Mayor Andy Street cleared of any wrongdoing amid cheating claims

Mr Street was accused of "blatant cheating" after the tweet, sent to a private Twitter group, became public.

The message appeared to show Mr Street drumming up support for people to back the proposed merger between the mayor's office and the PCC. Solihull councillor Bob Grinsall replied to the tweet, saying he had already voted three times in the consultation.

An independent investigation was subsequently launched, which this afternoon has cleared Mr Street of any wrongdoing.

The report, authored by Olwen Dutton from Anthony Collins Solicitors, found his press officer sent the tweet without the prior knowledge or approval of the mayor.

Appalled

It says: "The Mayor explained to me that the press officer who sent out the tweet was employed by his office but that he (the Mayor) had no knowledge of the closed Twitter account to which the message was sent, had no knowledge of the tweet or reference itself, and had given no instructions for it to be made. He said that he was appalled when he saw it.

"It is entirely reasonable that this investigation was asked for by the Mayor and I appreciate the importance he has placed upon it. However, given his own role and the way in which he has described how the tweet and message came to light, I am confident that this was not at his instruction or indeed could have been reasonably said to been following up on any suggestion of any intention of his.

"I do not believe that he has been guilty of any offence under the WMCA Code of Conduct and accordingly I make a finding that there has been no breach by him of the Code."

As a result of the findings, a new Twitter account is to be set up for the mayor of the West Midlands to help provide "greater clarity".

The chief executive of the West Midlands Combined Authority, Deborah Cadman OBE, said: "On Friday February 8 the Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, issued a public statement at the start of the West Midlands Combined Authority Board meeting announcing that he had referred himself to the WMCA’s Monitoring Officer, Tim Martin. This was in relation to him apparently issuing a tweet encouraging persons to vote on the consultation into whether or not the Mayor should also take on the responsibilities of the Police and Crime Commissioner.

"We are today publishing the outcome of the investigation into these events conducted independently of the WMCA by Anthony Collins Solicitors. The findings of the report are clear that there is no case in relation to the Disclosable Pecuniary Interests Regulations, or in relation to other interests of the Mayor nor has the Mayor committed any breach the WMCA Code of Conduct. On that basis, I therefore consider the matter closed.

Clarity

"A number of steps are, however, being taken to ensure that there is greater clarity between the role of the Mayor’s office and the WMCA communications team.

"For example, we are establishing new social media accounts for the Mayor of the West Midlands. These will be immediately available to the current Mayor and all future holders of the office. They will be run by the WMCA communications team to ensure a formal separation between the official accounts and those used for the purposes of political campaigning."

West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson said he was "focussed on tackling knife crime" when asked to comment on the report's findings.

Mr Street said "I am obviously very pleased with the outcome of the report, in particular it says my actions after this came to light were appropriate and honourable. Most importantly now we must go back to the core issue, which is what is the right structure for overseeing our police force."