other cabinet members had attempted to remove Mr Anand, which is above their power as only the full council has the authority to remove a statutory officer.

Mr Anand claimed that it was an "unlawful re-designation" of his position, and produced a statutory report under section five of the Local Government and Housing Act which had to be discussed with the full council.

Councillors expressed their unease at how the situation had been handled at the meeting at The Curve on Tuesday last week, with some calling for the decision to be deferred while an independent investigation by the Local Government Association is carried out.

In correspondence included as part of the report, Cllr Munawar emailed Mr Anand on August 25 to remove him from his post over "failure on your part to investigate satisfactorily the whistleblowing complaint of July 4, 2016".

Further emails followed before interim chief executive Roger Parkin intervened to say that the report will be heard at full council.

A report from the council's legal team was only presented on the day of the meeting, which led to calls about a lack of transparency over the issue.

Fractions in the Labour Group, between former leader Rob Anderson and deputy leader James Swindlehurst, with the current incumbents Cllr Munawar and Sabia Hussain, were evident as the issue was discussed, with name calling and histrionics detracting from the issue at hand leading to Conservative councillor Rayman Bains labelling it "embarrassing".

Cllr Bains said: "It is unprofessional and disappointing that the council has failed to follow its own procedures.

"These processes are so important as it has called into question the council's ability to govern and hold itself to account.

"We are here to discuss an issue relating to an incident that we have no prior knowledge to. His report has been backed up by a QC and a city firm, and we are being given advice that his report is wrong by our own lawyers. I cannot see that he is wrong and we are right as we have had no evidence to back up the accusations."

The monitoring officer has the specific duty to ensure that the council, its officers, and its elected councillors, maintain the highest standards of conduct in all they do, and Mr Anand took on the role in November 2015 alongside his role as assistant director of procurement and commercial services, a role he still operates in.