Ysgol Abersoch - Inaccurate And Misleading...

Cyngor Gwynedd Council's Education and Economy Scrutiny Committee met on 21/10/21 to discuss the closure of Ysgol Abersoch. The decision to close the small school in December has caused much tension between locals and the council.

Concerns have been raised that the majority of the consultation process has happened during the Covid19 pandemic and that the council's report was inaccurate and misleading...

The Cabinet Member for Education, Cemlyn Williams, is confident the process has been fair.
Can the same be said of other processes the Ed department has been involved with ? 
Are critical reports being sat on by this department, too ? 

With the meeting going nowhere, Councillor Judith Humphreys proposed sending the matter back to the Cabinet.  This did not go down well and an amendment was raised by Dewi Roberts, Councillor for Abersoch, who asked for the matter to go before full Council to hear the views of all Councillors.

Things then became a little surreal. During the vote on referring the matter to full council - one lay member seemed to freeze and stated she did not know what to do and asked for help. Democratic services had to intervene saying she could not be advised how to vote. The lay member voted against referring to full council and the amendment fell by the one vote.

The proposal to send the matter back to Cabinet - from whence it came - was passed.

The webcast of the meeting can be found here - https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/610141

Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: Inaccurate And Misleading ? - Gwynedd Council - Ys...:

Gwynedd Council Fail - Application For Indemnity By A Councillor

Cyngor Gwynedd Council's Cabinet Meeting took place on the 12th October. The autism plan was not passed and implemented as the Ombudsman for Wales was expecting - it was not even mentioned. 

Moving on - the Cabinet meeting included discussion on the Corporate Complaints Report. It appears that this complaints process, like the Social Service complaints procedures, is undergoing much change too. The Ombudsman is involved with these changes BUT the problems are not just with the complaints process and procedures more how senior officer's interfere with the process...
"The meeting was not to try and influence the outcome of the report in anyway..."

How has the complaints process been allowed to stray so far from the original Welsh Government policies and guidelines ? The data collected from complaints against council departments is used as big data and considered so important it is protected by legislation. The data can not be trusted...

The webcast of the meeting can be found here -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/606919
Copy and paste the address into your browser. The translated feed is not available for some reason.

The translated feed for the Care Scrutiny Committee meeting on Thursday, 30th September 2021 is also not working.
The link to that webcast can be found here -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/603781/start_time/0

Some local Councillors have been complaining for a while now that they feel left out of the democratic process. How are the english speaking Councillors feeling when they can not even access the webcasts?

In other news this week, the council is seeking to be more inclusive amid claims of a 'democratic desert' 

Cllr Mike Stevens - “And I do wonder if it’s because of the attitude we have of senior officers to some of the councillors. It was said this morning at our meeting by a very senior councillor that she felt there was no respect from too many officers towards councillors."

More on that here - Push for more diversity of candidates in Gwynedd’s ‘democratic desert’
https://nation.cymru/news/push-for-more-diversity-of-candidates-in-gwynedds-democratic-desert

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...

Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: Gwynedd Council - Application For Indemnity By A C...: