Confidential report reveals Councillor Nancy Sommerfield’s ‘inappropriate conduct’ over email

A confidential report into a councillor’s ‘inappropriate conduct’, kept hidden from the public by the Toowoomba Regional Council for months, has finally been revealed.

Council water and waste portfolio leader Cr Nancy Sommerfield.

A councillor targeted one of the Toowoomba Regional Council employees in an email that was deemed “unprofessional” as detailed in a previously confidential report.

Councillor Nancy Sommerfield was found to have engaged in “inappropriate conduct” by her peers, following a marathon meeting held behind closed doors in February.

The report, which had been previously kept secret by the council despite attempts by The Chronicle to obtain it, resulted from a complaint made to the Office of the Independent Assessor about Ms Sommerfield by a council employee.

It related to an email correspondence between the councillors and certain officers in July 2020. Now elements of the report, completed by an independent barrister, have been revealed by the council thanks to The Chronicle’s appeal to the Office of the Information Commissioner.

According to the summary, Ms Sommerfield stated in the email that she believed council employees were not following strategic messaging made by the councillors.

“Ms Sommerfield then sent another email the following day, in which she apologised to the council employees for any grief that her email the previous day may have caused,” the summary said.

“However, in choosing not to apologise in this email to one of the employees who had received the initial email, it was alleged that the reasonable assumption to be drawn by the others was that her criticism was directed at this employee.”

The report found Ms Sommerfield’s second email had the “practical effect of identifying to other employees that a particular employee was the target”. “The first email in which the employee was chastised by Ms Sommerfield was ‘unprofessional’ and was not treatment that was ‘courteous or fair’,” the summary said.

The allegation was substantiated on this basis.

Other allegations relating to Ms Sommerfield’s interactions with the employee were not substantiated. The council in April denied the release of the report through a Right To Information request by The Chronicle, citing its desire to protect the identity of the employee who had made the complaint.

Ms Sommerfield was contacted.