Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Tuesday, June 13, 2023
Sunday, April 16, 2023
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Concerns For Safety - Whose?
The minutes presented to cyngor Gwynedd planning committee on the 20th March, 2023, were challenged by its own Councillors.
At
the previous planning meeting, a recorded vote was asked for due to the
controversial decision to refuse an application. The recorded vote was absent from the minutes.
One
Councillor was not recorded as attending the meeting when they had
attended and another Councillor pointed out the lack of detail in the
english translated minutes. The lack of information could effect any
legal appeal if referring to the english version only.
The webcast can be found here -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/760497
In
other news, Councillor Louise Hughes recently spoke to the Daily Post
with regard to the reporting of a council meeting that debated the
Relationship and Education Curriculum and ended with police being
called. Councillor Hughes challenged the narrative of a near riot and
said that concerns for officer/member safety were 'over-egged.'
"As far as I’m concerned, there was no physical danger to the
councillors or to anyone. There was no violence or threats, certainly no
need to bring the police in. I've seen much rowdier meetings
when we discussed the closure of our small village schools. If we can’t
have robust or opposing debate during council meetings, then what is the
point of local democracy?"
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/concerns-over-safety-gwynedd-sex-26535355
The
council's 'concerns for safety' are simply an excuse to dilute its
duties under the new law - Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act
2021. Scrutiny and public participation are not welcomed by senior
officers of this council. Whilst Welsh government is trying to make
councils more open cyngor Gwynedd appear as closed as ever...
All this coincides with the disappearance of the Employment Appeals Committee from the council's calendar. Is an appeal due...?
Will this have anything to do with the employees rumoured to have been suspended for nearly 10 years? As so much time has passed, the officers will be confident of no legal comeback due to time restraints on reporting. The investigation has been completed and the executive officers with reponsiblities at the time have recently left the council.
With all this going on behind closed doors it was no surprise to find that someone had made a complaint about Councillor Hughes.
A meeting of Gwynedd Standards Committee will be held on the 18th, April, 2023.
From the agenda -
Following a complaint that Councillor Louise Hughes had breached the code of conduct for members of Gwynedd Council, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales decided to conduct an investigation. The Ombudsman concluded that the matter should be referred to the Monitoring Officer for consideration by the Standards Committee.
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/s500008403/Cover%20Report.pdf
Something is very wrong within cyngor Gwynedd...
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: Concerns For Safety - Cyngor Gwynedd (But Whose Sa...
Thursday, March 09, 2023
Cyngor Gwynedd Monitoring Officer Calls For Consistency...
Cyngor Gwynedd Planning Committee met on Monday, 27th February 2023 at 1:00pm
The webcast cab be found here -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/751721
Councillors threw out a planning application against the advice of planning officers...
The
application is for Tyn Lon Afonwen Pwllheli Gwynedd LL53 6TX to
establish a touring caravan site (19 unit) with toilet block and
associated works.
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/s37238/Tyn%20Ln%20Afonwen%20Pwllheli%20Gwynedd%20LL53%206TX.pdf
Objections included over development of sites in the area and that it would be detrimental to the Welsh language. The question of over development was batted away by officers reiterating that it was not a site for static caravans and no evidence was presented of damage to the language. Still, seven councillors voted to refuse...
Both the monitoring officer and the planning officer compared a similar application from last year (in an area of outstanding beauty) that committee passed against the direction of the planning department and consistency was asked for. The monitoring officer stated the application was fully in line with council policy and warned the decision to refuse could incur costs to the council if the applicant appealed....
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: Cyngor Gwynedd Monitoring Officer Calls For Consis...:
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
Thursday, February 16, 2023
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail - The Problem Is Systemic - PSOW...
The Ombudsman for Wales investigation(s) into cyngor Gwynedd social
services has changed nothing but revealed much - the legal process to
challenge a council's behaviour and its social care policies is
broken...
The optics after years of dealing with these officers are that there is no such thing as an independent anything
in Gwynedd. The investigators are employed by the SS senior complaints
manager - who is also the senior safeguarding and quality officer. The
two roles are not compatible and could be considered bad practice...
Some
investigators are not as 'independent' as they should be - one is
perceived as acting against one complainant and sabotaging her own
investigation by not wishing to interview a witness and producing an
unacceptable 'remit' for investigation. Shameful...
Social
workers, tasked by their managers to fake assessments on disabled
children. 'We are here to help''' They are most definitely not...
It
is not just the ignorance of law and policies and procedures that has
been revealed. It is the culture of cover up and pushback when
challenged. Council officers have presented evidence to official
investigations that is false and misleading, complainants have been
smeared and the councillors lied to.
Then there are the official reports written by the officers in the course of their duties...
Concerns
to the integrity of these reports and the issue of data manipulation
have been raised but shut down by the same officers who write the
reports. One wonders if they were still presented to the Sir Hugh Morgan
review as accurate? Then again it is the only data they have...
The Ombudsman wrote to express its own frustrations with officers (more than once) and bemoaned that its recommendations are not legally binding merely a 'gentleman's agreement'. So they lied to you, too...?
