Acrimony and furious argument marred Lambeth Council’s executive meeting on Monday, after it refused to discuss the LCAS race inquiry or the reinstatement of union shop steward Alex Owolade.

Fifty campaigners from the civil rights group Movement for Justice shouted abuse from the public gallery in the council chamber after council leader Peter Truesdale said the meeting was “not the proper place” to discuss either issue.

Council security staff then barred Mr Owolade and his supporters from presenting an open letter to the executive from five LCAS workers demanding his reinstatement as a housing officer, as a mark of a town hall “culture change”.

Mr Owolade, the Unison shop steward who first took up the racism claims by black workers, is still awaiting the employment tribunal verdict in the next few weeks into his own dismissal over a series of misconduct charges, including allegedly using council computers to distribute claims against Lambeth.

The angry scenes followed a two-hour protest outside the town hall’s locked doors, after which the protesters were allowed into the council chamber public gallery, well away from councillors and council officers.

The executive meeting was the first since the public inquiry chaired by Professor Chris Mullard concluded in July that racism in its “overt, convert and institutionalised forms” caused the collapse Lambeth Community Alarms Service two years ago.

The inquiry’s report praised Mr Owolade for being “indispensable to raising awareness of racism as an institutional and institutionalised phenomenon and practice”, but made clear his employment tribunal was a completely separate matter.

But council deputy leader John Whelan, speaking after Monday’s meeting, said the Movement of Justice had been told the executive could not make a decision on Mr Owolade with the tribunal verdict still pending.

He said to discuss his reinstatement would be like “asking to talk to the council about the Hutton inquiry” and said the group could air its views at the full council meeting next Wednesday.

“There was no point in the agenda that referred to LCAS or to the employment tribunal.

“This was an attempt to disrupt the business of the council.” The refusal will inflame opinion about the council’s openness and willingness to act on the 24 recommendations made by Professor Mullard to prevent the alleged mismanagement and racism which infused the LCAS.

Calls to sack Lambeth chief executive Faith Boardman and senior managers – accused by the inquiry of “buck passing” – have so far been rejected.

Allegations made by Professor Mullard that council officers had put pressure on LCAS’ elderly users not to give evidence to the inquiry have also been dismissed after a town hall investigation.

The council is currently preparing an action plan which will lay out how each recommendation is being implemented, including crucially forming an external board of trade unions and for the Commission for Racial Equality and other bodies to oversee the “de-institutionalising” of racism in Lambeth.

The plan will be presented to a special all-party scrutiny committee and then approved the council executive in the autumn with a separate Race Scrutiny Commission, which is reviewing racial equality policy, reporting in October.