The same regulator who has literally had a front row seat into the disingenuous nature of these officers - over many years - seemed genuinly upset when officers yanked its chain, too. The PSOW was warned...
A CEO renaging on agreements after long and costly investigations is contemptible...
Why
the Ombudsman did not instigate further action after the behaviour of
the senior officers is not clearly understood as this could amount to
risk to the council and a matter for the council's insurers.
When
one department can persuade another department's manager to investigate
an issue (that had already been been investigated and upheld) and
produce a report in spite of the evidence the problem is systemic...
Whilst
evidence of this did not make the Ombudsman's 'remit' to investigate,
the Ombudsman was clearly unimpressed with the SS department's complaint
officers and ordered retraining in their statutory duties.
So the same people responsible for the culture are now tasked with changing the culture.
How's that going...?
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: The Problem Is Systemic...PSOW - Cyngor Gwynedd Co...:
Saturday, December 31, 2022
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Sunday, November 06, 2022
Ombudsman For Wales Home Visit To Gwynedd.
The aborted Stage 2 complaint emails
between the 'independent investigator' and Cyngor Gwynedd's safeguarding
and quality officer were passed to the Ombudsman for his information.
They included input from the Monitoring Officer and also ahowed this
'investigator' sending correspondence to someone not involved in the
complaints process...
Because
of the unreasonable demands imposed by the council officer, the
complaint did not proceed and was timed out by the council. After
reading the emails, the Ombudsman returned with an offer of a complaint
without enduring further officer bad behaviour. But trust in the Ombudsman was now on the wane.
Evidence
of wrongdoing by senior officers - from an officer leaving the council
during one investigation then rejoining once interviews were completed
through behaviour by officers that many have thought abusive. There was
the council's Information manager's data breach report - written in
spite of the evidence, the creation of documents that should not exist
and legal documents written not to inform but mislead. All not
investigated...
Not
forgetting, the Ombudsman was warned that the council's SS officers may
treat the second assessment - and the family - with the same
disingenuity as the first - and they did...
It was pointed out to the Ombudsman that Gwynedd council have not complied with other recommendations from past investigations and that if they had been called to account previously then further investigations would not have been needed. The Ombudsman did not respond to this point.
A FOI request was put in asking for the compliance correspondence between the Ombudsman and Gwynedd council regarding Case 201700388 and later in the family's own case. Whilst the Ombudsman's Information office released the correspondence for someone else's investigation showing the council admitting non compliance, the FOI for emails from the family's own case was refused. Even more evidence of non compliance...?
By
now, the family's perception was that the Ombudsman appeared unwilling
or unable to deal with the serious issues the evidence had revealed.
Regardless, the offer of a third Ombudsman's investigation into the SS
department's
second assessment which should have already been investigated by the
Ombudsman was accepted.
A home visit was arranged to discuss and
take further evidence against Gwynedd council. Home visits from the
Ombudsman are not usual...
Shortly after, the senior safeguarding officer used a Care Scrutiny Committee
on the 14/11/19 to declare the Ombudsman had -
"given
them a further challenge, to make sure that someone goes to see the
family, meet the family, ensure that they receive that assessment and
that is something that we have now arranged with the adult services, to
go into that situation on the Ombudsman's behalf, despite the fact that
they have not expressed a wish to receive the service, our usual ethos
involves intervention but only if the person invites us in and wishes
for us to intervene in this way, the Ombudsman has judged this and wants
us to go no matter what the wish of the individual may be, so that is
now our response to that challenge provided by the Ombudsman."
The Ombudsman was contacted and denied the words of the officer...
But
what of the language used to Councillors and the public - 'challenge'
and 'intervention' and 'ethos' are such strong words to use when all
that was required was a simple carer's assessment...
Gwynedd
council had used the excuse that they did not understand the wording
in one Ombudsman report. The recommendation that Executive officers and presumably
the council's legal team had already agreed to but now clearly misunderstood was -
“Provides Mr Y and his family with a comprehensive assessment of their needs and ensures that adequate measures are put in place to meet any identified needs."
Hardly a complex sentence. Bizarrely, the
Ombudsman accepted this excuse and presumably another box was ticked instead of
following policy and procedures which could have resulted in an
Ombudsman's Special Report into continued non compliance.
The Ombudsman also introduced the word 'variance' into the dialogue and it appears that recommendations for improvement can be downgraded once an investigation has been completed in a deal done between the Ombudsman and the CEO behind closed doors - without the complainants knowledge...
All this while attempting to come to agreement with the 'remit' for the third investigation.
Having
investigated several complaints into Gwynedd council during his
incumbancy, the Ombudsman was well aware of the disingenuous nature of
the senior officers and their treatment of the disabled. Gwynedd council
even featured in the Ombudsman's hall of shame casebook which can be
found here -
https://www.ombudsman.wales/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/104483-Equality-and-Human-Rights-Casebook_Eng_v03.pdf
The full Ombudsman's report for case 201700388 can be found here -
http://www.lukeclements.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Ombudsman-Gwynedd-Council-report-201700388.pdf
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: A Home Visit From The Ombudsman For Wales...: