Carmarthenshire Planning Problems and more

Is Meryl Gravell's reign finally over?

2012-01-31T12:09:00.003Z

I have heard that the Plaid Cymru opposition in Carmarthenshire Council have planned to present a Vote of No Confidence in the Leader Cllr Meryl Gravell at the next meeting of full Council on the 8th February.

The question is, will she resign as Leader before she is pushed?

Of course, previous attempts to dislodge Meryl from the top job were thwarted when the constitution was suddenly tweaked to require seven signatures for such a motion rather than the usual two, despite protestations that this was highly undemocratic. Those recent attempts at a No Confidence vote, (see previous posts) were proposed by the two members of the People First Group - but this time, proposed by Plaid, with thirty Members, (and if it goes ahead), the outcome is by no means certain. With Meryl's recent unguarded comments still ringing in everyone's ears as well as the 'pulled' press release from a couple of weeks ago, (to give just two examples), the long reign may now be over.

It look to me like Plaid have abandoned any ambitions of forming a coalition with Meryl's Independents, should such an outcome look likely after the May election, and they have finally had enough.

There is already speculation, on the grapevine, as to who will be the most suitably loyal replacement, currently the odds are in favour of Cllr Steven James being selected.

Whatever happens, it looks like next Wednesday's meeting, for a variety of reasons, will be a very interesting one.

Gardens and Thrones

2012-01-27T12:39:00.000Z

As I mentioned last week, there was an 'exempt' report at Monday's Executive Board meeting concerning the National Botanic Garden of Wales. As I said, there appeared to be no good reason for the exemption other than an order by the Welsh Government. The local paper tried to find out what had happened but other than a vague comment from the leader, Cllr Gravell and the promise of an announcement by the Welsh Government 'in the Spring' we were none the wiser. One presumes that Cardiff are pouring more cash into the money-pit. However, there had to be a reason why this was also before the esteemed cabinet in County Hall. Already granting at least £60,000 per year from our coffers, I see from item 7 of the minutes (incidentally, I would also like to draw your attention to Item 8), that an extra £15,000 per year will now be added to this figure, Cllr Gravell did not mention this to the local paper. As usual the white elephants are forming a queue for extra strawberries before the budget axe falls next month. I can see the 'webcasting council meetings' call being conveniently kicked into touch.

With the furore over Meryl Gravell's derogatory comments about members of staff still rumbling along, and gaining several hundred hits on You Tube, I am sure it will be a very interesting meeting of full council on the 8th February, Cllr Winston Lemon (Plaid) has already publicly called for her to abdicate the throne, I wonder if anyone else will join him? I wonder if any more amendments to the constitution can be squeezed in beforehand to avoid any embarrassment for our Leader? I don't think those protective goalposts can be moved much more. Perhaps Councillors will be asked to sign an undertaking not to upset applecarts before being allowed in. The Council budget meeting will then be held on the 21st February where the remaining funds will be 'voted' on, in Carmarthenshire's own inimitable way. I trust the Public Gallery will be packed and extra wardens will be deployed, it could be a Code Red situation.

On the subject of the dwindling funds, the Welsh language current affairs magazine, Golwg ran an article a couple of weeks ago about the council's excessive contributions to the evangelical bowling alley, alternatively known as a 'church'. There were several contributors including myself, Y Cneifiwr, Cllr Caiach, the Council and of course the Towy Community Church itself. Y Cneifiwr's blog has a summary of some of the facts and figures.
Today's edition of Golwg has an article about my arrest and calls to allow the filming of council meetings. Well done Golwg.
I have also heard today that my filming and spending petitions have now been put on the Agenda for the Senedd Petitions Committee for the 7th February. The straw poll over on Dyfrig Thomas' blog is still going strong, it currently stands 50 in favour and 8 against webcasting meetings. It would be interesting to know whether the 8 who voted against webcasting object to the cost (which is debatable) or the principle.

Update 27th January - Press Release from the People First Group on Carmarthenshire County Council

"A LEADER OR FIGURE-HEAD?

What should have been a wonderful day celebrating 15 years of Choose Life in Llanelli with Alan Andrews and his staff was spoilt by the extraordinary remarks made by Councillor Meryl Gravell.

After congratulating Alan and his staff for the years of working tirelessly to help people with their addictions, Mrs Gravell then went on to insult some of the demonstrators who were protesting outside about the proposed closure of the A&E department in Prince Philip Hospital. She quite clearly called them “rabble” but did not specify which demonstrators were the “rabble”.

She followed this by stating “Mark and I have 9000 employees (sic) and if they only worked as hard and as enthusiastically as Alan then we would have no trouble in the Council.”

We were astounded that a council leader could speak in such a disparaging manner, especially after some of our hard-working council employees have been forced to take salary cuts.

In our opinion Mrs Gravell’s scathing, unscripted, remarks about some of the protestors and about council staff were insensitive and unprofessional. Her subsequent response to councillors and to the press that her remarks have been taken out of context is misleading - as the video evidence proves.

Is this why the council is so reluctant to have their meetings filmed? The value of such recording is borne out by the YouTube clip showing the council leader’s true character – and her true remarks. It would appear that without a script and without the guidance of officers, Mrs Gravell is not competent enough to make a simple speech without alienating and enraging the public and council workers.

The council needs a real leader who enables and encourages councillors to work as a team to serve the people of Carmarthenshire; not someone who maintains the status quo of an officer-led council where councillors are merely required to rubber-stamp officers’ recommendations.

The People First Group will continue to campaign for recording council meetings and do not accept Mrs Gravell’s insincere apology. She should resign."

And here, in the interests of balance, is a link to the South Wales Evening Post article featuring Cllr Gravell's press release;
'Carmarthenshire Council Leader; 'Rabble' blast misunderstood'

Another update; *stop press* - Carmarthenshire Council has an poll on the homepage of their website (follow link below, the poll is to be found on the right hand side under 'have your say');
'If the council were to live stream it's meetings on the internet, would you be likely to watch?' Please vote Yes!
http://www.carmarthenshire.gov.uk/English/Pages/Home.aspx

Yet another update 31st Jan
I see Cllr Gravell has now issued another 'message' (please note, she does not call it an apology) - this time to staff. It begins by explaining again her reasons for using the word 'rabble' in connection to the hospital protestors, which I have already covered in the last few posts. The rest is a last ditch attempt, coined by a council spin doctor no doubt, to apologise for her comments about the 9000 staff; Oh dear, this is getting desperate;

"Many of you by now will have read in the press and even seen a "Youtube" clip of comments that I made at the recent 15 year Anniversary celebrations of Chooselife in Llanelli.........I recognise now that I should have chosen my words more carefully but please believe me when I say that my comments were never intended to reflect badly in any way on council staff. Many of you will know that I never miss an opportunity to commend and congratulate staff within the council. As I have said on numerous occasions we, as Members, can agree to all sorts of policies and projects, but we rely entirely on the Council’s staff to put those policies into practice and to make our many challenging projects come to fruition. All the fantastic achievements we have been able to deliver in recent years would not have been possible without the hard work and expertise of staff.I hope that this explanation will help to put these matters into context.
Since making these remarks I have spoken to many members of staff who have been honest enough with me to express their disappointment with my remarks. Similarly, I have received letters from people who have been equally critical of my comments. What I hope is that they and you will understand the difficult circumstances in which they were made and that you will accept my apology for any offence caused.
Can I also thank the many members of staff who have taken the time to ring me personally to offer their support and understanding and recognise that I have always been very supportive of Carmarthenshire County Council’s staff";

'One just can't get the staff these days...'

2012-01-23T18:41:00.002Z

Further to my previous post here, the Unison Carmarthen website now has a video of the Council Leader's performance at the Chooselife event, here's a link; What does Meryl Gravell think about you? (Also now on You Tube; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM9HgN8SaL8 ) In common with other politicians who realise they have dropped a bit of a clanger, Cllr Gravell has now issued a 'press release'. She defends her 'rabble' remark by saying she was referring to a small minority from within the protestors who were abusive to clients and staff of the Centre - if this was the reason for her remark, perhaps she should have made that very clear in her speech; she was not clear, and it appears to be a general reference to the protestors. The next 'insult' of course came from Cllr Gravell herself, her "Mark and I" remarks about council staff (now popularly referred to as the 'Royal We') were not only crass but rather insulting and her 'explanation' in the press release is...er...a little contrived;

"There have also been reports on comments I made congratulating the hardworking staff at Chooselife. I did praise them for their dedication and for the fact that theirs is not a ‘9 to 5’ job. However this was not meant to reflect badly in any way on council staff. Members will know that I lose no opportunity to commend and congratulate our staff within the council"
It appears she has forgotten what she said - luckily we've got the video, here's a reminder of her actual words;

"We have nine thousand employees Mark and I, and if all nine thousand employees worked as hard as Alan, and were as enthusiastic as Alan is, my goodness we would not have a problem at all in the Council, but there we are, we are who we are!"
Remember, this wasn't in the Council Chamber but at a meeting attended by people from all walks of life - can you imagine what is said in the cloistered seclusion of the Chamber? No wonder they don't want anyone filming!

Welcoming Committee

2012-01-23T18:10:00.000Z

I must comment on the reception usually given by Carmarthenshire Council to those who petition, peacefully protest or otherwise challenge decisions by presenting their arguments on the steps of County Hall.
Whether it's the closure of a day centre or the closure of a secondary school, they're on their own. If you're very lucky a messenger may be sent out to quickly grab the petition or whatever, only to dart back into the security of the hallowed halls before any awkwards questions are asked. Any request for a senior officer or Executive Board Member (who are responsible for the decisions) to engage with the 'rabble' will always fall on deaf ears.
I was surprised therefore to see that there is an entirely different attitude when the representations are in support of council policy. I am avoiding the argument over the siting of the new Furnace School in Llanelli - that is entirely a matter for those directly involved - my concern is with the council's attitude to those who dare oppose the latest 'masterplan'.
A photo in last week's Evening Post featured a group of children and a school governor presenting a petition on the steps of County Hall, supporting the council's preferred school site - and who else were on the steps, nestled in amongst the throng, beaming with delight? None other than the Director of Education Mr Rob Sully and Executive Board Member for Education Cllr Gwynne Wooldridge!
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Parents-demand-school-pound-14-6m-plan-objection/story-14984412-detail/story.html

Cwm Environmental - final response

2012-01-23T17:54:00.001Z

I had another response to my further FoI enquiries to Cwm Environmental ltd, the company owned by Carmarthenshire Council to handle their waste management strategy, see here;http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cwm_environmental_ltd?unfold=1#incoming-245915

it raises a couple of interesting points;
As this company is owned (not just contracted) by the council, should it not be subject to the same FoI legislation as a public body? Apparently not according to the Director. As councils continue to outsource public services to private companies the issue of FoI compliance is becoming a national issue. This company, as I have said, is owned by the council.

I asked further about any 'interests' recorded against the directors (see my earlier post here) - again they seem to have different rules (although, according to the Constitution, Carmarthenshire Council officers' declarations are on a 'voluntary' basis too - but failure to declare should, potentially I assume, carry stiffer penalties - but that's another story), and what is more worrying is the inference that my request was somehow vexatious.

As for the quoted discrepancy regarding the funding to community groups, as I suspected, the explanation is that the £270,000+ per year (rather than £1433 initially quoted) relates to the Landfill Tax administered by GrantScape and Entrust. 6% of this tax, generated by the company, can be donated for the purposes of positive publicity (it's good too, of course for the community groups but 'publicity' is mentioned in the response). The identities of the organisations who were unsuccessful in these charity bids are exempt, I am told, through the Data Protection Act.

update; well, it wasn't quite the final word as I am aware that the Council own 51% of the company so I have now asked, (prompted by a tweeter) who owns the other 49%. Incidentally the highest paid Director of Cwm earns £101,000 pa.
For background, this first came to my attention a couple of years ago when Cwm acquired a loan of £400,000 from the council towards the cost of 20 acres of land around the recycling centre, the total cost was £650,000 which seemed to me a bit steep. Another issue which was raised was the lack of council representation on the Board, it was deemed that an ex-council officer would suffice.

update 24th Jan; Cwm inform me that there are no other shareholders, Carmarthenshire Council hold 100%. I have a copy of the accounts now so will be having a look through. So, if the council hold 100%, why isn't Cwm treated as a public sector organisation - it means we, the taxpayers are the owners - don't we have a say in all this?

Glossing over

2012-01-18T19:18:00.000Z

Further to last Wednesday's post 'Private Eye again - and today's full council meeting', I see that the minutes of the meeting have been published. (This was the meeting where a child was forced to sign the 'undertaking, remember?)

Yet again inconvenient chunks and awkward moments have disappeared from the record. I am in some doubt if it was the same meeting I went to last week. Although it should come as no surprise, there was not a word about Cllr Caiach's mention of the Council's appearance (again) in Private Eye or her attempt to offer the Council's apologies to me. (I am getting used to this). More importantly her suggestion that, in order for there to be an accurate record of who said what etc, the party leaders should get together and discuss using the existing equipment to make audio recordings - this wasn't mentioned either - nor Cllr Palmer's acidic response.

The Chief Constable's presentation is summarised but the specific concerns raised by several members are not, other than they 'asked questions' - no mention of the executive BMWs or the brand new, distinctly unused (that is unless someone decides to film a council meeting) £multi million Emergency Response Centre or concerns about the closure of local police stations etc.

The item on the 'new school builds' fails to include the concerns raised by Cllrs Lemon and Caiach and the memorable 'words of one syllable' response.

Lastly was the issue of the 'vanishing' press release - despite very clear concerns, all we have is the explanation by the Chief Executive that everything was 'appropriate' - no it wasn't was it? If it was, it would still be on the Council website....

(here, for your information, are the minutes.)

Anyhow, I really shouldn't be surprised any more. 'Glossing over' is the phrase that continually leaps to mind. All the more reason of course, for meetings to be filmed.

An 'exempt' item pops up in next Monday's Executive Board meeting concerning the National Botanic Gardens. Whenever this is discussed, along with other controversial expenditures; Parc Y Scarlets, Towy Community Church etc it is usually exempt from the public and press. Whether the exemption is necessary is quite another thing, we have seen the 'transfer of public toilets to community councils' feature in this category. This time though the (wordy) wording on the agenda appears to suggest that it is the Welsh Government which is insisting on secrecy;

"Being information furnished to the Council by the Welsh Assembly Government upon terms which forbid the disclosure of the information to the public, and accordingly the public will be excluded from the meeting during discussion of this item"

Last February, during last year's round of council budget cuts, it was decided, behind closed doors to up the Council's contribution from £30k to £60k a year, the Welsh Assembly gave it £800k in the last round of hand outs. Whilst wishing the Garden every success, it has cost the taxpayer a fortune and the management of the garden has been 'under review' by the Wales Audit Office and Welsh Assembly more than once. It was established on £43m of public money and it is a public place, there is nothing (in my opinion) to discuss that couldn't be said in public. (please search for previous posts)

Update; Interesting letter in today's Carmarthen Journal (not online);
Procedure at hall is a farce
There used to be a jail where County Hall now stands and, judging by recent experience, there are still people employed to be warders in the building. If, as a member of the public, you want to watch councillors in action, you are required to sign a bit of paper giving an undertaking not to record in audio or visual form any of the proceedings of a council meeting. This bit of paper actually has no legal standing whatsoever but everyone - including children - are required to sign it before being allowed in the public gallery.
Having duly put pen to paper, two warders materialise and - one in front and one behind (presumably so that you don't make a break for it and create havoc on the stairwell) - accompany you up the narrow stairs, through several locked doors, before leaving you with instructions to use a telephone to call for someone to unlock the doors and let you out again.
In response to a query about what happens if there's a fire, you are told that the doors unlock automatically and a fire officer will come to fetch you to accompany you out of the building. Having pointed out that if the doors open automatically then one could find one's own way out thank you very much, you are told that it is policy to make you wait until a fire officer comes to save you.
So, having listened to the hour of non-stop self-congratulation which passes for an Executive Board meeting and then telephoned to be allowed to escape, the procedure happens in reverse.
What a farce! And are we paying to employ warders to hang about waiting for members of the public to exercise their democratic right to see what is being decided on their behalf?
L Williams
Carmarthen

Cast your vote on webcasting Carmarthenshire council meetings

2012-01-18T10:51:00.002Z

Please go over to Dyfrig Thomas' blog and cast your vote on whether Carmarthenshire Council should webcast it's meetings - I think it is essential and will be money well spent - so please vote YES! Dyfrig is a Plaid Cymru County Councillor based in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire.

Vote on webcasting council meetings - please follow the links

I, of course believe that members of the public, bloggers etc should be able to make their own recordings, unhindered. Please remember, that despite their many statements and 'undertakings' etc to the contrary, Carmarthenshire Council does not have any specific rules against it, and never has....yet.
Please leave your views on the comment section of this blogpost. Thanks.

And a reminder that my Assembly petitions will be considered again next Tuesday (24th) by the Petitions Committee and the Minister, Carl Sargeant, at the Senedd, (update 24th - Carl Sargeant unable to attend meeting so consideration postponed until near future, hopefully not long)

Dyfrig Thomas has also provided some additional information on webcasting here

Council Leader calls constituents 'rabble'

2012-01-16T22:57:00.000Z

(In the interest of fairness, I would like to draw your attention to the comment on this post left by Alan Andrews, the Director of ChooseLife who has offered some possible context/clarification as to Cllr Gravell's 'rabble' remark)

(23rd Jan; also, in the interests of fairness to protestors and council staff, here's a link to the Unison Carms website which features a video of Cllr Gravell's performance including her comments/views about 9000 council employees - What does Meryl Gravell think about you? )

Stunned to learn today that our gracious Leader, Cllr Meryl Gravell has called a group of peaceful protestors 'rabble' and went on to label nine thousand frontline council employees as the cause of the Councils 'problems'. Remember, this is the Leader of one of the largest authorities in Wales and has numerous seats and responsibilities on various Boards and Committees throughout the nation.

Here's the context; Recent news that the A & E department at Prince Phillip Hospital, Llanelli will be axed has caused dismay and anguish amongst residents, understandably so. On top of that a 14 day 'consultation' was announced last week into the closure of an 20 bed acute medical ward - it appears that, unless this deliberate downgrading of essential services is stopped, and Hywel Dda Health Board forced to go back to the drawing board, Llanelli will be left without a fully functioning hospital.
As you may imagine something of a campaign has been gathering pace culminating last week in a peaceful protest. Around 300 members of the public, children, grandmothers, healthworkers, patients, local assorted politicians, etc had gathered in the cold hoping to address their concerns to Labour First Minister Carwyn Jones who, on a rare visit to Carmarthenshire, was visiting the (excellent) drug intervention centre, Choose Life, celebrating it's 15th anniversary. Incidentally, Mr Jones would not speak to the protestors.

Also attending the anniversary was our very own Council top brass and someone decided that it would be a splendid idea to give Meryl the microphone. Unfortunately the Council speech writer must have had a day off, and, after congratulating the centre and it's founder, Alan Andrews on his hard work (deservedly so) she then referred to the good folk of Llanelli outside, peacefully trying to preserve their hospital as 'rabble'. Lord preserve us.
At this point someone should have intervened, and maybe whisked her off to the getaway limo, but no, on she went, and proceeded to denigrate the nine thousand or so council staff and blame the ordinary workers for the 'problems' in the Council; "We have nine thousand employees Mark and I (sic), and if all nine thousand employees worked as hard as Alan, and were as enthusiastic as Alan is, my goodness we would not have a problem at all in the Council, but there we are, we are who we are!"

Yet again, I am lost for words, as I am sure, were the assembled constituents and employees of Carmarthenshire Council.
Anyone fancy another go at the vote of no confidence? The May election can't come soon enough.

Cllr Meryl Gravell

Later post; http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2012/01/one-just-cant-get-staff-these-days.html

Council fined £3000 by Ombudsman....and FoI updates

2012-01-15T17:26:00.001Z

As yet another disastrous week for Carmarthenshire Council passes by, featuring a fourth mention in Private Eye, forcing a child to sign the bizarre 'filming undertaking' and accusations of misuse of council resources, the £3000 fine for maladministration from the Ombudsman was not much of a morale booster. The upheld complaint, coming just days after the Council's social care service won some quango based award, concerned a catalogue of failure to adequately house a disabled man, a failure to recognise it's statutory social care duties to the complainant, and consequently his human rights.
The South Wales Evening Post ran the story , the Ombudsman provides a summary and a link to the full report. Here's an extract from the report to give you the gist;

"The Council was aware that it had allocated Mr M a property where he had no access to a toilet or washing facilities and, in its view, there would be problems for Mr M getting in and out of the property. The Occupational Therapist has stated in his evidence that any attempt by Mr M to get up the stairs, if indeed he could manage it at all, to access the bathroom would have entailed a high degree of risk. The lack of access to basic facilities at home can only have had a detrimental impact on his dignity and wellbeing. The Council appeared content to allow Mr M to continue to live in these difficult circumstances [for three years] until he agreed to move. I find this wholly unacceptable"

I have also had a couple of Freedom of Information responses which may be of interest. Firstly I asked about the shared IT services with Dyfed Powys Police. According to the response a 'merger', as such, hasn't taken place - all that's happened is the Council's Head of IT has had the boot/retired and the police and the council, to cut costs I suppose, are going 50/50 on the wages of a shared Head. I was particularly interested as to how the sharing of these two large and particularly sensitive IT systems was going to happen, and how the implications of data protection and security arrangements would be considered and managed. Judging by the response, the council haven't got round to thinking about that just yet, (or even whether any council powers delegated to the Head of IT, now rest with Dyfed Powys police) - but I imagine this step would not have been taken without the full intention of providing a shared service.
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/shared_it_services_with_dyfed_po

The other request concerned Cwm Environmental Ltd, a subsidiary company of the Council (mentioned several times, here, here and here) Cwm handles the waste management concerns/strategy of the Council. The Council informed me that they did not hold the information but would pass on my request to Cwm. I then I had an immediate, response from Cwm. As the Council holds all the shares but Cwm is a company in it's own right, FoI enters a slightly grey area. With Councils accross the UK outsourcing services to private companies, whether they should be subject to the same FoI and Data Protection legislation is becoming a bit of an issue. Anyhow, here's the link; http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cwm_environmental_ltd
I don't think it was a particularly 'full' response and my request for information about grants seems to have been misunderstood. The Cwm website clearly shows the list of organisations who have recieved grants amounting to over £250,000 for 2010 - the FoI response has this figure at £1433. With all the projects presumably funded out of the Landfill Tax, it is unclear whether this lesser figure is a seperate pot - perhaps I should have asked specifically about the 'Cwm Community and Environmental Fund' - I thought, not unreasonably, that the word 'grants' might have covered it. Unsuccessful bids for grant funding have not been included either. I have asked for clarification. I also asked about the registered interests of the directors, I have been given a brief list but on further checking, I notice one of the named individuals is also a company secretary of the 'Carmarthen Masonic Building Company Ltd' - this is omitted from the response.

Lastly, followers of the Towy Community Church/bowling alley saga (please search blog) will know that they recieved a grant from Cwm. The figure given by Cwm Environmental is £50,000, but for some reason, both 'exempt reports' presented to the Council in May and November 2011 have the grant at £45,000. A £5000 discrepancy somewhere. Whilst I'm on the subject this organisation also received (amongst the whole funding package) £25,000 from the Rural Development Plan - which is EU money aimed at improving access to services and regenerating rural/agricultural areas of Wales - in this case the fund specifically paid for 'one and a half bowling lanes' in the urban area of Johnstown, Carmarthen. Another grant was £25,000 from the Council's 'Sustainable Communities Tourism Fund' - set up to;
"develop and safeguard local legends, history, culture, art and language to inform visitors of the county’s distinctiveness, and also to maintain the character of Carmarthenshire for its residents." (Council Tourism Manager)
“This fund will promote awareness and pride in the environment and cultural heritage of the area. Carmarthenshire is such a diverse county, and we have many stories, myths and legends which all make for fantastic tourism potential.” (Executive Board Member Cllr Scourfield)

I can only assume that the phrase 'strict criteria' is slightly more flexible than we think when it comes to grant awards. It is quite amazing how resourceful even an evangelical bowling alley can be when attracting public money, and even more amazing is the generosity of our Council for awarding it.

Private Eye again! - and today's full Council meeting

2012-01-11T18:21:00.001Z

Latest issue - 1305

Well done to Carmarthenshire Council for appearing for a FOURTH time in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs - is anyone getting the message yet?

I was unaware of this latest mention as I ventured once more (into the breach dear friends) of the Public Gallery at County Hall for the meeting of Full Council. I will not repeat again the ridiculous entry procedure other than to mention that whoever is in charge of all this (I was told by the Assistant Chief Executive, on the 13th July that entry is entirely at the discretion of the Chief Executive) has decided that children must also sign the undertaking or they too will be banned from observing the democratic process. A lady visited today and wished to bring her 14 year old son, Jeno. He is home educated and wanted to observe proceedings. She was shocked and told me afterwards that she had questioned, in reception, whether a minor should have to sign, and whether it was even legal for them to ask him to do it. The staff phoned to some higher authority who insisted he signed. This cannot be right - it is unlawful, in my opinion, for adults to sign but children?..bloody hell...is anyone going to challenge this?

Well, onto the meeting and as you may imagine there were some formal congratulations for Mr James and his CBE. Cllr Sian Caiach then spoke and added her tribute, I think those present may have been lulled into a false sense of security as she immediately mentioned that there was 'another' award which they might not be quite so proud of and that of course, was the one in Private Eye, in the highly competitive Legal Bully of the Year category.

This was not going down too well, Mr James was shifting around uncomfortably and Cllr Ivor Jackson was attempting to shut Cllr Caiach up. Undaunted, she continued and offered the apologies of the entire council to Jacqui Thompson (indicating me) for their actions which led to my arrest. I wonder if all this will be in the Minutes for once? It was perhaps all the more poignant as the Chief Constable of Dyfed Powys Police was also there, on the 'top table' waiting to give his powerpoint presentation about the cash strapped force.

Briefly silenced, Cllr Caiach then challenged the inaccuracy of the minutes from a previous meeting (give that lady a medal). She said that this sort of thing (a very common occurence) could be resolved if the Council used the audio equipment already in place, more or less) and recorded the meetings. She hoped the group leaders would agree to this. A rather irate Exec Board Member, Cllr Pam Palmer said 'they' were thinking about it anyway but if it cost 'one penny' on the budget, they wouldn't countenance it (my mind immediately pictured the piles of cash 'they' have bestowed on the evangelical bowling alley). Of course, if they did record and archive the meetings, one of their main worries about members of the public filming meetings and 'editing' the material which might make some of them look silly (sorry Pam, nobody has to edit anything to do that) would be redundant, as a true record would be preserved by the council. I could be allowed to film!

Moving on, to what was becoming quite a lively meeting, next up was Mr Ian Arundale, Chief plod. The purpose of the talk and the powerpoint, (and I am not going to debate the finances of the police force here) was that huge cuts were being made of course, from central government and he was there cap in hand for an extra 5% from the council. Much debate ensued, as it has around the UK I believe, his BMW was mentioned as well as the brand spanking new Major Incident Unit in Carmarthen, (this is just in case a white elephant goes on the rampage). However the concensus of opinion, after about an hour, which on the whole I wouldn't argue with, was that Dyfed Powys should have their 5%, in fact this was proposed and seconded. Several minutes of total confusion ensued until Mr James said that it would not be legal for the Council Members to decide this - I am not sure who could..the Police authority perhaps. Anyway that was that and Mr Arundale declined an invite to remain for the rest of the meeting, and off he went, escorted by Mr James.

There was an interesting discussion involving the 'Modernising Education Programme' - One Councillor questioned why Seaside School in Llanelli had had to wait years for funding for a new school, thankfully, Mr James explained all. If local people had not objected to the site selected by the council (he said that he had told the councillor this previously, in "words of one syllable") then it would have been built, as such there was a five year delay. He also warned there would be an eight year delay if anyone dared to object to the siting of the new Furnace School in Llanelli (there have been objections and Cllr Caiach was pilloried in November's meeting for doing so). So we can now confirm - and take note those who may dare to disagree with the siting of the new superschool in Ffairfach - that the consultation process was, and is, a complete sham after all. Do it our way or not at all. How democratic.

Last but not least (there was more but I think I have gone on long enough for now, anyway) was the bizarre press release written, approved, published, then pulled after a couple of hours from the Council website. (a somewhat diluted version appeared in the paper) Peter Hughes Griffiths, the Plaid leader led the charge. The main concern was that major decisions had been concerning the budget by a couple of ruling members with diddly squat consultation with any other elected members, with the additional swipe at the Plaid opposition, it was nothing more than blatant electioneering. He siad the people of Carmarthenshire deserved better. The Chief Executive, the Leader and co all tried to gloss over it all, Cllr Pam Palmer (Ind) said she was becoming very angry with such nonsense from Plaid and was beginning to look very cross indeed. However, before blows were exchanged Mr James interjected, carefully explaining (in words of one syllable again) that the ruling administration, as the 'Government' of Carmarthenshire' were 'procedurally' correct in making such decisions and announcing it to the press....

To be honest I became a bit lost at the astounding logic at this point - this was a bloody scandal, and they know it. Please see yesterday's posts 'Short and Snappy' and 'You know there's an election on it's way' (the 'pulled' press release can be seen on the latter)

The meeting eventually concluded and we were escorted out, as usual, by two members of staff one of whom was the highly paid (I'm sure) Democratic Services Manager himself, not only highly ironic but an even greater waste of resources don't you think?

The press release story was picked up by yesterday's Western Mail 'Council staff used for 'blatant electioneering' claims Plaid'

'Chief executive Mark James said: “We follow very strict rules in terms of impartiality and I am satisfied that these rules have been adhered to in this case" - so that's why the article was pulled then was it??

Short and Snappy

2012-01-10T19:37:00.001Z

Further to yesterday's post; You can tell there's an election on it's way... (which includes the 'pulled' press release)

I have just noticed that the Plaid politicians, Jonathan Edwards MP, Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM and Cllr Peter Hughes Griffiths have strongly attacked Carmarthenshire Council over this matter. I feel compelled to state that if I had not mentioned on my blog the (suddenly pulled) press release on the Council website yesterday, and fortunately made a copy - this whole issue may have passed them by. It was far stronger than the newspaper article, and was clearly highly inappropriate use of the Council website as well as public resources.
I, and many others, have been telling our MP and AM for YEARS that there is something seriously wrong with the way this Council is run, by certain senior officers and Members alike - does it take me and my blog to point it out AGAIN??
Perhaps it also explains the blog hits I had this morning from the Houses of Parliament, there's not many up there who can spell caebrwyn perfectly.

Sorry to sound a bit annoyed but I find it a little frustrating that despite endless complaints and appeals to our elected representatives by members of the Carmarthenshire public, it is only when Plaid perceive a personal attack on their party do they issue such a vehement statement;

Plaid Cymru attacks County Council's publicly funded electioneering

You can tell there's an election on the way...

2012-01-09T16:28:00.000Z

.......when the present Administration ('Independents' and Labour groups, in case you'd forgotten) are allowed use the media section of the Council website for some shameless political point scoring and (as I predicted) a couple of 'surprise, surprise' u-turns on the more 'bad press' elements of the proposed cuts. As I have said, I am not politically aligned, but this 'press release' smacks entirely of disingenuous spin - if I was a Plaid Councillor, I would be up in arms. Plaid have been accused of abstaining from voting on 'every committee' - yet I notice the votes at the last Education Scrutiny committee against closing childrens' respite homes, putting up the price of school dinners and agreement to defer the museum closures, was 'unanimous' - no mention of abstentions.

Clearly there are problems facing the council's ability to balance it's books but it beggars belief that this sort of PR nonsense continues. It is the ultimate irony that Cllr Palmer has used this opportunity to unashamedly accuse others of making 'political soundbites'. Decisions to keep respite homes open etc are, of course to be welcomed but one wonders how (and why) they appeared on the list in the first place, all the items which have now been 'reviewed' are geared to maximise support for the current administration, which has, to a man, and woman (of course), rubber stamped all officer decisions for years. The whole thing was engineered at a 'behind closed doors' meeting yesterday.

There is not, I notice, any mention in this puff piece about the decision taken only last month by the three main groups (I believe two Plaid Cllrs voted against it along with Cllrs Caiach and A Davies) to risk over a quarter of a million quid on the evangelical bowling alley (with £1m+ already on it's way).

There is a time and place for political in-fighting but for it to appear on the supposedly 'politically neutral' Council website does make one wonder who's controlling it....

'Leaders of the Administration make changes to budget proposals' (spin alert warning - Council website)
http://www.carmarthenshire.gov.uk/English/news/Pages/LeadersoftheAdministrationmakechangestobudgetproposals.aspx

Update 7pm; I have just checked the above link and the press release, which was published this afternoon, has mysteriously disappeared from the website. The link now goes straight to the Council 'Enter Site' page. Maybe someone complained.
I made a copy this afternoon. So, in case it does not re-appear, here it is;

Leaders of the Administration make changes to budget proposals
"The Leaders of the Administration have confirmed a number of matters regarding the Council’s budget process to stop people worrying unnecessarily and to stop idle speculation and unhelpful comments to the press.
Leader of the Council, Cllr Meryl Gravell stated that having reviewed carefully the list of savings put forward by officers, there were very clearly some areas that it would not be appropriate to cut. The first of these was the Council’s two Children’s respite homes in Llwynhendy and Blaenau. These performed an essential respite service for parents of children with profound and complex needs. It was important that the families and the staff at the centres knew now that they would not be cut. They will be removed from the list of possible savings.
Cllr Gravell also confirmed that the proposal to charge blue badge holders to park would also be removed for now, given the on-going national review of the entire blue badge system.
Chairman of the Labour Group in the Administration Cllr Terry Davies confirmed that the suggested increase in the charge for school meals, above inflation would not be proceeding. Officers had been told to withdraw the proposal for meals to increase from £2 to £2.15. Cllr Davies added that families are struggling to make ends meet and it is essential that children continue to have a proper meal. The Schools Meals Service in the County is regarded widely as the best in Wales for offering fresh, locally produced quality food. It also has one of the highest pupil uptake rates in Wales. It is important that this continues. School meals will therefore remain at £2 for the next financial year.
Cllr Pam Palmer, Leader of the Independent Group, commented that there had been lots of reaction to the proposal put forward by officers for consideration to close some of our museums. Cllr Palmer confirmed that the decision on the museums at Parc Howard and Abergwili was to be deferred to allow for discussions with the "Friends of" Associations in Carmarthen and Llanelli and the Town and Community Councils in those areas. She hoped that by working together an alternative solution might be found to reduce the costs of these museums or to raise more income to make them self-sustaining to avoid them closing altogether.
With regard the Mentrau Iaith, Cllr Gravell confirmed that whilst the Council could not continue to provide the same level of funding, the proposed cut would be limited to 10% this year, which conforms with cuts made to other third sector organisations.
Cllr Gravell made it clear that the Executive Board had asked officers to look again at the budget to see how they could reduce the draft proposal for a 4% Council Tax increase down to nearer 2%. Taking the above service reductions out of the proposed savings would add more pressure in this respect and make it more difficult to get down to 2%, whilst also having to make the required budget savings of £8m.
Cllr Davies added that it was all well and good for Opposition Members to make statements to the press, but it was disappointing that they had not participated in Scrutiny Committees when the budget was under discussion. The Plaid Cymru Group had simply abstained from voting at every Committee.
Cllr Palmer agreed that it would be too late on the budget day at Council to make political sound bites, not real suggestions that could be properly considered in a timely manner."

Update 10th Jan; Y Cneifiwr, spot on, as ever; Award winning PR

Transparency - Let's move forward, not back

2012-01-07T14:34:00.001Z

Having checked the Agenda for the Petitions Committee for the 10th January I noticed my petitions weren't listed, a quick phone call to the ever helpful Assembly petitions office confirmed they will be discussed, with the Minister, Mr Sargeant on the 24th January. Mr Sargeant has already given a preliminary opinion which can be seen here. In case readers have forgotten the petitions concern the filming of Council meetings and the publication of spending details over £500 - basic elements, alongside the Freedom of Information Act, of transparency.
I also noticed that the Assembly website has published the responses collected from the 'call for evidence'. Several public bodies (although not many, and not Carmarthenshire Council I note) have given their views - a few councils, the Police Authority and the Welsh Local Government Association;

Filming; http://www.senedd.assemblywales.org/documents/s4013/Consultation%20response.pdf
Spending details; http://www.senedd.assemblywales.org/documents/s4014/Consultation%20response.pdf
(Both are PDF docs and some responses are duplicated in the lists)

The most detailed response comes from Wrexham Borough Council who have been looking at the possibility of webcasting meetings for over a year. There is also one positive response from a member of the public (thank you Mr Cole!) but the rest go to some length to argue against the proposals. The arguments are of course perfectly valid and I appreciate very much the trouble taken to respond at all. There are issues of cost, legalities, demand, interest etc and some positive suggestions, for example Wrexham notes that cross boundary collaboration could produce economies of scale. None are particularly keen, it has to be said, for members of the public to film, which is possibly the most cost effective method of course.
One of the most telling responses comes from Trawsfynydd Community Council (the only community council to respond, so thanks anyway) who are most definitely against the proposals and state "The existing procedure is sufficient and has been in place since 1896". Hmm.

There are, of course more positive moves which I have tried to keep up with and have mentioned over the past months, most recently from Monmouthshire , Swansea and Llanelli Town Council .

If matters of transparency are to be left to the various authorities to determine then ultimately it will depend on the personal views of those in local power, it will then depend on whether you, as a resident come under the auspices of somewhere like Carmarthenshire (or Trawsfynydd!) or somewhere like Monmouthshire. In these times of financial austerity cost is undoubtedly an issue for both proposals in the petitions but as with the costs of responding to Freedom of Information requests, ultimately it is all about democratic accountability and open decision making. Without progress (and campaigns) to greater transparency MPs could still be buying their duckhouses and examples of selective amnesia will continue to prevail in council chambers. These are just a couple of examples - I doubt if we could imagine a society these days without the Freedom of Information Act, and I believe, given the opportunity, we would feel similarly about viewing council proceedings a few years down the line. We need to move forward not back, a point made memorably (and hilariously) by bloggers Welshnewsnot back in June.

Councils, of course are also adept at conveniently pricing themselves out of something they would prefer not to countenance, have a look at this blog post from 'Anna Raccoon', inspired by a request to Hampshire Council about the cost of webcasting;
Does it really cost that much?

2012 could be crucial year for our Freedom of Information Act, here's an interesting post from blogger @tim2040 The War on Freedom of Information
Twitter is a great source for news and many varied views on the Act, remember to use the hashtag #FOI.

10th Jan; Just adding this link from the 'Help me investigate blog' via @paulbradshaw, featuring Heather Brooke (@newsbrooke) and the importance of FoI's; Tips for starting to investigate public bodies

The 'ideal world' of Carmarthenshire Council

2012-01-05T21:15:00.000Z

The row over whether Carmarthenshire Council has a legal right to deny entry to the public gallery continues. Carmarthenshire blogger @towy71 has refused to sign the undertaking on several occasions as he, and of course myself, believe it has no legal basis. Here's his blog post which includes the latest response from the Acting Head of Law, Ms Rees-Jones which I have copied below;

Thank you for your e-mail.
I consider the introduction of the requirement for members of the public wishing to access the public gallery to first sign an undertaking to be a lawful one, yes. In an ideal world such an undertaking would not be required, but in light of disruption to previous meetings it was considered necessary to introduce some sort of process to avoid future disruption and ensure the smooth running of meetings. You will not find mention of it in the Constitution or Standing Orders because, as I said in my letter of the 5th December, it was a decision taken by officers.
There has never, to my knowledge, been an issue with the press.
As I have previously told you the whole issue of whether meetings should be filmed is being considered by a Task and Finish Group so the requirement for an undertaking to be signed may change.
Yours faithfully,
Linda Rees-Jones
Acting Head of Administration & Law
And Monitoring Officer

Perhaps it should be made clear that the 'disruption' referred to involved me filming an open meeting on a mobile phone last June, seven months ago, and as Ms Rees-Jones points out, there is still no such ban on filming in any Council Standing Orders nor Constitution.

In order to access the meetings I have reluctantly signed the slip of paper numerous times, the reluctance stems from what I see as an unnecessary, unethical, undemocratic and unlawful decision. Neither I, nor as far as I am aware, anyone else, has made any attempt to film a meeting since the 8th June - and nobody is likely to given the dire consequences. In fact I attended yesterday's Executive Board meeting and another member of the public questioned the undertaking, and the absence of the usual legal sanction of such things, they were given a similar (but briefer) explanation with the added comment that it was 'the Chief Executive's orders'. It is quite alarming that senior officers, with no consultation with elected members (or members of the public for that matter) have taken it upon themselves to ban the public from public meetings. I wonder what it is like to inhabit the 'ideal world' of Carmarthenshire Council?

Yesterday's meeting itself was unremarkable. As you may imagine several lengthy minutes were spent congratulating the Chief Executive on his new medal. He promised the excited Members that he would bring it in to class to show them after the ceremony. Meryl Gravell led the tributes and told everyone (in case they weren't aware), that the Chief Executive also ran the Welsh Goverment, and she was delighted to announce that he was now commanding the British Empire too (it was something like that anyway...maybe I misheard...) Anyhow, we can look forward to Round Two of the tributes at next week's full council meeting.

In amongst the usual relentless mutual backslapping, and, contrary to popular opinion, our town centres were described as the envy of the world, (well, Merthyr was envious anyway); and the school ' modernisation programme described as 'seismic' (it will be seismic for Llandovery with the closure of Pantecelyn). Brief mentions were made of the forthcoming budget cuts and the fact that nothing had been decided, yet. Assurances were given that this was a 'listening council' and there would be 'full consultation'. Sadly the track record on such things gives little comfort. Perhaps the snap decision to present the latest inspection report for Social Care (CSSIW) to full council gave the game away a bit. A paragraph was spotted which suggested that less reliance should be given to residential care - this was leapt upon as another reason to close the two Llanelli care homes or at least to make those who had voted against closure last February 'aware of the consequences' of their actions. Campaigners take note.
In view of the above mentioned 'ideal world' of Carmarthenshire council, growing old could be a risky business.

Y Cneifiwr, as usual, has put it all rather well; http://cneifiwr-emlyn.blogspot.com/2012/01/gongs-cor-bloody-ell.html

Interesting read from the Swansea blog 'Inside Out' where it is rumoured that Swansea Council's newspaper is for the chop. Attempts to self-finance the rag, it seems, have not been successful. I am hoping to hear similar rumours in Carmarthenshire where not just individual departments are required to make financial contributions to our council rag, but 'partners' such as the health board and the police must cough up too. No mention in the budget proposals though.

A few thoughts...(while it's quiet)

2011-12-29T16:23:00.000Z

...on cuts...allowances...churches..etc
As the thrills and spills of the council's budget cuts (previously here and here) is played out over the next few weeks there is little point in further speculation at the moment, I'm sure there'll be a few interesting meetings ahead, starting with the Executive Board on the 4th January. I have a small wager with my cynical self as to which proposal is actually a PR 'plant' and will be subject to a magnanimous last minute u-turn which we should all be jolly grateful for, currently my money's on the 'museum closures'. A sprinkling of 'efficiency' suggestions can be found in the minutes of various recent scrutiny committee meetings; for example, reducing the temperature of the swimming pools and charging schools to use them. Brrr. Whatever transpires, I predict that one eye will be kept on the election in May.

May 2012 will also see the adoption of the latest report from the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales. (link here, it's PDF and 70 pages). The Councillors' Allowance will now be known as a salary (or senior salary for those further up the greasy rungs) The new wording suggests that this is something to be earned. The IRPW will use it's powers to tell councils what to pay it's members and due to the fact that the Council's website is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard I am unable to predict the likely outcome on Carmarthenshire's Members, suffice to say that if there is any reduction in cost to the Council taxpayer it's unlikely to be much more than the cost of a full tank of fuel in the Council limo. The 'search' facility for individual councillors allowances/expenses regularly disappears for weeks at a time, and is currently offline. Other tables and lists are outdated and lack detail. The useless website is another story though. Anyway back to our councillors and I am sure, if the same lot are voted back into executive positions after the elections, any cuts to the new 'senior salaries' will be 'catered for'.
Interestingly, claims for food/subsistence within the county boundaries will no longer be allowed; so a situation when one's own local Member, in this case dear old Cllr Tom 'sleepy' Theophilus, is spending lunchtime relaxing in the local club tucking into a tax-payer funded steak dinner at roughly the exact time as one of his constituents is being thrown into a police cell for observing that morning's council meeting, shouldn't happen anymore...

Whilst I am in a thoughtful mood, I must make a couple of further observations regarding the Towy Community Church and, of course, Carmarthenshire Council's miraculous generosity towards this partner organisation. I notice, from the Church website that the Debt Counselling Service will be run 'in partnership' with 'Christians Against Poverty'. Nothing wrong with a religious organisation helping people out of poverty, the Salvation Army has been doing it for years and I suppose, unless you are so inclined, it's best to avoid an organisation with 'Christian' in the title. However, we know our Council thinks it's all a brilliant idea, to the extent of £1.4m in fact. What is slightly disturbing is that until earlier this year CAP was under the umbrella of the national (and entirely secular) debt service, Advice UK. Advice UK decided that some of the methods used by CAP were 'incompatible' with their constitution, namely that prayer was part of the debt advice. Advice UK did not think, and neither do I, that prayer is much help when the bailiffs are knocking at the door, to be honest, the lord is very unlikely to provide. Neither is it appropriate, in my opinion, to evangelise when people are at a low ebb even if it is a tried and tested method of gaining new recruits; free advice is fine but there should be no strings attached, nor promotion of a particular faith. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that CAP is also a 'partner', and associated with, the Mercy Ministries. (see previous posts, including most recently here)
The National Secular Society has an interesting article on such matters; Praying in order to obtain social services is an indication of things to come. But before I incur the wrath of the evangelicals, both within and without County Hall, I must emphasise once more that it is not religious beliefs of any description I have issue with but the involvement of the County Council; with local (non-religious) charities facing cuts in council help over the next three years and Council Tax going up by possibly 4%, prayers at the bowling alley may be all we have left....

Afterthought; Carmarthenshire Council are proposing to cut £32,000 in grants from the Citizens Advice Bureau over the next three years (£14,000 next year). Jeezus.

------------------------------------------

This council, through the actions of it's senior hierarchy, has become an object of well deserved ridicule in 2011 and has gained distinction as a thoroughly rotten borough. The continued illiberal and anti-democratic actions cannot continue unchecked. (please see entire blog). the Council is wholly officer-led, (as I have said many times) with the nodding-dog executive members, under the whip of Meryl Gravell, pandering to every whim of the presidential junta. Efforts continue to silence the only couple of voices of dissent within the Chamber and I, for one, do not want another 4 years of this.
And with that thought in mind, here's wishing you all a happy new year.

New 'vision' for Carmarthenshire.....

2011-12-24T11:08:00.000Z

I have heard a rumour that a gentleman known only as 'Mr N' (apparently aged 950 years old, so could be also seeking to stand in the next local election) has approached Carmarthenshire County Council chiefs with an ambitious and exciting business proposal.

I hear it has been welcomed with open ~~wallets~~ arms by the executive leaders of County Hall. After the recent heavy rainfall in the county 'Mr N' has had a vision to build an enormous wooden Ark. According to initial reports from my mole (Mr & Mrs Mole are hoping for a seat on this wondrous vessel), a full business plan has been submitted, legal instructions completed and a Site Appraisal Matrix for construction has been commissioned by the council itself. It is purported to have been described by the Leader as 'one of the most important community developments in Carmarthenshire'. Although the Council are facing drastic budget cuts over the next few years this miraculous enterprise is being seen as a way of 'outsourcing' important frontline services such as flood prevention, pet care, 'back to work' schemes and 'sustainable communities'.

Artist's impression of completed project (Phase 1)

The whole project apparently meets the Council's 'Key Objectives' and the preferred construction site, the Parc Y Scarlets Stadium, was strategically selected by the Council's Special Project Department as it met current and future transport and 'accessibility' targets. Incidentally, as 'Mr N' is a pillar of the establishment, and the building project will be only 'temporary', no planning permission will be required; it is also classed as 'permitted development' under the newly created Houseboat Policy (HB1). The Council have, I hear, earmarked a fund pot for this project and will 'do 'whatever it takes' to ensure the vision is a success. A Council hospitality cabin on the poop deck is also on the cards for corporate entertainment and 'champagne lunches'.

According to the Spacial Design Analysis, there will be room for people as well as animals on the Ark, but as places are limited to twenty souls, applicants will be required to submit Form ARK1 to arrive at the Chief Executive's office no later than 7 working days before sailing, where a fair and impartial delegated decision to select the successful applicants will be made. These successful applicants will then be required to sign an Undertaking not to film either the construction process nor the initial launch.

'Mr N' was unavailable for comment, but after some enquiries, the Council has just issued this press release;

'The Leadership of this council are delighted to announce this new venture, now named as 'The Ark Project'. Although it will probably take many years to complete and will consume the entire Council budget for the next five financial years we feel this is an invaluable asset for Carmarthenshire. Hundreds of jobs will be created and this wonderful project will be hugely important for the economic regeneration of Carmarthenshire . 'The Ark Project' will also see endless possibilities for our 'Consultancy partners' in the private sector to flourish during this economic recession; Timber Strategies, Flood Appraisals, Animal Husbandry Reports, Highway Models and Logistical Analysis will all be essential for a successful outcome.

After completion, and a successful review, there is a possibility that there may be a 'Phase 2' scheme which could see the construction of a mountain for the Ark to land on, which will address all landfill, recycling and employment targets until 2025, this will need further investment but as a Council we have given our preliminary blessing.

The Executive Board Member for Regeneration said 'We are very excited to be taking this fantastic vision forward - our executive officers are working very hard with our new partners, led by 'Mr N' to ensure this benefits all community groups within Carmarthenshire. We all have great faith in the concept of a 'wooden Ark' which, historically, has been proved to be essential in times of necessity.
We have consulted many stakeholders already, everyone so far has said that a 'wooden ark' is exactly what Carmarthenshire needs.
The proposals to provide the first 'tranche' of grants, from the newly created 'Carmarthenshire Community Infrastructure, Integration and Strategic Sustainability Fund, will be, ~~approved~~ considered (as an 'Exempt Report') by the Executive Board, and then by full Council early in 2012.'

------------------------------------------------------

(Although the above proposal is of course entirely plausible, perhaps I should point out it's a spoof!)

I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year and many thanks to all who have visited this blog over the past year and to all those who have given me such wonderful support.

Best Wishes, Jacqui.

--------------------------------------

ooh, must just mention that the Rotten Borough Awards is now online http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=rotten_boroughs&issue=1304 (via @TimMinogue, Private Eye)

Llanelli Town Council calls to scrap filming ban

2011-12-22T18:55:00.002Z

I'm ashamed to say it but I missed this article from the Llanelli Star on the 7th December. I very much appreciate the support of Llanelli Town Council particularly as it lies within Carmarthenshire and also includes a few County Councillors. Let's just hope the Minister, Carl Sargeant is making notes on this, and other calls for local government transparency within Wales, in time for his attendance at the Assembly Petitions Committee on January 10th.

"MOTION CALLS FOR SCRAPPING OF FILMING BAN
Llanelli Town Council has called on the Welsh Government to take action after a blogger was arrested for filming a county council meeting.
The council passed a unanimous motion calling on the Welsh Government to require all local authorities throughout Wales to allow audio and video recordings "wherever it is reasonable to do so".
Councillor Mike Gimblett, who proposed the motion at its latest meeting, said he was appalled by the way Jacqui Thompson was treated when she was arrested at the Carmarthenshire Council meeting in June.
Four police officers were called to County Hall after Mrs Thompson, who publishes a blog about council business, was seen filming with a mobile phone in the public gallery.
The Llanwrda community councillor was arrested to prevent a breach of the peace, and later let go without charge.
While Mrs Thompson had previously found herself in hot water with the authority, which currently prohibits filming council meetings, Mr Gimblett felt the response was disproportionate.
"She was arrested and taken to the police station — it was appalling," he said.
"That started me looking at our own standing orders for Llanelli Town Council.
"I put the motion forward because I was appalled at the way and the attitude of the council towards Mrs Thompson."
Mrs Thompson welcomed the support of the council.
"It's very nice to know," she said. "I've got two petitions with the Welsh Government which are being discussed and they are very positive.
"For Llanelli Town Council to even do this I think is brilliant, it's great.
"Across Carmarthenshire a few other councils have made similar noises but anything is a bonus, especially anything in Carmarthenshire because it's putting pressure on the county council and maybe even showing them up a little bit."
A Carmarthenshire Council spokesman said this week: "A task and finish group has been set up by the policy and resources scrutiny looking at e-government in general and recording meetings is part of that. A report will be completed and will go to the scrutiny committee with recommendations and will then go to the executive board and full council."
Source; http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Motion-calls-scrapping-filming-ban/story-14067425-detail/story.html

(Please search this blog - or Google - for much, much more on this subject)

Whilst I'm on the subject of transparency I have asked Carmarthenshire Council a few more Freedom of Information requests concerning;

Cwm Environmental Ltd

Details of Council officers' expenses

Shared IT services with Dyfed Powys Police

Responses can be expected towards the end of January. Incidentally, it's nearly a fortnight since I asked the Acting Head of Law, Ms Linda Rees-Jones to remove my full address from one of their FoI responses, she replied with "I will look into it" - it's still there. She's clearly taking the title 'Acting' in it's literal sense.

Update 23rd December; Recieved an email from Ms R-J at 4.30pm, she told me she has asked the website to remove address and I have just noticed my address has been removed - at long last!

Former Carmarthenshire Coroner arrested

2011-12-22T15:16:00.001Z

Just an update on the story of Carmarthenshire Council's former Coroner and Llandeilo based solicitor, John Owen. I see that he has now been arrested on suspicion of 'financial irregularities' and released on bail.

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Carmarthenshire-coroner-arrested-financial/story-14199950-detail/story.html

His practice was closed by the Solicitor's Regulation Authority back in September as there was a "reason to suspect dishonesty". Both the SRA and the police have been investigating.

The reasons for my interest in this matter can be found here

I am following this saga with interest.

Private Eye - Hat trick for Carmarthenshire Council!

2011-12-21T18:27:00.000Z

THIRD appearance this year for Carmarthenshire County Council in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs. They must be so proud!

And congrats to @_MrMustard and @BrokenBarnet for holding the London Borough of Barnet to account. And of course South Tyneside Council for expensively trying to identify elusive blogger, Mr Monkey.

I must also thank my local paper, the Carmarthen Journal and reporters @AlexMurraySmith and @DConnopPrice for following events of this year, and for a mention in 'Review of 2011' in today's edition.

Private Eye 2011;

#daftarrest; http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/06/carmarthenshire-council-officially.html

Devil's work; http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/11/carmarthenshire-council-in-private-eyes.html

Towy Community Church - Declarations of Interest

2011-12-19T14:03:00.000Z

Just a brief post relating again to the decision made at the last full council meeting to 'fill' the latest gap in the funding for the Towy Community Church's 'bowling alley' project. The Minutes were published today and I note that two County Councillors, G Thomas and T Davies had declared an interest in this item as they were 'Christians'. Clearly they felt their religious beliefs possibly precluded them from making an impartial decision. I suppose the same could also be said for any atheists, agnostics etc amongst them all. Taken to the nth degree, there would be no one left in the Chamber. A couple of Executive Board Members professed their general faith including Gwynne Wooldridge stating that the most important book was the Bible, and Cllr Pat Jones claimed she saw her 'role' as carrying out 'God's work' in the community. Another became almost emotional as he mentioned how he had contacted the Towy Community Church to give them some furniture and had been hugged by an extremely grateful recipient. Officers also spoke in support of the project.
As the 'financial' and 'faith' aspects of this partnership seem to have become blurred, one could almost reach the conclusion that the Council's involvement with the Towy Community Church was entirely inappropriate altogether, particularly given the intention of building a church and the link to the Mercy Ministries (removed last month).

In my opinion, for the Council to have been able to consider this matter in even a remotely impartial manner, and avoid any potential conflict of interest, there was only one correct option; Members and senior officers who belong to, or have faith in, any similarly styled Evangelical church or organisation, should have declared an interest well over a year ago.

Minutes

http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/12/towy-community-church-and-full-council.html
http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/12/mercy-me.html
(Please search for further posts on this blog)

Update 20th December; Mrs Angry (@BrokenBarnet) with an excellent post on the whole subject; Rewriting the Bible; Mrs Angry on God

Another Update 20th December
I have now been informed that neither of the two Councillors who declared an interest left the meeting. (I was surprised when I saw the declarations as I could have sworn I didn't hear them - I hadn't because they were never spoken) In fact, Cllr G Thomas (Plaid) actually proposed the Motion to fund the Church and Cllr T Davies both spoke and voted on it. They would have had to clear all this with the legal department I presume??
The issue here is one of predetermination - all but a few (the 'few' being Cllrs Caiach and A Davies and a couple from Plaid) had clearly made up their minds to go for this long ago; the two declarations of interest, if I was being kind, could be interpreted as a show of honesty, if I wasn't being kind I would have to say I find it rather creepy.
It was quite obvious, as I said in my post about the meeting that the whole thing was stage managed to support the church - this time the usual unholy alliance of Labour and Meryl Gravell's loyal Independents were joined by most of Plaid, in fact, in a master stroke, the ruling Executive managed to get the Plaid opposition to propose the motion, thereby being able to wash their hands of any blame when it all goes t**s up.

Mercy Me!

2011-12-16T13:22:00.003Z

It was drawn to my attention this morning that the Towy Community Church has an article on it's website to enlighten it's followers of the 'real truth' behind the 'Misleading news story' which featured in a south Wales newspaper (They are referring to the Western Mail article I assume). According to the Church's article 'one individual' disagreed with the council's decision to spend so much cash on an organisation which had professed links to the Mercy Ministries. Actually I can count more than one individual. And it was not just the issue of the Mercy Ministries either.

Y Cneifiwr has responded fully to the inaccuracies within the church's article here; Please have a read.

You may also recall that a representative of the Evangelical Alliance, (who is also, I believe on the TCC management board) left a rather sinister comment on a recent post of mine ; Y Cneifiwr again responded . Strangely, none of the organisations involved have felt the need to 'correct' nor mention the article in Private Eye.

The last paragraph of the Church's article mentions that the have a 'very good working relationship' with their funders, including cash-strapped Carmarthenshire Council (£1.4m and 'flexible' planning permission). Neither is the bank loan secured on the non-existent fixtures and fittings of the bowling alley as stated by Mark Bennett, the Pastor, in his email (to which Y Cneifiwr refers), it's secured on the lease from the council.
Good working relationship? Damn right they have.

http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/11/thought-for-day.html
http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/11/do-we-want-this-in-carmarthen.html

ICO, FOIs, CEOs and PCC

2011-12-15T00:29:00.000Z

Firstly, a brief update on a previous Freedom of Information request; Sometime ago I requested information and copies of the registers of officers' interests, gifts and hospitality. After a month's delay I had a partial answer. The outcome of an internal review decided, surprise surprise, that all the information had been supplied. I was not happy with this and reported the matter to the ICO. The ICO have just informed me they are investigating the matter, including delay in responding. I suspect this may take some time. I have also asked Mrs Rees-Jones, Acting Head of Law to remove my full address from her review response, clearly breaching data protection legislation. To date, this has not been done.

An indication of the reasons for the delayed FoI response can be found in the minutes of the last Policy and Resources Scrutiny Committee. The Assistant Chief Executive (Customer Focus and Policy) - yes there are two Assistant CEOs (the other one is 'People Management and Performance') - said that the authority were having difficulty responding by the deadlines as the requests were more complex and they expected to recieve over a thousand requests this year. It is not noted whether anyone, not least of all the two attendant Assistant CEOs, suggested that more information was published online, or even that the What Do They Know site could be used as an easily accessible disclosure log - something some of the more enlightened councils are considering. Far to logical for Carmarthenshire who appear to be reacting with some horror to the accelerating requests for transparency.
The same meeting saw questions asked about the future of County Hall and the large offices in Spilman Street as they were 'likely to become redundant' in the future. Apparently as they were structurally sound and energy efficient they would be kept for now. Hence the permanent scaffolding I suppose, and, slightly further down the minutes it was mentioned that Carmarthenshire had one of the highest energy costs for it's buildings in Wales, so not very 'energy efficient' then really. With the Council splashing the cash on new offices in the new East Gate development in Llanelli, Parc Y Scarlets, St David's Park and no doubt, eventually, squeezed in between the bowling alley and the food bank at the Towy Community Church, buildings such as County Hall will become surplus to requirements. We may soon be able to pay our council tax, and pray it's well spent, all under one roof.

On the subject of Council Tax, the committee suggested that residents could perhaps get a discount if they paid it in a lump sum at the beginning of the year. I assume this will be rejected immediately by the officers from Resources. In case it had passed the committee by, most people couldn't afford to do that, hence, as with so many things, arrangements are in place to make monthly/weekly payments. A move such as this would, in effect, be discriminatory by penalising those on low incomes.

One last thing, I noticed the new Chair of the Press Complaints Commission, Lord Hunt, suggesting that the PCC should be replaced with a new body which would regulate not only the recently exposed excesses of the tabloid press but also the 'blogosphere' - suggesting that bloggers who write about current affairs, local politics etc should volunteer themselves to be regulated - for a fee of course - and then be given a 'kite mark' of 'trust'. Hmm. Mrs Angry, one of the famous five Barnet Bloggers has something to say about all that here; 'Let's go fly a kite...Lord Hunt asks Mrs Angry to behave herself and pay him for suggesting it'

'Cut' - The Forbidden Word

2011-12-13T22:21:00.000Z

Contrary to what you may think from my last couple of posts concerning the miraculous generosity shown to the Towy Community Church, Carmarthenshire Council is having to make around £8.6m worth of cuts from next years budget. The proposed cuts are outlined here, (the page is a bit odd, you may have to scroll down a bit), I daresay, over the next few weeks the Council will be doing their 'public consultation' bit and asking a few simple 'tickbox' options like last year, nothing too detailed for the peasantry. Various Scrutiny Committees are chewing over the details at the moment too. Before I mention some of the highlights, I have been wondering if there is some unwritten rule amongst Council Resources/PR departments not to actually use the word 'cut'. If so then it must have been quite a challenge to think of so many alternatives, is there a special council Thesaurus specifically for this purpose? The document uses the following;
review, rationalise, re-structure, re-negotiate, re-configure, re-develop, re-provision, re-align, recharge, re-model, regionalisation, delete, efficiency, decommission, externalise, decrease, terminate, close, reduce and phase out...

A few items which may be of interest at this early stage include several that didn't make it through last year's budget deliberations. The raising of school meals over the rate of inflation and reducing choice in secondary schools meals is on the cards again (making them the highest priced in Wales) and the removal of free transport for sixth formers; the slashing of the school's music budget by £250k next year and public library funding slashed by £145k over the next three years. Parking charges for Blue Badge holders appears again along with increased car parking fees to raise £150k next year. I am sure the traders at the new Carmarthen market will be delighted to know their rents are in line for an increase too. Cuts are proposed for the Citizens Advice Bureau, community and youth club grants, Welsh language grants and Women's Aid and it looks like they're doing away with the museums altogether. Three day centres for adults with learning difficulties will be 're-provisioned' and 48 posts in 'home care' will have the 'hours externalised' - I imagine the council is looking to the private sector in these areas. Of course the elderly care homes are up for closure again and a respite home for 30 disabled children is earmarked for the axe in 'year 3', saving £373k. Over £500k in roads maintenance will possibly be cut over three years so it looks like the potholes may be here to stay. A mere £5000 is proposed to be cut from 'Civic/Ceremonial' over three years so I imagine the limos are safe for a little longer. That's lucky then.

I could be wrong but I can't detect any pruning of the PR and Press department either within these proposals nor the axing of the council rag but I suppose Carmarthenshire Council needs all the pointless self-promotion they can get these days. Maybe there will even be some spare to webcast meetings. Neither are any cuts to top management or their associated top salaries apparent. Perhaps I could suggest a few things; cut down on the hotels...cut down on evangelical bowling alleys....cut down on the heating in County Hall (it's like a sauna and is probably breeding all sorts of unhealthy germs) and how about, as a really magnanimous gesture, the Chamber could complete it's near transformation into a day centre for the elderly, the presidential suite given over to a soup kitchen and all the top brass could set up shop in the nuclear bunker.

Carmarthenshire Council Nuclear Bunker for when the s**t hits the fan

I know I'm beginning to ramble, and I realise all councils are faced with 'tough decisions', and I am sure similar proposals are on the agenda for heated council budget debates throughout the UK. Let's just hope Carmarthenshire handles it all with transparency and fair debate. There's a first time for everything.

Evangelical Alliance and the Towy Community Church continued..

2011-12-12T12:57:00.000Z

Further to my previous post; Towy Community Church - Full Council meeting , and particularly the comment left by a representative of the Evangelical Alliance, Y Cneifiwr has posted an interesting piece this morning, please have a read;

Having you cake and eating it - the Evangelical Alliance

In relation to this subject a Freedom of Information request has been submitted to Carmarthenshire County Council for copies of their Equalities Impact Assessment, a response is due by the 10th January;
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/equalities_impact_assessments#incoming-234861

Towy Community Church and Full Council Meeting

2011-12-07T14:53:00.001Z

As usual I went to Carmarthen this morning to observe December's full council meeting. There were several items under discussion and assorted exchanges, more of which I will mention on a later (now updated, see below). The main event of course was the decision on the £270,000 loan to the Towy Community Church.

Before I begin I must point out that I have no issue with anyone's community spirit, nor anyone's religious beliefs, what I have issue with is the degree of involvement by this local authority.

You may have read posts here and elsewhere on some of the rather searching questions this whole project has raised, you may have also read the Wales on Sunday and Private Eye articles. Perhaps at this point I should mention that the head of this church contacted me last week to express, er, disquiet shall we say about what had been written on the blogs and was keen to meet with me to dispel any 'misconceptions'. I assumed the concern was surely based on the well publicised link between the church and the Mercy Ministries. I asked him what his concerns were and I was somewhat surprised that it had nothing to do with that, it was the perception that that they had 'influenced' the Council that was troubling the Pastor. I declined a meeting but pointed out that what had been written was already in the public domain.

Back to today's meeting and unsurprisingly, the item on the church was exempt. There then followed a very unusual decision (unusual for Carmarthenshire anyway), the exemption was overturned as there had been 'rumours' in the press, and the matter was to be discussed in public. Now one would think this was an ideal opportunity to ask some very searching questions as, with the addition of this loan, the council funding, in it's various forms, was now over the £1.3 million mark. How wrong could you be! With the Pastor himself present to dispel any worries this was clearly stage management at it's best.

First off though was Cllr Caiach who tactfully proposed that due to the financial climate etc and the financial risks to taxpayers money, the council's involvement, at the very least, should be mothballed.
It also became quite clear that there had been considerable officer time (and therefore money) spent on this venture already, meeting it's leaders and management board and securing grants etc
One or two others questioned the wisdom of the council's investment but the atmosphere then gave way to complete support and I could almost hear the rattle of tambourines.

Not one person asked about the Mercy Ministries.

Executive Board member Cllr Pam Palmer actually said that she couldn't understand how anyone could possibly be opposed to this venture (glaring at Cllr Caiach) and even the Chief Executive gave a little speech. He mentioned that at 3% interest, this was a good return 'they wouldn't find that anywhere else', he also mentioned that there were those unbelievers who hadn't had faith in his vision for the cinema in Carmarthen (and one in England apparently) were all proved wrong as they had both been a roaring success, other visions, which hadn't been quite as successful weren't mentioned. I won't go into that now though. Neither did he correct any of the councillors who understated the financial commitment of the council. This was all tied in with the bowling alley idea which had been scotched for the St Catherine's Walk development and of course this was the opportunity to have one. In fact, according to several councillors, who I am sure are completely in touch with the leisure preferences of Carmarthenshire teenagers, this bowling alley is every child's dream. (as long as they're flush enough to afford a few rounds of bowling and can negotiate a couple of roundabouts and a busy dual carriageway to get there)

The exempt report for today's meeting is of course no longer exempt, and I would like to point out a couple of things as precious little was pointed out today. The original bank loan was for £730,000, this didn't happen and all the church could get was £300,000. They needed £570,000 as they had managed to do some 'value engineering' (?) and reduce the amount required (at this point the Chief Executive used the word 'merely' £570,000). Now I had asked the Pastor last week via email what the assets were that the bank loan was secured on, he replied, and I quote,
"The bank loan will be secured on the equipment and fittings that will be installed into the building (eg bowling alley, kitchens, counters, furniture etc)"
Even in my financial ignorance I found this a little odd - the exempt report however says differently - the bank loan is secured one of the 99 year leases provided by the Council. In fact the bank and the Lottery fund have 1st and 2nd charges on the lease which leaves the Council in 3rd place for a payback if it all goes pop. They'be lucky to get the money back. The councillors were advised to accept this risk. In addition, the council had to accept a 'variation' in the Authority's Treasury Management Policy to allow the loan to run over 15 years as opposed to the usual three year limit. (this was also the case with the Scarlet's loan...but when it comes to rugby and religion..)

If that wasn't sufficient 'bending over backwards', the planning permission was also now 'varied' on the pretext that 'flexibility' was necessary to please the bank. Along with the Bowling Alley, Debt Counselling etc "other assembly and leisure or non-residential institutional uses are to be permitted" This answers one of the questions asked today as to whether they were actually planning on building a church - or maybe a non-residential Mercy Ministry?

Returning to the Pastor's email correspondence, he described the Mercy Ministry idea as a 'seed' that had not grown, I for one hope it doesn't. The sudden 'missing link' from the church's website was explained as just something the web designers had done. MP, Jonathan Edwards has expressed concern about this, I hope he continues to investigate.

The figures given by the Church to the council in May also differ markedly from those given seven months later - the total contribution by the church in May when they had the £280,000 grant was £17,000, this has now increased to nearly £390,000 in fundraising, revenue and 'volunteer time'. Miraculous.

The concerns I have are with the council, their support over this is inexplicable, some might say a miracle. This church, although US backed, has a very small congregation and, like other evangelical organisations of this nature, a very specific and fundamentalist set of beliefs. One can only wonder whether a similar venture proposed by, for example, a mainstream Muslim organisation or for that matter a mainstream Christian establishment would have such support. I am certainly not against any project which aims to help the community, there are many, including church groups, already in existence, and already running furniture recycling centres and food banks which struggle for funding and may be lucky enough to get a grant for a couple of thousand if they're lucky. As I have said, I have no issue with anyone's personal beliefs, nor anyone's community spirit - what I do have issue with is a local authority, with it's budget apparently stretched to the limit and having to consider closing care homes again, frontline services etc etc, (even museums are for the chop) and embarking on a financial venture with absolutely no guarantee of success. Something ain't right.

As for 'influence' and the council? I leave you draw your own conclusions. Needless to say the loan was approved.
Maybe the pastor will want to get in touch with me again, he's more than welcome. As is the Council.

Update 9th December; Y Cneifiwr's blog; Towy Community Church - Full Steam Ahead

-----------------------------------------------

Although this is turning into a rather lengthy post, as promised, here, in brief, is the rest of the meeting.
I won't bore you with a repeat of the entry ritual, other than there was another lady there who was mystified by the whole procedure and pointed out to staff that she had never encountered anything like this anywhere else, including the Welsh Assembly, she was told they'd had "er...a bit of trouble". She assumed there had been a problem with belligerent youths or violent protestors, or even a threat to national security which had passed her by to warrant all this. I explained.

Anyway, on to the public gallery (there is a strange smell in the building which intensifies as you approach the Chamber, I can't quite define it but it's like a mixture of old cigars and boiled cabbage). The meeting started with the usual round of announcements of new granddaughters (never any grandsons it seems) etc and the signing off of the last meeting's incorrect minutes. Cllr Pam Palmer leapt to her feet (sort of) at some point to remind the 'minute taker' that it was not just her and Meryl who had made cakes for some event or other but Cllr Stephens had made some too - God forbid that that vital fact wasn't included in the next minutes!

Continuing with their parallel universe, there was something of a Christmas spirit pervading the Chamber with little anecdotes here and there, with my own local member, Cllr Theophilus even regaling everyone with how he'd got a speeding ticket in Cross Hands one morning. Hilarious. The Christmas theme continued with several references to Dickens, (presumably triggered by the exciting prospect of sherry and mince pies in the Mayor's Parlour after the meeting) the low point of which was probably the deputy leader, Cllr Kevin Madge in one of his blustery speeches calling Cllr Caiach 'Scrooge' (if you remember she was one of several objectors to the new plans for Furnace school) I think Mr Sully, the Director of Education may have shifted uncomfortably at this point recalling his odd letter mentioned here asking a resident to withdraw their objection - it would be like the planning department asking a resident to withdraw an objection to a planning application, not really proper procedure eh?)

One of the main items under 'discussion' was the new 'Compact' from the Welsh Government to encourage shared services and to create a regional tier of committees and boards to oversee it all. Not such a bad idea perhaps to save money as long as we don't just have yet another level of beauracracy. Cllr Gravell took centre stage on this one assuring everyone that as both she and the Chief Executive were highly influential within the Welsh Government (and I lost track of the number of Boards and Committees they sat on), so Carmarthenshire had nothing to fear. In fact, between them it sounded like they were running Wales. Concerns were raised that such moves could mean loss of local democracy and accountability, the Leader and Chief Executive, clearly leading the field in such matters gave reassurance that with their influential expertise they could defend the local authority against such undemocratic centralisation. You future in their hands.

The £20,000 grant to the Scarlets came up again. Recently approved by the Executive Board, it didn't need to be ratified by full council, but came up in the report. Cllr Caiach wanted reassurance (multiple frowns from the usual suspects) that this grant, meant for charitable purposes, did not breach European law as it had been given to a private company. She didn't really get an answer. A few others pointed out that exactly the same amount had been slashed off the schools' music budget so while the Scarlet's now had a project manager to draw funds for the Stadium, the kids didn't have any music lessons. There we are, such is the importance of sustaining the Stadium.

On that note the meeting moved on to the Towy Community Church, and I've already said my bit about that.

Pantycelyn Update

2011-12-06T23:13:00.001Z

With yesterday's announcement by the Welsh Government that funding will now be available for the (re-prioritised) school building programme it has brought mixed blessings. For some it will mean welcome essential repairs and refurbishment but for the people of Llandovery it will mean the closure of the town's secondary school, Pantycelyn. (please search this blog for background)
I am therefore posting this update on behalf of the Ysgol Pantycelyn Action Group;

December 2011 Update
The YPAG has been very fortunate in gaining the pro-bono services of an excellent barrister.
He has examined the material we have gathered regarding the tri-level consultation process and proposed closure of Ysgol Pantycelyn and in his opinion we have a 65% chance of ‘winning’ the review which would then require Carmarthenshire County Council to run the consultation process again. A successful judgement would raise the profile in the media of this ill-thought through strategy, and delay the school closure, thus giving the opportunity for the newly elected Welsh Assembly to re-visit their policy on small schools such as Pantycelyn.
We are already have personal experience of visitors to Llandovery looking to buy homes in the area opting to buy nearer Llandeilo when they hear of the impending school closure, and you will need no explanation of how detrimental this will be to our businesses and community and tourism in the long term.
You will already have heard all the arguments against the closure including added burdens on both school children and parents regarding both time and expense.
The barrister we have working for us lives in the locality, although his work base is London. He has already put in many hours work for us for free and because of his commitment the costs we would have to find in the unlikely event of losing would now be as low as £12,000 which we feel is achievable. They could well be even less as costs are often not awarded to the losers in such cases. It is within the courts discretion.
YPAG members have also committed many hours to meeting, collating the evidence and keeping our profile in the media. Whilst some members are also able to commit financially, others are not in a position to do so, however, they would be held equally responsible by the court and we cannot place that burden of anxiety on them. Therefore we are making this one last effort to raise a pledged contingency fund from the businesses and people in and around Llandovery.
This contingency fund needs to be in place by the beginning of January. We therefore hope you have an excellent Christmas period that helps you decide that you can make a pledge to this crucial action.
If the school goes – so does Llandovery!
Thank you,
YPAG

Further information can be found on the YPAG Facebook page here
http://www.facebook.com/groups/48956966650/

Access to emails....and a response to my RIPA request

2011-12-06T16:43:00.001Z

At a meeting of the Council's Standards Committee in September, further information was requested about senior officers' access to employees emails. The legal department has come back to this month's meeting with this brief summary which I am finding a little puzzling;

(2) The authority’s email usage policy makes it clear that emails generated by, or accessed via, council owned equipment will not be considered as the private property of their creator/recipient, and that the authority may access those emails at any time without an individual’s consent or knowledge.

(3) Individual senior officers cannot directly access the emails of others in the authority, unless they have been permission to do so by that person.

(4) A senior officer can request that an individual email account be examined by the IT department, but will be expected to give good reasons why this should take place.

I can understand that, in the public interest, the ability to monitor communications, either manually or automatically, may be necessary to detect fraud, inappropriate/offensive behaviour, or during the course of a criminal investigation etc etc and to those ends, there is the aforementioned 'email usage' policy. What puzzles me is the distinction between 'the Authority' and 'senior/individual officers'. Who, or what, is the 'Authority'? Is this a collection of named individuals eg a group of senior officers/Councillors? or is it one senior officer delegated to represent the authority? or is it a shape-shifting entity who's definition depends on the intended purpose? Permission is then required for an individual officer to access the emails of another, unless I suppose they are acting on behalf of the Authority? And, in (4), 'good reasons' need to be given - so what would they be then? and on what criteria would they be based? And what of 'council owned equipment', I assume that means all staff and Members with Council computers, but does it include schools, libraries, other entities owned or contracted to the council? It's all a bit vague really...something to chew over anyway...

I have had a response to my Freedom of Information request for information on the Council's use of the Regulatory and Investigatory Powers Act and surveillance;

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/regulation_of_investigatory_powe_12#incoming-233378

I haven't had time to fully assess the response yet but will do in due course. At first glance there doesn't seem to be anything untoward. The last inspection report by the Surveillance Commission in April 2010 is included (pdf), it appears this is done every two years and overall, apart from a couple of recommendations, everything seemed fine. Unfortunately, according to the report, even though the visit was pre-arranged, the Council's CCTV operations room was out of bounds and the Chief Executive was 'unavailable'. Incidentally I can't, so far, see any mention of the use of private detectives, mentioned here.

The Sacred Parchments

2011-12-04T09:43:00.001Z

Further to my Freedom of Information request and earlier post, 'Mrs T - request register of members' interests' I duly visited County Hall last Friday. I (and an assistant) spent a very claustrophobic hour or two in a small overheated office under the close and ever vigilant eye of Mr Colin Davies, Democratic Services Manager, or 'Mr D' as I am sure he'd like to be known. Maybe Mr D was fearful that I would tamper with the sacred parchments or perhaps he thought I was feeding the next release of wikileaks cables. I was, of course, interested in the more 'influential' Members, for want of a better word. He had nothing to fear, the register was rather sterile and the information skeletal and cosmetic. There was an mass declaration of an 80p cup of tea at Pembrey Airport a couple of years ago, just so we know how diligent and honest they are. As you may imagine, the Council has also been generously providing Members with free tickets to Parc Y Scarlets and the hospitality box, with numerous declarations of visits and receptions, similarly Ffos Las was also a popular venue for those who like a flutter on the horses, you may remember recent comments from the Leader Meryl Gravell who vowed to do 'everything in her power' to ensure the privately owned venue succeeded... The only other items of interest were little gifts of silk scarves and boxes of tea from a mysterious and unpublicised meeting with a Chinese delegation back in August, Y Cneifiwr has explored several theories on this here.

I cannot imagine why this register is not online (like Swansea and Pembrokeshire) and only remains accessible by strict appointment, and, as it now appears, under guard - quite enough to deter only the most resolute members of the public. Also, as many decisions made by this increasingly officer-led council do not come anywhere near an elected member (or only to the unquestionably loyal) it's all a bit immaterial as the role of the majority of Members becomes less influential in direct proportion to the frequency with which the constitution is undemocratically amended.

Of course, the intricacies and grey areas of the rules of declaration, particularly when it comes to the business lobby can often become a bit blurred, as the 'back door' encounters between Number 10 and Rupert Murdoch recently proved, many meetings/lunch/quiet chats can always, if they want them to be, classed as 'private' so, shh, no need to mention....

I was quite amused to note the next 'consultation' announced by the Council involves the registration of lap-dancing clubs and the like - not that there is a single one in Carmarthenshire. But I wouldn't like to speculate on who the next 'partner' organisation of our council will be. Of course that would then necessitate important 'site visits' by whoever was unfortunate to land a seat on the Licensing Committee and they would then have to endure similar sacrifices to their English counterparts....

In my efforts to encourage interest in the wondrous workings of Carmarthenshire democracy, I would like to remind everyone that there is a full council meeting on Wednesday 7th December, 10 o'clock, County Hall. Don't forget to arrive in plenty of time so that you can be monitored, escorted, strip searched and electronically tagged. (I am joking about the last two...so far)

The Runaway Train

2011-12-01T10:38:00.001Z

It's that time of year again when Carmarthenshire Council attempts to struggle with it's shrinking budget. The Chief Executive has blamed the 'runaway train' of social care costs as the prime problem, and it looks like the two care homes for the elderly in Llanelli will be once again under threat of closure. There are a couple of things I fail to understand. Firstly, why have there not been accurate predictions over the past five or so years that demand on social care services would increase to such a level as to be, apparently, bankrupting the council. This Council, like others, is very fond of commissioning (at great expense) population predictions, retail surveys, housing projections etc etc so surely it should come as no surprise that this was a very predictable trend and financial contingency plans could have been earmarked years ago. Secondly, the Chief Executive stated that £2m could be saved by closing 100 empty care home beds - am I missing something? If there is such a demand on services why are there 100 empty beds?
The decision, back in February to keep the two Care Homes open was a small flash of democracy which appears to have stuck in the craw of the leader, party leaders and officers who had recommended closure. They, for once, didn't get their own way. Have there been deliberate moves since then to ensure the homes stayed empty and underused? Who knows.
Clearly there are financial problems facing Carmarthenshire council, and all other councils, which will have to be addressed, hopefully in a fair, transparent and democratic fashion over the next few months....

It goes without saying really but anyone who has read this blog will find numerous examples of profligacy and waste, and so I hope it will not only be 'runaway trains' under consideration but those containing the gravy will too.
Our councillors have, in the past eight months, cost us £897,281 and included in that figure is £184,956 'Special Responsibility Allowance' and £29,950 in travelling. The six Directors and the Chief Executive have coined in £971,037 between them, inclusive of pension contributions and, along with the Assistant Chief Executive have claimed over £20,000 in expenses. That figure doesn't include the Chief Executive's fee as Returning Officer for elections. Add some of the slightly inexplicable travelling costs and hotel stays revealed in the credit card expenses and one wonders just which runaway train is out of control.

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Carmarthenshire-Council-chief-warns-Curb-spending/story-13996110-detail/story.html

In brief, I hear that the action group (YPAG) fighting to save Pantycelyn secondary school, Llandovery, from closure has completed the pre-action stage of correspondence prior to seeking permission, from the courts, for a Judicial Review against Carmarthenshire Council. Should it go ahead I imagine a bottomless pit of cash will be unearthed to ensure a victory for the council. Watch this space.

The 'Magnolia Monstrosity'

2011-12-01T10:33:00.001Z

The 'Magnolia Monstrosity'

As an update to previous posts 'Too close for comfort' and 'Council tax protest' , you can now see the development in question is complete. I wish the lady the best of luck with her continuing battle to cast a glimmer of light on, a) how our Carmarthenshire planners allowed it to happen, and b), her tiny back yard. She has called it the 'Magnolia Monstrosity'.

Thought for the Day

2011-11-27T12:57:00.001Z

Appropriately, for a Sunday, Y Cneifiwr has written a fascinating piece concerning the influence, and methods of influence, by evangelical organisations such as the Towy Community Church in the upper levels of local government. By consequence, one must assume, the aim is to influence public policy. The financial extent to which Carmarthenshire County Council has embraced the aims of such organisations is becoming fairly clear and is now I believe, subject to several searching questions which await answers. And, as a woman, when religious dogma dictates that 'beautiful' women are those with a quiet spirit, non-argumentative and 'strong' enough to submit to their husband's authority as head of the family, I think we definitely need to ensure that no one in charge of Carmarthenshire Council's policy making is actively promoting such views.

Y Cneifiwr - Friends in high places

Swansea Council to allow filming but doesn't go far enough

2011-11-26T11:49:00.001Z

Interesting couple of news items in today's South Wales Evening Post. In a fairly positive move from Swansea Council, filming will be allowed...sort of, but as Councillors Rene Kinzett and Rob Speht point out very well, it doesn't go far enough. It will only be open to journalists and media organisations who will have to apply to the Council for permission and adhere to an, as yet unknown, policy. I could go on about all this but I have made my views clear throughout this blog; there is nothing for councils to fear by letting the public, or bloggers, film meetings; they need to realise it is what is going on in the Chamber that matters, not who's watching them.

Carmarthenshire Council, in particular, should remember this...

Filming decision to put Council's work in focus
Swansea Council will be one of the first in Wales to allow cameras inside its chamber.

Members have approved proposals for the filming of meetings by accredited journalists and media organisations.
Chris Holley, council leader, said: "This is an important moment for the council and for local democracy. The council has a budget of around £380million a year and now council taxpayers who don't attend meetings will have a chance to see more about how councillors decide how their money is spent.
"The council's aim is to make it as easy and as straightforward as possible to allow the media and journalists do their job while also ensuring the conduct of meetings can continue effectively and efficiently.
However, at the council meeting on Thursday night some members said the proposals did not go far enough.
Tory member Rene Kinzett said: "This is a time when the media is moving ahead and we've huge amounts of online information available to us. I am remarking on a case in Carmarthenshire where there was an arrest for nothing more than trying to blog or take a picture.
"Now we are saying that everybody must fill out some sort of form. Everybody is a journalist.
"Everybody can go online and make comments. I think it's a nonsense. I would like this to be taken back and looked at again."
Jacqui Thompson, 49, from Llanwrda, an internet blogger, was arrested back in June for trying to film Carmarthenshire Council on her mobile phone.
Four police officers were called to County Hall in Carmarthen to deal with the incident.
Writing on her blog afterwards, Mrs Thompson said she was led away in handcuffs and kept in custody at Llanelli police station for around three hours. She said she was only released after she agreed not to film a council meeting again.
Under the new policy journalists and media organisations will need to apply for accreditation from the council to film or take photographs at meetings which would normally be open to the public.
They will also have to comply with terms and conditions set out in the accreditation policy.
It means that in meetings of the council in the chamber, the chair of council will be able to permit or disallow the media from filming or taking pictures.
Lib Dem councillor Rob Speht said he found himself agreeing with Mr Kinzett, and also called for the proposals for filming to go further.
He said the ability of every man to film and put the content on social media groups such as Facebook was helping bring about democracy in countries like Egypt.
"Not that I'm saying this council is like that," he added. "But this should be referred back. At the moment there is no way of being able to feed back imagery from this chamber by those who are paying for it."
However, councillor Mike Hedges said while he was fine with live streaming, he questioned whether filming would be open to editing."

Just what are they scared of? - Editorial

News-gathering techniques have moved on apace in recent years.
Phone camera images of Colonel Gaddafi were flashed across the globe within minutes of his death. Protesters in Egypt can spread the truth before the propaganda machine starts working.
And the Syrian government is no longer able to crush rebellion away from the gaze of its neighbours.
Yet in this country we are not yet allowed to see democracy in action in council chambers or justice at work in court.
We are completely in favour of Swansea council's bid to be one of the first in Wales to allow cameras in.
With so many complaints to the Ombudsman, the Swansea public should have the chance to see for themselves what's been going on in the council chamber.
The spotlight may encourage councillors to conduct themselves in a more professional manner than they have been.
But we are not happy with the committee chairmen and women being able to ban filming or photography whenever the fancy takes them.
What are they afraid of?

(source for both articles South Wales Evening Post)

Carmarthenshire credit cards - Part two - Travel

2011-11-25T16:01:00.001Z

Part 1 here; http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/11/carmarthenshire-council-credit-card.html

In addition to the spending details released yesterday on general items with the council credit cards we also have lists of train fares, airline tickets and hotel accommodation for council staff and Members, these are categorised by department rather than individuals. The reasons for the stay/journey are not logged. However, it makes interesting reading and clearly, for some, if you'd care to look, only the best will do.

Here's the figures for 2010 http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/89940/response/229927/attach/html/2/2010.xls.html

And the figures for 2011; http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/89940/response/229927/attach/html/3/2011.xls.html

(You'll notice small tabs across the bottom of the page to see each table and view individual credit card transactions)

I've totted up the figures for 2010;
Hotels for staff; £32,603
Flights for staff; £5431
Trains for staff; £15,388

Hotels for Members; £3729
Flights for Members; £262
Trains for Members; £2622

Grand total £60,035 added to the purchases of £40,000 makes a yearly spend, for 2010, of around £100,000 on the credit cards.

I realise that conferences have to be attended etc but to be honest this seems to be a huge amount, I never realised they were such a well travelled lot.

And on a completely unrelated note here's the latest post from Y Cneifiwr with further info on Carmarthenshire Council's 'partner' organisation, the Towy Community Church; Feeding the 5000
(Further to Carmarthenshire Council in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs, again and assorted previous posts)

Weird World of Carmarthenshire Consultations

2011-11-25T09:45:00.001Z

Carmarthenshire Council appear to have difficulty with public consultations. I may have mentioned this before. As an objector to the closure of Pantecelyn secondary school I witnessed first hand the public consultation meetings which were entirely geared to pushing through the council's 'preferred option'. A similar scenario is developing over Furnace School in Llanelli. I do not want to get drawn into the merits or otherwise of the proposal in Llanelli, that is something for the people in the surrounding area to decide. (The arguments and detail have been well publicised recently in the local press) Whatever your opinions, the council's consultation document clearly states, as they all do, "we want to hear your views" and invites responses on an attached form. People still have until the 2nd December to object to, or support of course, the Statutory Notice.
There are now several objections and the Council are not taking this well and have taken the rather bizarre and distinctly undemocratic step of asking members of the public to withdraw their objections. This blog has had sight of the correspondence from the Director of Education. It is clearly a 'think of the children' piece, which is strange coming from the same council who accused Pantecelyn campaigners of 'emotional claptrap';

From: Robert Sully
Sent: 23 November 2011
16:36
To: xxxx
Subject: Re: Ysgol Y
Ffwrness

Dear xxxx,

I acknowledge
receipt of your submission.

I am deeply concerned to receive your views
on this vitally important matter for the children of Furnace and the surrounding
area. A great deal of work has been invested by officers and members of the
County Council over a number of years to assess the most effective option for
providing primary phase education in the Llanelli area, including expanding the
provision of Welsh medium education in response to demand from parents, and the
strategy agreed by the Council democratically, with support from all the main
political parties, included the provision of a new expanded school at Furnace.
This extensive analysis considered the most appropriate structure for schools
and concluded that the present proposal offers the most appropriate way
forward.

I urge you to please reconsider your position on this matter and
to place the educational interests of the children of the area above other
considerations.

Given that you have written formally to object if you are
prepared to change your position it will require you to withdraw your objection
in writing. I urge you to please do this.

The children of the area
deserve the very best in provision and learning environment and it will be most
unfortunate if their opportunities are prejudiced by a delay in the decision
making process by the need to refer the matter to the Welsh Ministers for
determination if your objection stands. We have secured over £10 million of
capital grant from the Welsh Government towards the costs of constructing new
premises and it would be a tragedy for the Llanelli area if this funding was
placed at unnecessary risk.

I hasten to add that the Governing Body of
Ysgol Furnace is fully supportive of the County Council’s proposals and is eager
to see the project proceed.

Thank you.

Yours
sincerely.

Robert Sully
Director of Education and Children’s Services

According to a source, one of the school governors has said that they were not consulted as to what type of school they wanted, just told what they were going to get, as is the tradition of Carmarthenshire Council.

Carmarthenshire Council credit card spending details

2011-11-24T11:41:00.001Z

(please see part two, travel and hotels here; http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/11/carmarthenshire-credit-cards-part-two.html)

I have finally had a response to my request for Carmarthenshire Council's credit card spending details, only two week's late but never mind. The response, which appears to be in full, can be viewed here;

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/credit_card_spending_details#incoming-229927

Please download the info and have a browse through yourself to see whether you feel spending/credit card use has been appropriate. Transparency for the public was the purpose behind my request, of course. (One can only speculate as to the issues they've had with this).
I have had a fairly quick look at the figures and most seem reasonable. The total bill for purchases in 2010 was a little over £40,000, I guess 2011 will be similar. I am not particularly against the use of credit cards as long as the use is monitored and it provides a means for a quick, essential purchase and avoids lengthy waits for small local companies for payment, although there doesn't appear to be many local companies featured here.
I had previously asked for general spending figures (not credit card) to be released, but this was refused.

Amongst the items are several hundred pounds for tickets to theme parks and sporting events (rugby, naturally), however, as these seem to come under the Education and Children's Services I don't have a problem - as long as they were for the kids and not some corporate team building event for management. But then again, I've mentioned rugby tickets before. Much has been spent on books, again for educational purposes although one was for the planning department on 'Market Towns' in Wales and with their penchant for out of town supermarkets perhaps this was essential reading.

There are a couple of items I have issue with; The Press and Communications department have, over two years, paid over £3000 in subscriptions to access 'stock' photos, presumable for all manner of glossy leaflets etc. You know the ones? I also notice that £540 was spent on 'award entry fees' for the Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR) - don't forget these figures are spends just on the credit cards.

The second string of items which concern me are fees to attend various Solace conferences. There are seven entries in all, since January 2010, amounting to £3050.81. As you will be aware this is the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives which already enjoys government subsidy, and has been under criticism for controlling many of the appointments and large salaries of council Chief Executives. Given the information provided, I have to assume this figure does not include subscriptions, nor travel or accommodation, just conference fees for the Chief Executive and, occasionally, other staff, although this is not clear. Last year I actually contacted the Chief Executive's department to enquire whether he would be attending the annual conference and if so, how much was it costing the taxpayer as the tickets were a little steep to say the least. My enquiry was completely ignored. Oh well, looks like it's finally been answered.

Other items puzzled me such as why the Department of Administration and Law needed to buy suitcases from Argos for £55.94 - someone going somewhere? Then there was £98 for 'refreshments' at a Regeneration meeting? £23 in car park fees for an unidentified 'elected member'? £262.79 on 'magnetic pins' puzzled me for a while but it seems these are a safe alternative to drawing pins, hopefully for use in schools rather than to protect the sensitive digits of senior management. I am not sure either why Trading Standards needed to buy giant dice from Amazon for £40.90?

And, last but not least 'Improvement and Skills' spent £295 on condom demonstrators - let's not even go there....! (ok I know they were for schools - I hope they were anyway - so no jokes please)

Defending Democracy....Cllr Caiach and more from the Carmarthen Journal

2011-11-24T11:29:00.001Z

As I have mentioned here there was a concerted attack by a multitude of councillors against Cllr Sian Caiach at the last full council meeting. The minutes, unsurprisingly, are sketchy on her reply to them. The three party leaders then went a stage further and wrote a similarily damning letter in last week's Carmarthen Journal and Llanelli Star. Cllr Caiach has this week written to the Star herself explaining her position and her disappointment in her colleagues' stance.

I have also written to the Journal, it was printed, but not online, so here it it;

Trio's letter was appalling attack

I was appalled by the letter in last week's Journal launching a bitter attack on Cllrs Sian Caiach and Arthur Davies and signed by the three party leaders, Cllrs Kevin Madge, Pam Palmer and Peter Hughes Griffiths.
Have these three forgotten why they are there? Do they think their role in a council meeting is to pay endless tributes to officers? Are they not supposed to actually question the decisions of this officer-led council?
With regards to Furnace school, Cllr Caiach had to remind them that the public consultation period was not yet over and there was the whole issue of the planning application to go through yet. The deal, whatever the eventual outcome, was not actually done yet.

She, like the others, welcomes investment in education and economic progress in the County and also appreciates the efforts of officers; but that is not what it's all about - as with so many projects and 'visions' there is virtually no scrutiny by elected members, everything goes through with a nod and a wink, for all we know they could be giving money earmarked for local community groups to private companies..oh, hang on, they just did, £20,000 to the Scarlets for a 'Project Officer'.

Cllr Caiach was also criticised for 'interfering' in the Dinefwr Schools programme, perhaps these esteemed councillors were unaware that there was actually public opposition to the closure of Pantycelyn School in Llandovery - I could hardly blame them as the elected members for our area never said a word, never represented the views of local residents and were even thanked by the Director of Education for their support.

Despite having to run the gauntlet of the new undemocratic and unwelcoming entry ritual (as well as risking life and limb by being locked into the Public Gallery), I have been to several meeting of full council now and the process largely consists of a series of waffly tributes to whatever the latest wheeze the unelected officers have come up with. This, to be fair, is interspersed with the occasional voice of concern, soon silenced with frowns and protestations from various Executive Board members - in the case of Cllr Caiach the atmosphere becomes almost hysterical as she attempts to scrutinise, question and challenge the officer's decisions.

Whether or not you agree with Cllr Caiach's views or not, at the very least she recognises that the Council Chamber, despite the best efforts of senior management to curtail it through endless tweaks to the Constitution, is supposed to be the last bastion of democracy and the forum for scrutiny - It has become a joke in Carmarthenshire and the three leaders would do well remember that.

Yours sincerely
Jacqui Thompson

Also featuring in this week's Carmarthen Journal was this piece from William Powell AM (@WilliamPowellAM on twitter) on the value and aims of the Assembly Petitions Committee (I'll second that) and promoting it's use to raise issues;
Petition for Attention on Issues

And, incidentally, there was also this;
Blogger suing Council and it's Chief

'Mrs T request - Register of Members' Interests'

2011-11-23T12:40:00.001Z

The correspondence continues with regards to my Freedom of Information requests. This one concerns my request for the Register of Members' Interests (including gifts and hospitality). It was refused on the basis that the information is available to view at County Hall, by prior appointment. I am sure they are correct in that, by law, they only have to provide the bare minimum of access. However, as I have said, neighbouring local authorities publish this information on their websites and it seems that yet again Carmarthenshire's attitude to transparency is at 'bare minimum', veering towards 'none existent', and at best distincly unhelpful. Not exactly in the spirit of the FoI Act. They do not seem to grasp that this is not about uncovering wrongdoing, it's about openness and 'putting your cards on the table', as it were.

Turning to the email recieved from Mr Colin Davies from 'Democratic Services'. It is in response to my proposal to personally collect the photocopied information from County Hall;

FW: REMINDER FW: Mrs T request - Register of Members' Interests
Tuesday, 22 November 2011, 11:25

Dear Mrs Thompson

Thank you for your E mail of 10 November last and I apologise for not being able to reply sooner.

You have already had a response from the Information & Data Protection Officer regarding your request for a copy of the register under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

The Register of Members’ Interests (including gifts and hospitality) is a statutory document and is available for inspection by members of the public at the County Hall in Carmarthen between the hours of 9.00a.m. and 4.00p.m. each weekday. The Council is not required to publish the register or to make paper copies available to the public, only to make it available at an office of the authority for inspection by members of the public at all reasonable hours.
If you wish to view the register during your next visit to County hall then I shall be glad if you could please let me know what time you would like to do this so that I can allocate members of staff to assist you. The register currently takes up 6 No. A4 ring binders and it would be helpful if you could indicate which members’ declarations you were particularly interested in, so that staff could extract the information for you and avoid the need to make the content of all 6 files available on the day. If you wish to see the whole register then of course this will be made available to you to view.

As referred to earlier the Council is not required to provide photocopies of the register and these will not be made for you.

Yours Sincerely,
Colin Davies
Rheolwr Gwasanaethau Democrataidd / Democratic Services Manager

(Note the large print in the last sentence, just so that 'Mrs T' gets the message)
Again, that 'not required' element comes into it - they don't publish, nor make copies - one can imagine someone sat in a dusty office scratching at a ledger with a quill. Perhaps I am imagining it but is there something of a personal and slightly sarcastic tone to this email from 'Democratic Services'? The email appears to exude barely surpressed irritation; I can view the Register during 'my next visit to County Hall' hmm. There will be 'members of staff' to assist me...will they be armed? Incidentally, much of the information released to me via the Data Protection Act concerned FoI requests where similar barely surpressed irritation is quite clear from internal emails. I am also beginning to notice, as I acquire other emails and documents from elsewhere, that bits and pieces had been quietly 'cut', not redacted, just 'gone'....like they were never there.... But that's DPA and another story.

Anyway, until this Council complies with it's own 'Core Policy' of transparency, joins modern society and maybe even publishes more information online, I imagine they are a little hard pressed to comply with requests so I replied to Mr Davies thus (and keeping with the blue theme);

To Mr C Davies, Democratic Services Manager;

Thank you for your response.

I fully understand your Statutory Duties and appreciate that under your present levels of transparency you have to consider not only the cost but also the staff time involved with complying with my request.
Without putting you office under undue pressure, I wonder if you would kindly compile a brief estimate of cost of allowing me to take photocopies myself;

1. The cost of the paper.
2. The cost of the ink.
3. Wear and tear (depreciation) and use (including electricity) of a photocopier to copy the material.
4. Office space for the time required.
5. Cost of staff to retrieve particular papers ( this will be unecessary as I will wish to view all the files, unless you believe I need to be be 'chaperoned').

I await your response. Should you agree and levy a charge, I shall then arrange a mutually convenient date and time to attend County Hall. Should you still not agree to photocopying, I shall still attend and I will, of course, wish to view all six files.
Please let me know your decision at your earliest convenience

Yours sincerely
Jacqui Thompson

I had an almost instant response (in larger letters, for emphasis, but still going with the blue theme);

Dear Mrs. Thompson,

Thank you for your E mail.
As referred to in my response to your original enquiry I am not able to provide you with photocopies of the register.
I shall be glad if you will please let me know when you intend to visit County hall to view the full register, so that I can make the necessary arrangements for staff and accommodation on the day

Yours sincerely
Colin Davies

So that's that then. I shall now try and gather a couple of willing helpers, make arrangements with 'Democratic Services' and take myself off, complete with notebook and pen and maybe even a camera, to County Hall again. I'll keep you posted.

My freedom of information requests, and the various responses and updates can be viewed here; http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/caebrwyn

Carmarthenshire Council in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs

2011-11-23T10:22:00.001Z

Yet again Carmarthenshire Council make it into Private Eye's Rotten Borough's column, this time it's the links with the Towy Community Church.
For more on this 'partnership' between the Council and the church please search this blog, (including 'Do we want this in Carmarthen? ) and, of course, Y Cneifiwr's.

The Council 'Minutes'....and no mention of Jacqui?!

2011-11-21T14:16:00.001Z

Further to this post 'No round of applause for Jacqui' , I noticed, with some excitement, that the Minutes of the meeting (Full Council 9th November) were finally published this afternoon. As you may imagine I was waiting to see, under Item 2, Apologies and Personal Matters, the little announcement that was made by Cllr Caiach about my blog award win, preserved in Council records for posterity. Just in case my eyes were deceiving me, I checked several times before I realised, that there was...er... not a mention. Not even a carefully worded summary!

I can, of course clarify it did happen, and these were Cllr Caiach's exact words....

"Can I add in our list of congratulations, and congratulate Communiy Councillor Jacqui Thompson there [indicating me in the gallery] on being awarded the Welsh political blogger of the year award, I think it's very good that someone from Carmarthenshire has won this honour"

Please understand I am certainly not glory seeking but I am not sure they are supposed to ignore parts of the meeting they'd rather not mention...are they? In fact aren't they supposed to provide a 'reasonably fair and coherent record of proceedings'? Yet again, rather like the fanciful 'Council Rule prohibiting filming' which of course didn't (and still doesn't) exist, they appear to make things up as they go along. Amongst the other inaccuracies/omissions was a failure to mention Cllr Caiach's formal complaint about the rejection of the Motion to debate a no confidence vote in the Leader, Cllr Gravell.

Let's hope there is overwhelming opposition to signing these minutes off as 'correct' at the next meeting on the 7th December.
I know I am in danger of endlessly repeating myself, but these meetings really need to be filmed.

Minutes 9th November

Wales on Sunday reports on the Towy Community Church

2011-11-20T10:40:00.001Z

I see that the press has now finally picked up the story about the Towy Community Church. As you may have read here and over on Y Cneifiwr's blog, the amount that has been given to the church by Carmarthenshire County Council actually comes to nearly £1.3m in land deals, grants and loans. This has been over the past eighteen months, and as I and the report notes, the link to the Mercy Ministries was only removed last week. It is also worth noting that the Leader of the Council saw this as a vital investment to reduce pressure on the social care budget. I notice the council declined to comment. I'll say no more. Please search this blog for further background.

Church Linked to Exorcists is given Council cash - Wales On Sunday

By Daniel Fisher

"A church given tens of thousands of pounds by a Welsh council is a “partner” of a Christian group whose global operation has been accused of exorcising young women, Wales on Sunday can reveal.

Evangelical Towy Community Church, which has received more than £55,000 in grants from Carmarthenshire council, yesterday confirmed it made monthly donations to the Mercy Ministries group in the UK.

There were calls for transparency last night over whether public money was being funnelled into Mercy Ministries, which runs residential programmes for young women with “life controlling issues”.

The group, which has bases in the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, is founded by a US evangelist who has written books and given speeches blaming psychiatric illnesses and homosexuality on “demonic activity”.

It claims it has helped more than 2,500 girls worldwide to overcome depression, eating disorders, addiction and other problems but it has been mired in controversy.

The UK arm of Mercy Ministries, which opened in 2006 and is based in the village of Oxenhope, Yorkshire, says it does not endorse or perform exorcisms. But in 2009 a former resident spoke out about her nine-month residency with the group, involving intense study of “demonic oppression”, which she claimed had left her “deeply disturbed”.

Towy Community Church said Mercy Ministries’ work was “important” and confirmed it was a “partner organisation”, though added it no longer financially supported the group.

The church has used public money for a number of projects such as setting up a bowling alley, debt counselling and plans for a possible conference centre.

Its website had stated a “vision” to open a Mercy Ministries in Carmarthen, but this has been removed in the past week.

Jonathan Edwards, MP for Carmarthen West, said: “Having read about Mercy Ministries, I am concerned to learn that Towy Community Church intends to establish a base for the organisation in Carmarthenshire.There should be no relationship between public authorities and such a fundamentalist organisation. The Welsh Government and the county council have provided substantial sums of money to the Church. It is therefore a legitimate question as to whether public funds have been used to fund, directly or indirectly, Mercy Ministries.

“Carmarthenshire county council must urgently investigate this situation and ensure taxpayers money has not been funnelled into this extreme group”.

Former AM Lorraine Barrett, who now conducts humanist ceremonies, said:“If the county council is giving money to a church then there needs to be total transparency about where that money is going.

“I would be concerned if money was being siphoned off for any kind of missionary work.”

Mark Bennett, founder of Towy Community Church, said the money it received from Carmarthenshire council would “give people of all ages and backgrounds the opportunity to reach their full potential and support the physical and community regeneration of our town.”

He said: “As Christians, we are passionate about helping those in need. Towy Community Church had previously supported a gap-year student at Mercy Ministries UK and decided to make a financial donation of £20 a month. We felt that helping women suffering from eating disorders, depression and self-harm was important.

“We are so thankful for the funding we have received from the many organisations that have captured the vision for the project, and who have had the faith in us – as we strive to work on behalf of those in need.”

A spokesman added: “The term ‘partner’ is a term that is used to describe individuals, churches or organisations who support them through financial giving.

“ It does not in any way mean that we are linked or associated with them through any legal or denominational ties whatsoever.

“ It just means that for a period of time we decided to make a small monthly contribution to what we thought was a worthy cause.”

Elfed Godding, national director of the Evangelical Alliance Wales said: “Mercy Ministries is not a member of the Evangelical Alliance. But Towy Community Church is. It is a shining example of how Christians should be working to transform their society for the good of all.”

Neither Carmarthenshire Council nor Mercy Ministries replied to requests for comment"

Y Cneifiwr; Towy Community Church in the news and Hell Fire and Santa Claus

It also has to be said that even a simple google search would have indicated the link to the Mercy Ministries, so, surely the council would have known about this for the past eighteen months? We'll just have to wait for a comment won't we.

I Have Issued Proceedings for Libel

2011-11-15T16:45:00.001Z

For information;
I have now issued proceedings in the High Court for libel against Chief Executive Mark James and Carmarthenshire County Council in relation to a letter published by Mark James dated 28th July 2011.

Update 13th Jan 2012;
Actually, nothing I can report as yet - other than the matter is still ongoing.

Can I just remind everyone that comments, particularly on this post, are moderated. Thanks.

#Daftarrest Parking Ticket

2011-11-15T12:39:00.001Z

An interesting development has occurred relating to the parking ticket (PCN) I acquired during the #daftarrest incident on the 8th June in Carmarthen.

Here is my challenge (it was the second challenge);

"Please refer to my previous challenge dated 20th June 2011. As it has now been admitted by Dyfed Powys Police that they acted on false information given to them by Carmarthenshire County Council on 8th June 2011 which resulted in my unlawful detention I am therefore not guilty of the parking offence. It was due to circumstances beyond my control that I was unable to renew my ticket"

And here is the acceptance, recieved today, from Carmarthenshire County Council;

Well well. I shall leave you draw you own conclusions on this one...

Filming and Spending petitions discussed at the Senedd

2011-11-15T10:32:00.001Z

Further to last Thursday's post Carl Sargeant to encourage councils to allow filming I have just watched the Assembly Petitions Committee discuss both the filming and the 'publishing spending details over £500' petitions. Again, like the last time there was broad support for both, neither has been closed and will be discussed with the Minister, Mr Sargeant when he attends the Committee on the 10th January.

Filming (Now closed for signatures but can be seen here)
With the level of technology around today, and the access to meetings by the public and press, Russell George AM pointed out that it 'seemed silly' for councils to prohibit the public from filming. The committee felt that there was little or no opposition to the principle of webcasting meetings from AM's or most councillors. The only reservations (I shall take Mr Sargeant's comments that he will encourage members of the public to film as a given) were issues of cost but Bethan Jenkins AM pointed out this may be a very worthwhile expenditure and could be balanced against the current high level of spending on PR, council newspapers and glossy brochures. Concerns regarding the availability of decent broadband to view meetings was also an issue (yes, that's an issue in itself) but according to one Member, by 2015 we will all have access to superfast broadband. Let's hope so. There was general consensus for further research prior to the meeting on January 10th including evidence from the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA).

Spending over £500 (Also closed for signatures but can be viewed here)
Again there was broad support for councils to publish details. Any reservations were again related to the cost of publication - this again should be balanced against the cost of related Freedom of Information requests, an example was given where a requester wanted the details of the budget of every school in one county. More research will be done before the meeting on the 10th January - I can only suggest they ask Monmouthshire Council about the costs and practicalities of publishing theirs.

So, it looks like I will be waiting for the 10th January - I may submit further statements myself for that meeting - and I will be watching, with interest, what Mr Sargeant has to say.

Today's Petitions Committee, now archived, can be viewed here , (or click on the picture below). My petitions are discussed at 32 minutes 10 seconds into the meeting (scroll across the viewer to the appropriate time).

Public Gallery nonsense now with the Ombudsman...and FoI news

2011-11-13T19:22:00.001Z

As I mentioned on Wednesday, fellow blogger @Towy71 has steadfastly refused to sign the Council's bizarre filming 'undertaking' and has been refused entry to public meetings. I have had to ditch my self- respect and sign the damn thing to report on council meetings. As you can see from his blogpost (Shame on you Carmarthenshire) he has now reported the matter to the Ombudsman. He shouldn't have had to do this - he, I, and others, have repeatedly asked councillors, Assembly members, Members of Parliament etc to challenge the ridiculous (and downright dangerous) measures restricting access to public meetings, including the undertaking. Either no one has any clout, no one cares, or no one is getting anywhere with it all - I don't know - please correct me if I am wrong and I will be pleased to report any attempts to challenge the restrictions on this blog.

Back to Freedom of Information requests and another response is delayed - this time it's my request for Credit Card spending details, it should have been answered by last Friday, they will resond 'as soon as possible'. Whenever that will be.
My latest request comes from the revelation that Carmarthenshire Council have spent £100,000 on private detectives over three years, it therefore relates to the Regulation of Investgatory Powers Act (RIPA) and the request can be viewed here; http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/regulation_of_investigatory_powe_12
They of course have 20 working days to respond.

Before I go, a reminder that the Petitions Committee meets tomorrow at the Senedd to 'revisit' my filming and spending petitions. Carl Sargeant has declared his intention to encourage councils to allow members of the public to film - I hope the committee go further and insist that councils allow it, and, with regards to both issues, maybe they've had a look at Monmouthshire. Pointless looking at Carmarthenshire.
Whatever the outcome I shall be waiting for my invitation from Carmarthenshire Council as they encourage me to film their next meeting. They will also be able to tear up the undertaking and ditch the entry ritual...won't they?
Carl Sargeant to 'encourage' councils to allow filming

Oh, and it looks like Carmarthenshire Council should be 'twinned' with Barnet Council, I think they'd get on well.
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/11/14/how-barnet-council-tried-to-criminalise-all-bloggers/

Do we want this in Carmarthen?

2011-11-12T12:06:00.001Z

Further to previous mentions I have made about the Towy Community Church and it's Excel project in Carmarthen I strongly suggest you go over to Y Cneifiwrs blog and have a read of this;

Meryl and the Mercy Ministries

As Carmarthenshire Council senior bosses continue to provide enthusiastic financial support, without, it appears, any further reference to full council, I hope some of our elected members start to ask a few searching questions. Questions that should have been asked a long time ago.

previous posts include;
http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/10/transparency-one-step-forward-and-two.html
http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/04/council-works-in-even-more-mysterious.html
http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/05/proof-reader-required-and-more-on.html

please use searchbox on right for more

Council spends £100,000 on Private Detectives

2011-11-11T20:57:00.001Z

A story has emerged today on the worrying news that Carmarthenshire Council has spent £100,000 on private detectives over the past three years. A local MP Simon Hart had asked how much had been spent. The Council's feeble justification for using the services of private investigators was mainly to track people down for unpaid council tax and there was this bizarre tale of mistaken identity;

Mr Hart started making inquiries after hearing a woman in Devon was visited by a private eye, working for the council, who wanted to know whether her son had fathered a child.
"The council's legal department had tasked the detective firm with finding an address for the child's father so he could take paternal responsibility if he wished.
"But as her son would have only been 14 when the baby was born she was understandably extremely surprised and upset," he said.
It turned out that the detective firm had been given an incorrect spelling of the father's name and the private eye has apologised for the error".
South Wales Evening Post

And how do we know, given this sorry tale, that these investigators have been employed for legitimate purposes? We don't. There is no record of regulation, scrutiny or individual payments. The Council, like others, employ the services of private enforcement companies and bailiffs for unpaid debts as well as having their own 'anti-fraud policies' and of course the army of litter and parking police. If this Council had published all it's spending details we could perhaps have asked why £XXX was paid to Magnum PI. Where does it all lead? Have they been phone hacking? Email snooping? Do they track people who criticise the council? Do they have people arrested for filming their meetings? Need I say more. It's a pity the residents of Carmarthenshire couldn't employ a couple of PI's to have a snoop round County Hall.

Carl Sargeant to 'encourage' councils to allow filming

2011-11-10T23:31:00.001Z

I was reminded today by the Assembly Petitions Office that my petitions are back in front of the Committee next Tuesday (15th). Here's the Agenda, and of course the meeting can be watched - live - on Senedd TV. Carl Sargeant, Welsh Minister for Local Government, has written to the Committee with his views on filming and publishing spending details. He wrote to me a few weeks ago when I queried the entry procedures for the Public Gallery, that letter can be seen here, I have, of course, made my views on that matter abundantly clear.
But back to the issue of filming, Mr Sargeant now states that he will 'encourage' local authorities to allow the public to film as long as; a) Members are aware, and b) it doesn't inconvenience other members of the public attending. Although I reserve judgement until the petitions committee discuss all the matters involved, including the publication of spending details, I am quietly hopeful that this is a small step in the right direction, almost adopting Eric Pickles guidance issued to English councils back in February, I wonder whether he has been talking to Monmouthshire Council, he definitely hasn't been talking to Carmarthenshire Council! Here is Mr Sargeant's letter, (click to enlarge, or there's a link to PDF version here);

If the committee endorse his recommendations, or maybe go even further, it will be interesting to see how Carmarthenshire Council deal with such 'encouragement' next time I turn up with my camera, I shall ensure I announce my intention to everyone first of course, not that I hid the fact before. Or perhaps they could adapt their current posters in County Hall which alert you to the fact you are being filmed on CCTV!
On the subject of Monmouthshire Council, they (as of course Aberystwyth Town Council did a couple of weeks ago) allowed the BBC in today to film one of their meetings for a documentary - they sent me this rather nice picture;

source @HelReynolds

Whilst on the subject of transparency my FoI request to Carmarthenshire Council for copies of the Register of Members interests, gift and hospitality was refused today. As I suspected, I am expected to make an appointment and travel to Carmarthen to view the information, probably under armed guard. This is unlike several other Welsh councils who easily publish this information on their websites for all to see. Anyway, I have now contacted 'Democratic Services' to ask whether they can photocopy it all for me to collect from County Hall - they may make a charge, I am not sure - what I am sure about is that Carmarthenshire Council don't believe in making things easy! If I manage to acquire the information I shall do the Council's job for them (and help them achieve their 'Core Value' of transparency), and publish it on this blog.

A bit of an update now on a couple of recent items of interest. I notice that the £20,000 grant to the Scarlets is back on the Agenda for next Monday's Executive Board meeting. I have recently mentioned this here; I also notice that it looks like the decision will not go to full council; the report states; "Executive Decision required - yes, Council Decision Required - N/A". As I have said, this council has a bit of a preoccupation with rugby but I hope they take into account the latest figures on the whole Parc Y Scarlets finances, and maybe look back and consider the considerable cost to the taxpayer so far (please search for previous posts).

I see the Executive Board also approved one of the exempt items mentioned here , again it doesn't appear to be going to full council. The Towy Community Church have secured a 15 year loan from the Council for £270,000 to 'fill the funding gap' in their (I'm sure well meant) attempt to build an evangelical bowling alley and 'community' facility. They're doing well, and as I have said, it was only in May that the Council gave a capital grant of £280,000 to 'fill the funding gap'. I've got a bit of a 'funding gap' - shall I ask the Council to fill it? The Chief Executive said "If we didn't approve this we could lose £1.2 million that they have already accessed in funds from elsewhere" I am not sure what he means by "we could lose..."? The royal 'we' perhaps? Meryl Gravell referred to the project as the "biggest social enterprise in Carmarthenshire. That's what we need more of in the future" This could be the answer to our Leader's Social Care funding worries, the entire department could be taken over as an evangelical enterprise. Praise the Lord. I shall have to have a read of the 'living word', perhaps I've been missing something. And I presume this generosity with taxpayers money will extend to all religious groups in their efforts to serve the community?

For more on the matter of the Council's relationship with the Towy Community Church see Y Cneifiwr's latest post; Towy Church gets another £275,000 from Carmarthenshire

11th November; Today's South Wales Evening Post reports that Carmarthenshire Council has spend £100,000 on private detectives between 2008 and 2011;
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Carmarthenshire-Council-spend-100k-private/story-13818491-detail/story.html

No round of applause for Jacqui

2011-11-09T17:59:00.000Z

Right then, today's meeting. I was pleased to meet @Towy71 at the door. As you will see from his blog (Orwellian Stuff), and to his great credit, he refused to sign the undertaking and was therefore not allowed in, in fact a large security guard was called just to make sure. He did however sign for a pass, but that wasn't enough. I and others reluctantly signed though I added the words "unlawful, undemocratic and not binding". It is appalling that we are being made to sign this to observe the meeting and to be honest, I am not sure if I can do it much longer.

I also asked for the external door to be left open, in case of fire, I was informed it would remain locked. The security guard was beginning to look restless at this point. I went and had a look after the meeting and now both sets of doors are firmly locked.

Anyway, with the ritual and guarded procession complete, and the prisoners safely locked into the Gallery, the meeting began. I noticed this time that the Chair, Vice Chair and Chief Exec made a belated grand entrance rather like X Factor judges and everyone had to stand (apart from me). The standing continued for the prayer but I was quite appalled to notice there was no mention of Remembrance, the fallen of this County, or a minutes silence, nothing. Still perhaps they had more important things on their minds as the meeting moved on to congratulations for some award for the PR team and the Carmarthenshire News (Council rag) - 'Kings of Spin' or something like that. There was a hearty round of applause. I'm sure the rest of Carmarthenshire values the council rag as much as they do ;).

Next came a rather special moment as Cllr Sian Caiach managed to attract the Chair's attention and add to the congratulatory mood by referring to myself in the Gallery ("Community Councillor Jacqui Thompson") and my winning the award for Best Political Blog for Wales and how good it was for Carmarthenshire - as you may imagine there was a stunned and prolonged silence from everyone in the Chamber (no hearty applause) before a speechless Ivor Jackson regained his composure with "...er....moving on..." Priceless. This will also be in the Minutes - or at least it had better be!

Cllr Caiach then made a formal complaint regarding the Chief Executive's reluctance to provide a legal reason (any good reason actually) why he had blocked the vote of no confidence debate on the Leader, Meryl Gravell. No answer was given and she was told to put it in writing.

The next item of interest was to approve an increase in delegated power to the Head of Regeneration (Dave Gilbert) and Head of Economic Development (Wendy Walters) to approve grant funding for businesses from £5000 to £35,000. (I mentioned this here) Nobody argued that the grant itself wasn't a good thing but concerns were raised over the delegation itself and, for that amount of money, some involvement of elected members was advisable. These concerns (or 'scrutiny' as it is known in a democracy), were about declarations of interest etc to which Mr Gilbert stated he had no interests to declare with any business which had ever, or may in the future, recieve grant funding. Oh good. Unfortunately Ms Walters was not present to add such reassuring noises but her declarations can be seen here if you follow the links. Anyway, the Chief Executive was clearly annoyed at this line of questioning, forgot about the importance of democratic debate (again) and accused Councillors of attacking the integrity of officers. He even mentioned that they were putting the Council in a bad light bearing in mind there were members of the public in the gallery. I couldn't quite believe he'd said that, had he forgotten about the 8th June etc etc?

Then followed a report on 'bio-diversity' - very important of course and reassuring to know our flora and fauna is in the safe hands of Carmarthenshire Council. Yet another chance for our scrutinizing councillors to burst forth; Cllr Wooldridge took the opportunity to thank Eifion Bowen on behalf of the voles of Llanelli (or something like that, couldn't quite catch it) and Kevin Madge (Deputy Leader) commenced another lengthy, blustery and completely unecessary speech about butterflies.

There then followed a long, sustained attack on Cllr Sian Caiach and her continued objection to the siting of the new Furnace School in Llanelli. There must have been half an hour of (almost tearful) 'think of the children' dross and one accused her of merely attention seeking. Eventually Cllr Caiach was allowed to reply and reminded them she was not opposed to the new school per se, but the size and siting and she felt other areas of Llanelli would be placed at a disadvantage. She reminded them that despite the fact they all seemed to have this signed sealed and delivered there was still three weeks left of the public consultation and the whole planning process to go through yet. And neither, for that matter, was she the 'only objector'. Something in all this must have awoken my own Councillor, Tom Theophilus - he actually spoke! Of course many of us have objected to the closure of Pantycelyn in Llandovery and the siting of the new superschool (you can tell by the reaction to Cllr Caiach that any such public opposition to council policy is treated with utter contempt) Cllr Theophilus suddenly, and pointlessly, decided that he was opposed to the closure of Pantycelyn, and that the 'local gossip' that he, and several neighbouring councillors had remained completely silent at all of the public consultation meetings was just a "malicious rumour" (see previous Pantycelyn posts). Cllr Jackson also put his pennyworth in at this point as local member for Llandovery. Odd then that I hadn't heard him say a word at any of these meetings and that a few months ago the inscrutable Mr Sully (Education Head - also see previous posts) had publicly thanked the aforementioned councillors for their unstinting support over this whole closure programme!!

Beginning to lose the will to live I sat through a lengthy debate on convergence funding and how fantastic the council was in supporting local businesses (do local traders agree?), again with more bluster from Kevin Madge - who was almost silenced by a rebellious Councillor who mentioned the fact that the Council itself were selling off several industrial units in Glanaman.

The meeting closed and eventually we were mercifully released into the fresh air like one of Kevin Madge's butterflies.

In the interest of balance, and in the hope I get a mention, I will publish a link to the Minutes when they eventually materialise.

Update 10th November; Y Cneifiwr has blogged his observations of yesterday's meeting, excellent read as always; The vultures Circle over County Hall
I am also reminded that the reasons our local councillors have given for their absolute silence over the closure of Pantecelyn was that it would compromise their involvement in the planning decision for the new school. As that is some time away yet we have argued that that would be a seperate issue to closure - could their timely mention of opposition yesterday (after the final Statutory Notice consultation is over) be coincidental? or could it now excuse them from having to make any unpopular decisions when the planning application is eventually considered? Surely not...

Update 12th November; I have only just noticed (very remiss of me) this post from Barnet blogger, Mrs Angry who describes so well the determined resistance to public scrutiny, especially irritant bloggers, in this London borough, something we recognise so well here in Carmarthenshire; Broken Barnet - Watch it all fall down

Even #dafter arrests in Wisconsin, USA

2011-11-07T18:23:00.001Z

Online article from Political Scrapbook (@psbook) about camera/gun nonsense in the USA;

See full article for all the links and a video; Wisconsin bans concealed cameras (but concealed guns allowed)

"Eighteen people have been arrested for using cameras in the Wisconsin Assembly, while on the same day the state legislature enacted a law allowing Wisconsin residents to carry, erm, concealed weapons in the same building.
The “Concealed Camera Day at the Capitol” was organised through Facebook as a protest against the dual menaces of a ban on taking pictures in the assembly gallery and the changes to statewide gun law.
In the bewildering kerfuffle that ensued, the organiser of the protest, Matthew Rotschild, was fined $263.50 and arrested alongside seventeen other protesters for refusing to stop taking photos and being guilty of “prohibited” conduct in the state building.
The arrests recall an incident in the UK in which blogger Jacqui Thompson was arrested for filming a meeting of Carmarthenshire Council.
It seems that in Wisconsin, as in South West Wales, speech is free as long as the lens is covered up."

Source; Political Scrapbook

Previous article by @psbook from July ; Council at centre of filming row locks doors to public meeting

Chief Executive still blocking debate on future of Council leader

2011-11-07T15:21:00.002Z

Following on from recent posts, (including Council motion rejected by Chief Executive , Carmarthenshire democracy takes another turn for the worse) This blog has had site of further correspondence between Cllrs Sian Caiach and Arthur Davies and the Chief Executive, Mr James. This is, of course, related to Wednesday's (Nov 9th) meeting of full council and the refusal to place on the Agenda their motion for a No Confidence vote in council leader Meryl Gravell originally submitted in time for October's meeting. Further to the Chief Executive's previous letter (which can be read in the second of the posts mentioned above), the two councillors asked for some clarification;

Dear Mr. James
Notice of Motion
Thank you for your letter of November 1 which is rather confusing so perhaps you would be kind enough to clarify a few points;

1. Just to confirm dates, could you please confirm the date that the council first received our notice of motion?
2. Whilst you indicate that you have obtained legal advice you have not included a copy of the legal advice referred to, kindly correct this oversight by return. On sight of the council’s legal advice we will then obtain pro bono legal advice.
3. In your last paragraph and I quote,
"Given the controversy you have sought to engender on this matter, I have copied this response to all three Group Leaders, given it was they who wanted the change made by the council’s constitution and instructed the officers to review it." Could you please indicate when and where their request was made supplying the council minute that authorised it?

Finally, we note your apology for the delay and anticipate in future your responses will be prompt and helpful. In the interim as we do not agree with your position and as you have supplied no clear evidence to omit this issue on the agenda we insist that the issue is added to the agenda.
Yours sincerely
Cllrs Caich and Davies

Mr James has responded at some length (and no less confusingly) but fails to include any legal advice supporting his opinion, perhaps he hopes the other recipients will give up half way, or quite possibly drift off before they realise there's no punchline ie legal advice.
Yet again the two Cllrs are reprimanded for not going directly to him for advice on all procedural matters; I would have thought they have every right to seek independent legal advice in fact, under the circumstances it is clearly advisable to do so.
There is no real explanation as to why the motion is being rejected. Mr Mark James somehow regards the new rules as retrospective because the new constitution was democratically voted in. An opinion, but not obviously a legally informed one. He is of the opinion that a motion submitted a month in advance under the old constitution is not acceptable to him. He uses a council procedure rule which suggests that he believes that a motion of no confidence in the Council leader is not appropriate for discussion in that meeting, I would have thought full council would be an entirely appropriate place - in fact the only appropriate place. The motion is described as "incongruous" [definition; not congruous or agreeing, not mixing well together etc] so presumably not welcome in a council requiring consensus?
If there is no need for written or external legal advice to be sought by the Council, as apparently all advice is usually given internally through unrecorded discourse with in-house lawyers, how, as councillors can they be legally informed or scrutinise decisions? They are being asked to accept that undocumented legal advice given to the Chief Executive cannot be revealed to or checked by councillors, yet it is being acted upon? And, ironically, the two Councillors are criticised for suggesting that officers, not councillors, run this council....
Significantly, the Council's Constitution, as published on their website remains 'un-amended' as of today's date (7th November) with regards the requirement for 7 councillors to sign a motion. (see previous posts including http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/10/back-to-business.html )

Anyway, for the record, here's Mr James' response;

From; Mark James
Sent; 07 November 2011 10:00
To; Cllr. Sian M Caiach; Cllr. Arthur Davies
Cc; Cllr. Meryl Gravell; Cllr. Pamela A Palmer; Cllr. Peter Hughes-Griffiths; Cllr. Kevin Madge; Cllr. Marion P Binney; Cllr. John P Jenkins; Cllr. Huw Lewis
Subject: FW: Notice of Motion -People First Group's response to Chief Executive second rejection of our Notice of Motion in his letter date 1st November 2011

Dear Cllrs Caiach and Davies,

I refer to the three separate e mails that you have sent regarding this matter. I note that you refer above to a second rejection of your Notice of Motion. I am a little confused over this as this is the first and only time you have submitted a Notice of Motion in this format. I have not previously seen a Notice of Motion in these terms and therefore have not previously rejected such.
May I with respect remind you of my previous correspondence in which I asked that any communication on procedural matters be referred to my office. Neither Mr Davies nor any other officers will be able to assist with such matters and they are being referred to my office, as per my instruction. In order to avoid delay, please send any such questions you have direct.
As set out in my response to Cllr Davies, there is no provision in the Council’s constitution regarding amendments by Council. There is certainly no legal requirement to refer any such procedural amendments to the Secretary of State, Minister or anyone else. Whoever has given you this advice is mistaken.
Given the lack of specific provision and indeed lack of precedent, it is arguable probably both ways as to when such decisions ought to be implemented. Notices of Motion are usually submitted within the life cycle of Council meetings when the rules are clear. Your Notice, however, was submitted far in advance of your identified Council meeting in the knowledge that the rules were to be debated within days, and indeed the rules did change within days (and well in advance of the Council Meeting you were targetting). Whilst your Notice fulfilled the requirements of the rules subsisting at the time of submission they did not fulfil the rules applying to the meeting in question. CPR 12.4 provides that I shall not accept a Notice of Motion which cannot be considered "at the meeting for which it is given". Your Notice of Motion did not fulfil the conditions applying to Notices to be considered at the Council Meeting of the 9th November. Given that ambiguity, it would be highly incongruous for an officer of the Council to go against the explicit democratically agreed view of Council and follow a procedure for a particular meeting, which has been amended, specifically stopping that action taking place.
I am surprised that you would wish me as an officer to follow such a course, given your highly personalised attacks on officers recently for ‘leading the Council’ and not doing what you as elected members wish to see. Perhaps, and forgive me for being somewhat forthright, but you only wish officers to do this when it suits your purposes. On this occasion, it does not suit your purposes, so you wish me to frustrate the will of Council. With respect, you cannot have it both ways.
I have made my decision on the matter. It is perhaps now academic with regard to the next Council meeting. It is open to you to re-submit the Notice of Motion, with the requisite number of signatures for the next meeting of Council.
With regard to legal advice, when appropriate, such advice is taken often internally of course and through discourse with lawyers. There is no need for written or external advice and that is the case on this occasion.
With regard to requests for reports to be prepared, such requests are often made in advance of meetings, when officers are requested to prepare papers. You are well aware of the democratic route this report took as you have asked and had a response from my legal colleagues on the matter.
Regards.
Yours sincerely
Mark James
Chief Executive

Any the wiser....?!

Fire hazards - complaint to the Council

2011-11-07T12:50:00.000Z

With Wednesday's full council meeting looming on the horizon I am hoping, as I have said before, that others will join me in requesting that the entry restrictions are lifted. In the interests of safety, if nothing else, I expect there now to be free, unhindered access to and from the Public Gallery to the outside world.
Some hope.
I emailed the Fire Service last week with my concerns and incorporated it into a complaint to the Council (see below).I had an immediate acknowledgement from the Fire Service (as an emergency service, I do not expect them to leap into action). A couple of days later I had an acknowledgement from the Council who said my complaint had been passed on to the inappropriately named Democratic Services as a 'Stage 1' complaint to be dealt with by the 15th November. No wonder people are turned off complaining. Anyhow, any response will be posted here.

"Dear Sir
By way of complaint to Carmarthenshire Council please see the email below as sent to the Carmarthen Fire Office. Please could the council officer responsible for the safety of members of the public in County Hall respond to me personally, via email about my concerns as outlined below. the public, when visiting the Gallery are clearly at risk:

To the Chief Fire Officer,
I am writing with concern about the fire safety regulations at County Hall Carmarthen. As a regular visitor to the public gallery I was disturbed to discover that members of the public are in effect, locked into the building. A phone is provided to summon staff to escort you out of the building and you are told a) To remain in the public gallery in the event of fire and wait for assistance and, contradictory to that, b)all the locks automatically unlock if the fire alarm sounds. Requests to the Council revealed that no fire assessment had been carried out with members of the public in the Gallery in mind, nor had they ever been involved in a fire drill. I attended the public gallery today (31st October) and was very concerned, I was actually trapped in the stairwell leading to the gallery. I was exiting the gallery and used the phone provided to call staff to escort me through the locked doors and out of the building. The phone was engaged and despite several attempts, remained so. I opened that door myself, which locked behind me only to discover I was unable to open the external fire exit at the bottom of the stairwell. Fortunately I had my mobile phone so was able to get through to reception (eventually) and two members of staff escorted me out.
The whole regime which has recently been introduced is putting members of the public at risk. Could the fire service please contact the council and ensure the access and exit procedures to and from the public gallery are made safe. I am also contacting Carmarthenshire County Council. I believe complaints have already been made earlier in the summer. I would appreciate if you could report back to me on your findings, if possible.

Many thanks for your time
Jacqui Thompson"

http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/10/trapped-in-stairwelland-todays-meeting.html

As an aside, I was interested to note that the Mid and West Wales Fire Authority which has five Carmarthenshire Councillors on it's Board, regularily podcast's it's meetings. http://www.mawwfire.gov.uk/fire_authority_eng/index.asp

And an interesting post today on 'Wales Home' by Peter Black AM on twittering etc in the Senedd and elsewhere;
http://waleshome.org/2011/11/scotland-the-brave/

Update; I have seen email correspondence from the Fire Officer to the Council which states that the "exit doors from the Gallery area" (I presume he means the external doors?) are "by the way, fine" - As I said, they would not open last Monday....unless of course he has now used the repeated and forceful action of a size 12 Fireman's boot...? I never thought of doing that but then again I only have girly feet, which would clearly be useless in a fire....

Update 8th November;

The Noxious Fumes of County Hall

Well, the Council haven't dragged their feet this time, although the swift response may have something to do with the fact there's a full council meeting tomorrow (10am, County Hall) and I have indicated I will attend. I hear others will be joining me. Needless to say my complaint has been dismissed. My comments are in blue;

Dear Mrs. Thompson
Thank you for your communication which was received on Tuesday 1st November 2011
In accordance with the Corporate Complaints Procedure I have considered your complaint. ( ref no: 1146066 )
Your complaint alleges that the procedures the Council has put in place for the public to access the public gallery jeopardise fire safety in that the public are locked in to the stairwell. In support of that you cite the incident which happened to you last week when you found yourself trapped in the stairwell and the telephone arrangements for being released from the stairway were inadequate.
The example you give is an unfair one in that you are comparing the arrangements which are in place on normal days to the arrangements which are in place in times of fire.

This is not unfair, it demonstrates a failed system, I would have thought 'arrangements' should be the same for either occasion with public safety part of both - although we know that public safety is nothing to do with it all.

On normal days the procedure in place is that the public are escorted to the public gallery and have to phone the democratic services unit when they want to leave because they do not have security cards to open the doors. I do not consider this arrangement to be improper. County Hall is a working office and security arrangements need to be in place to prevent the public from wandering at will.

There is nothing 'normal' about these arrangements. Prior to June 8th the exterior door was always open and the public could access the gallery unaided and without being able to access the rest of the building or 'wander at will'.

In times of fire the security door at the foot of the stairwell will automatically release whilst the external door at the foot of the stairwell will have been opened. Whilst egress from the public gallery will be unobstructed, visitors to the public gallery must comply with the fire evacuation procedure they have been asked to follow so that they can be led to safety along an appropriate escape route by a fully trained Fire Warden. It may be that the seat of the fire is in the stairwell itself and opening the door to the stairwell will therefore only serve to fuel the fire with more oxygen and allow the spread of noxious fumes. The Fire Warden will decide on the most appropriate route and note the names of those visitors he/she recovers so that they can be discounted from the visitors’ log for the building.

This is disingenuous, members of the public have only had to give their names etc since the 8th June, it has nothing to do with fire safety and everything to do with monitoring who is observing the meetings and preventing anyone attending who hasn't signed the unlawful undertaking.

You found yourself in the position you did on the day in question because you were impatient and were not prepared to wait until the telephone extension number was free, so much so that you exited the public gallery yourself and put yourself in the position of being in the stairwell with no office telephone or means of exiting the stairwell. You were not in danger at any time as there was no fire. Had there been a fire the security door would have released and the external door at the foot of the stairwell would have been open.
In light of the above I do not consider your complaint to be valid.

I was not 'impatient', I tried the phone six times, I then assumed the exterior door would be open (at least from the inside). I realise there was no fire, and of course I was in no danger, I simply should have been able to get out via the fire door. If this door, as the email states, has to be opened in time of fire then let's just hope someone, with a key and a good memory, remembers to do it

I have however reviewed the procedure for contacting the democratic services unit following your experience on 31/10/11 and in future there will be a choice of two extension numbers to telephone with the second number automatically diverting the call to a third telephone extension after 6 rings in the unlikely event of there being no response. This should ensure that there will always be someone available to answer a call from the public gallery.

Good, although an entirely ridiculous situation.

In so far as your complaint that no fire assessment has been carried out with the public in the gallery in mind, this is incorrect in that this area is covered by the Fire Officer as part of his annual inspection of the building and no adverse comments have been received to date regarding the arrangements in place for the evacuation of visitors from the public gallery. I can confirm that the Authority’s fire management plan, prepared in accordance with the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997 (as amended) does contain provisions as to members of the public. For example, it states that "Fire Wardens are designated to check all sections of the building".

Let's hope, until the 'arrangments' are lifted, their 'fire management plan' isn't put to the test. I wouldn't trust a Carmarthenshire Council 'management plan' to ensure my safety nor anything else for that matter.

You have made this complaint to the Fire Authority, of course, and the Council will await their response.
In the meantime, however, the Council does not uphold your complaint.
If you should not be happy with the response given and wish to proceed to the next stage of the Complaints Process then please contact; The Complaints Team, Chief Executives Department, County Hall, Carmarthen, SA31 1JP or Tel; 01267 224488, or email; Complaints@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Yours sincerely
Democratic Services Manager

Poetry Please

2011-11-05T14:12:00.000Z

For a brief change of tempo I am posting a couple of thoughtful poems written by younger residents of Carmarthenshire. The first was written by a 13 year old boy, it was then selected to be published in an anthology. The second was written by a year 7 pupil at the soon to be closed Pantycelyn School, Llandovery. Both suggest that not everyone shares the same ‘vision’ for the future of Carmarthenshire as dictated by those who think they know better in County Hall;

Carmarthen

First it was a Roman town a Roman legion army town.

Then it was a Merlin town a castle and an oak tree town.

Then it was a Tudor town a dead dog leaking sewage town.

Then it was a Georgian town a big wig plump my pillow town.

Then it was a Victorian town a toll gate and Rebecca town.

Then it was a war town a joining up and dying town

Now it is a Tesco town a shop till you drop I want one town.

By Jeno, 13 years

Carmarthenshire in 2020

Carmarthenshire is thriving,

And people are buying,

But in the North-East

Llandovery is dying

It’s been a few years now,

Since the school has been killed!

The shops are deserted,

The streets have been stilled!

We’re in darkness now

And no one knows who

Is going to help us

And carry us through.

2020 is the year

And the town has no sound.

Pantycelyn is dead!

Nobody around.

When the funeral is over

And the people are down.

Who will remember

This proud Drovers town?

All businesses failing,

Too weak to fight!

Will the last to leave

Please turn out the light!

By Caitlin, year 7, Pantycelyn School

As nothing get’s a message across quite like well penned verse, please send in your contributions, humorous or otherwise. As long as it’s clean, non-libellous and related to issues concerning Carmarthenshire I will consider publishing it on the blog!

Transparency - Monmouthshire CC leading the way

2011-11-03T20:01:00.000Z

It's not often I feel inspired to write anything positive about our Welsh Councils but one in particular has impressed me this evening. Monmouthshire County Council have become the first Welsh council to adopt the Open Government Licence which means that anyone can use any thing on their website, and any data for individual, or commercial use. If this wasn't enough they are also running an effective and responsive Twitter account @MonmouthshireCC, a blog, and (and this is the really impressive bit) they are happy for members of the public to film their meetings.

I suggest other Welsh councils, particularly Carmarthenshire, who are rapidly sinking into the abyss of medieval feudalism, have a look at what's going on here and follow the lady who is clearly the inspiration behind it all, @HelReynolds

I realise there are residents of Monmouthshire who have issues with their Council and probably have views contrary to the message in this post. However, any moves towards a culture of openness are at least a start to improving accessibility and should be welcomed.

Update 7th November;

I have now learned, thanks to Tweets from the CEO @pmtmomam and @MonmouthshireCC that this Council are publishing their spending details online. Along with the issue of filming, this was one of the subjects of my petitions to the Welsh Assembly, both still under consideration. This is excellent news and (correct me if I'm wrong) a first for Wales - worlds apart from Carmarthenshire.

Those Armchair Auditors of Monmouthshire can now analyse the information and see if their money is being spent wisely!

http://t.co/gcSFkCor (scroll to bottom of page)

Carmarthenshire democracy takes another turn for the worse

2011-11-02T14:46:00.000Z

Yet again, democracy takes another turn for the worse in Carmarthenshire. You may recall my recent posts dealing with the Constitution and how it is being 'tweaked' to counter dissent and the democratic process. The most recent dissent that needed to be put down was the call, by Cllrs Arthur Davies and Sian Caiach, for a Vote of No Confidence in the Leader, Meryl Gravell. Already blocked for October's meeting you will recall that at that meeting a resolution was passed that seven signatures were needed for a motion such as this to be debated. As this motion had been submitted several weeks ago one would think the new rules should not apply retrospectively. Not so! It seems the Chief Executive has decided that they should and has informed Cllr Davies of this - too late for him to resubmit it with additional signatures, which is rather convenient. A legal opinion has been sought and it seems very unlikely that a resolution can be backdated in this way, reading the letter below it would appear that this decision is based on the opinion of the Chief Executive rather than on legal evidence.

You may also note that there is not even a cursory reference or footnote to the hapless Chair, Cllr Ivor Jackson who is, I believe, supposed to have a say on these things?? (not that he'd disagree of course)

It is unlikely, with the loyal support of the Independent and Labour votes and probably half of Plaid that Cllr Gravell would lose the vote anyway and you will see that the letter is copied to the three party leaders who are, from experience, unlikely to disagree with the Chief Executive. But a debate? We can't have that, one has to 'play the game'. You may or may not agree with the rebellious Councillors but one day it could be another issue at stake, something that concerns you - and unless someone fights back against this appalling erosion of democracy we are witnessing, it will be too late.

As I mentioned in my previous post, 'The Listening Council', the next Council meeting is one week away (9th, and as I said, please join me if you can) and a week can be a long time in politics, even in the weird world of Carmarthenshire Council - I hear the fight is not over despite attempts to smear the dissenting voices. I shall look out for the Agenda and we'll see what happens....
(Please click on the letter to enlarge)

Please see several recent posts on the issues involved.
In his comment below, Y Cneifiwr refer to an excellent letter in this week's Llanelli Star. Here is a link to it;
Council rule astonishing ; very well said Clem Thomas of Dafen.

Update 3rd November; The Agenda for next week's full council meeting has been published - no trace of a Vote of No Confidence; http://online.carmarthenshire.gov.uk/agendas/eng/COCO20111109/index.asp Neither, I notice, are the exempt items from Monday's Executive Board meeting regarding the Excel loan and Technium. Maybe they will be ratified at a future meeting or maybe not...I will keep a look out.

The Listening Council

2011-11-02T12:55:00.001Z

One of many varied and I am sad to say, pointless ways in which residents can contact Carmarthenshire Council is through this ironically titled email address listeningtoyou@carmarthenshire.gov.uk I am not sure who is on the other end, but I am sure it causes some laughter in the office. Anyway, one of my recent 'white elephant alerts' mentions the taking over of the disused Technium centre in Llanelli by Carmarthenshire County Council. An article in today's paper says that the Council are looking for suggestions for a new name for the centre. Hopefully it will not turn out like the last PR disaster earlier this year, when public votes were invited to name a new theatre in Llanelli, the Council ignored the majority vote and quietly picked the losing name, the one which they preferred.
I am including the 'listening' email address here just in case any readers would not only like to make some suggestions for a name, but may like to address the council on any other issue, especially now we know they're listening....
Incidentally, Y Cneifiwr has today added his views on Carmarthenshire's ~~contempt for~~ treatment of public opinion.

Back to the perils of the Public Gallery and following on from Monday's post, 'trapped in the stairwell...' I have had an acknowledgement from the Fire Service but nothing as yet from the 'listening' council. I have been passed a few figures though concerning regulations for public buildings etc. Firstly, the Public Gallery has only one means of escape and as it is intended to hold 50 souls this is quite possibly insufficient (leaving aside for the moment that even if you make it through the exit you are likely to become trapped in the narrow stairwell). Secondly, should you trip or stumble in the Gallery, all that is stopping you from falling over the balcony and landing on some surprised Councillors is a low level 'wall', topped by a very shiny piece of polished wood. There are a couple of very short rails, but according to regulations it should stretch the entire length of the surface. The barrier itself should be at least 1.1 metres high, I haven't been there yet with a tape measure (and I will) but I do not believe it reaches this height.

We know that the safety of members of the public attending the gallery has been nothing more than an irritating afterthought prompted by complaints, and comes a poor second to the control-freakery exhibited since the 8th June but this is all very serious and possibly unlawful stuff. Perhaps the Council will have to close the gallery? And then what?
There is only one option of course, we (including me) will have to be allowed in the Chamber.

The next full meeting of Carmarthenshire Council will be at 10 o'clock on Wednesday 9th November at County Hall. I shall be there. As no one from 'authority' seems to give a hoot about the dreadful way members of the public are being treated, I hope as many people as possible will join me to request that the undemocratic restrictions are immediately lifted and that they will also refuse to sign the unlawful undertaking. Perhaps our political representatives would like to join me?

Last but not least I must again thank @AlexMurraySmith, reporter for the Carmarthen Journal for today's report on the Wales Blog Awards and for diligently following (and breaking) the whole #daftarrest story;

Arrested Blogger Jacqui wins award for her political views

Source; Carmarthen Journal. (me, badly in need of a haircut)

Trapped in the stairwell....and today's meeting

2011-10-31T18:49:00.000Z

I trekked down to County Hall, Carmarthen again today to observe the Executive Board meeting. The meeting itself was distinctly underwhelming but more of that later.
I am sorry for keeping on about this, but every time I go there, I am more and more disturbed by the entry/exit ritual for members of the public. This morning was no exeption, in fact it is getting worse. I was the only member of the public there but this still warranted an escort by two members of staff who, I noticed, carefully positioned themselves with one in front and one behind me. It was humiliating. This procession was reminiscent of a prisoner being led around Wormwood Scrubs rather than an exercise in democracy.
Then there was my exit. I dutifully used the special phone to summon the guards but it was engaged. I tried six times, still engaged. In the hope that I would be able to open the exterior fire exit door (now locked from the outside) at the bottom of the stairwell, I opened the first door by pressing the button on the wall. Sadly, and worryingly, the door to the outside - and freedom - was shut tight. There were four bolts and a lock and I tried for several minutes to open it. It wouldn't budge. I was therefore trapped. Fortunately I had my mobile phone with me so I phoned the main switchboard and asked to be released. The lady didn't know what I was talking about as it turned out she was 15 miles away in the Llandeilo offices. I tried again and eventually the guards appeared and I was 'escorted' out. I am going to contact the Fire Service tomorrow.

I am also failing to understand why Carl Sargeant or at least my MP Jonathan Edwards or even my AM Rhodri Glyn Thomas are not raising the whole issue with the Council - are they happy for the electorate of Carmarthenshire to be put at such risk? Should they not be challenging the whole outrageous entry procedure (yes I had to sign the undertaking yet again) on behalf of residents or perhaps on behalf of democratic engagement itself?? May I remind the two Plaid representatives that a Plaid Councillor resigned from the group on the Council last week as he was appalled by the lack of democracy within the council - if Plaid wish to make gains at the next local election I suggest they are a lot more active and vocal in challenging Carmarthenshire Council. This may gain them more support than writing letters in the local paper asking people to join them.

I had better mention the meeting which was hardly worth putting your life at stake for. Executive Board meetings appear rather pointless. First there is the pre-meeting briefing so any unpleasantness can be ironed out before the public and press get there. There then follows a series of recommendations by officers, each and every one of which is approved by the Executive Members and accompanied by little speeches and fawning tributes to the Chief Executive and the officer concerned. No one questions anything. At all. Very very cosy. I am very well aware of course that good work is done by the footsoldiers of various departments, I am not detracting from that, and of course the council itself makes sure, despite alarming budget concerns particularly in Social Care, that it spends tens of thousands of pounds every year telling us about it. The budget deficit was mentioned at length with the Deputy Leader, Cllr Madge saying that if the pressures of having such an ageing population continued at this rate some departments of the council would be "destroyed" - not sure what he meant by that, bankrupt I suppose. None of them have suggested some sort of Elderly Euthanasia Council Policy yet but it may be only a matter of time...

Anyway, the fate of Pantecelyn secondary school was further sealed this morning. There were several objections to closure but these were brushed aside ('no new issues raised'), the decision will have to go to the Welsh Minister but Mr Sully seemed to think this would be a formality. The concensus of grovelling opinion was that Carmarthenshire Council's education policy was the envy of the entire universe. It is the fault of the contorted council consultation exercise that people did not realise they would have to object for a second time in three months and it appears, raise even more new issues. Sad news for the school and the town of Llandovery. I have a feeling that even if there had been a thousand new objections it wouldn't have made any difference to Mr Sully and the executive bulldozers.

The other item which interested me was the impending decision to throw another £20,000 towards the Scarlets and the Stadium. Coming straight after the serious stuff about Social Care, the leader Meryl Gravell took the opportunity to relax and wax lyrical about the rugby world. In the event she deferred the item but not before she had told everyone that she had heard from New Zealand about how wonderful and, apparently, how well behaved the Wales team was. Naturally, I support the Welsh team and local rugby clubs and wish them all success as I do for all sports, but to be honest the preoccupation with rugby in County Hall is worrying. The last few meetings I have attended have seen more time devoted to talking about rugby, at various levels, than has been devoted to slightly more important and pressing issues. Anyway Cllr Gravell's tribute to the Scarlets and the Council's unfailing loyalty, failed to mention any concerns about the £5.5m debt (2010) or the fact they already have 122 people on the payroll costing nearly £8 million a year. Or the fact that the interest payments on the loan from the council has been slashed by half or that they have been relieved from paying the yearly £25,000 sinking fund (maintenance for the stadium) for the next three years etc etc. But this was a vision for our Council executives and I am sure they are just going to give themselves another couple of weeks to justify the payment and the employment of a 'Projects Funding Developments Officer'. Vital I'm sure.
The remaining items on the Agenda were nodded through until the exempt items came up, at which point of course I sadly had to leave.

I must just say I was a bit disappointed not to be met with a celebratory cake and a gold plated key to the Public Gallery after this blog's recent little success....

Please wander over to Y Cneifiwr's blog and enjoy his most recent post; Junk Mail and the True Meaning of 'consider' and another one with a view on one of the exempt reports; Alarm bells - Little Richard versus Cliff Richard

(For further background on Pantecelyn, the Stadium, etc please, as ever, use the searchbox on the right)

Update 3rd November; Western Mail reports on the Scarlets £5.5m debt and how Carmarthenshire Council ignored financial warnings from the outset when embarking on the new stadium;
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/11/03/fears-for-future-of-the-scarlets-as-5-5m-debt-means-accountants-fear-status-as-going-concern-91466-29710791/

Back to Business

2011-10-30T22:10:00.000Z

Well, back down to earth and back to business. And back to those changes to the constitution mentioned in recent posts (here and here for instance). Someone asked me yesterday whether it was a common requirement throughout Welsh councils for several councillors to have to sign a Motion before it will be accepted.
There was only one way to find out so I duly trawled through the Standing Orders for all 22 Welsh local authorities looking for that particular point. (I was only beaten by Merthyr Council's website which is either undergoing a major overhaul, or, they haven't bothered with a constitution). All of them apart from two specified that one Member, or sometimes two (proposer and seconder) can put forward such a proposal.
One of the two guilty parties is Blaenau Gwent Borough Council who require five - the other of course is our own Carmarthenshire Council with a spectacular democracy-breaking seven! Eight if you include the proposer.

Another subtle change which seemed to pass with little comment was the removal of the usual right to present a petition to a full council meeting. This, I assume, was a reaction to the farcical way the Day Centre petition was dealt with by executive officers on the 8th June. Petitions will still have to be signed by at least 50 people and arrive at the Chief Executive's office seven day's before the next council meeting but it is at that point that things change;

The 'Rule' has been altered from;

"10.11 At a meeting of the Council any member of the Council or any local government elector of the county may....present to the Chair or other person presiding a written petition which is relevant to some matter in relation to which the authority have functions..."

and will now read;

"10.11 Any member of the Council or any government elector of the County may forward to the Chief Executive a written petition which is relevant to some matter in relation to which the authority have functions..."

As I understand it now, you do not have the right to 'present' the petition to the (elected) Chair but must 'forward' it to the (unelected) Chief Executive who will then decide whether it can be considered by Members. In other words, it's now up to the Chief Executive whether or not your petition will be heard at a full council meeting. Or at any meeting for that matter.
It is odd really that such basic elements of democracy and debate are not uniform throughout Wales -it seems that the levels of democratic accountability are a bit of a 'post code lottery'. Councils of course, need to reflect local conditions regarding bin emptying policy or road repair protocol and suchlike but when it comes to protecting the our basic democratic rights, if a Council behaves in an irrational and reactionary manner (as is the wont of Carms CC) and elected members fail for whatever reasons to defend not only our rights, but theirs too, then someone should step in. There doesn't seem to be a 'someone' out there though. It should be noted that the body who proposed these changes was the aforementioned, un-minuted, agenda-less, officer led 'Business Management Group'.

Resident's petitions, irritating Motions on Notice, members of the public, etc are all a bit awkward aren't they? They disturb the old boy's club, the 'port and cigars' atmosphere and the highly controlled pretence of debate. Like any good dictatorship, if there's dissent in the ranks - stamp it out.

Oh and I nearly forgot, Carmarthenshire Council's legal and FoI departments take note, my full name and address have been published yet again, on the What Do They Know site. This time on the response to the internal review, on both the HTML and download versions. I have reported this, along with the four week delay, to the Information Commissioner. I sometimes wonder whether this Council actually realises that request made through WDTK are on the new-fangled interweb?

Best Politics Blog - Wales Blog Awards 2011!

2011-10-28T09:13:00.000+01:00

I am really surprised and delighted that this blog won the Best Politics Blog category at the Wales Blog Awards last night in Cardiff. It was great to see all blogging in Wales celebrated and recognised - all brilliant! Good to meet fellow bloggers from Radical Wales too. Many thanks to those who nominated me and everyone who has supported this blog. By the way I won a £100 M & S voucher and, best of all, a year's subscription to Private Eye!
Link to all the winners here

I also wrote a short piece for the @ITVWales blog; http://itvwalesblog.com/2011/10/28/wales-blog-awards-caebrwyn-on-winning-best-political-blog/

S & L Associates sponsored the Political Blog category, here's their comments;
“All blogs have displayed dedication to their causes, ensuring the public are made aware of the issues through the blogging medium. However, one stands out in its focus and tenacity in challenging the powers that be. The blog in question has been recognised in the national press, and the blogger’s dedication is such that their actions in pursuing the cause have resulted in their own freedom being denied. Therefore, the winner of the best political blog is Jacqui Thompson – Carmarthenshire Planning.”

Councillor quits Plaid group over democracy...and round two of the golf club row

2011-10-26T12:36:00.000+01:00

Further to recent posts (including here and here), I see in today's Carmarthen Journal that Plaid Carmarthenshire Councillor for Lliedi ward, Huw Lewis has quit the party group on the council over the recent amendments to the constitution, ironically passed during the Council's ill-fated 'Local Democracy Week';

'Huw Lewis said he resigned on the principle of democracy and the right of individuals to express themselves.
His action followed a vote to amend the council's constitution so motions coming before full meetings of the authority required the support of at least seven councillors, not just a proposer and seconder'
Member quits in row over democracy by @DConnopPrice

I understand his frustration and dissatisfaction that most of the opposition Plaid councillors voted for the amendment, but I hope that all those councillors who feel growing unease with the way this officer-led council operates, concentrate their energies to challenge the senior officers and their Executive Board puppets. Regular readers of this blog will be aware of the systematic erosion of democracy including, for example, the recent imposition of the ridiculous ritual which members of the public must endure to enter the Public Gallery, a situation which still remains unchallenged by elected members.

The Journal also reports today on the continuing row over Carmarthenshire Council's bizarre decision to offload the failing Garnant Golf Club at the cost to the taxpayer of £200,00. The secretary of a nearby club, Glynhir, is reporting the Council to the Wales Audit Office for possibly breaching competition law. He has a point. As a taxpayer, he will now be indirectly funding and supporting a rival golf club enabling them to charge lower prices.
Story here by @AlexMurraySmith 'Subsidised golf club unfair on other clubs'

It looks like the Ombudsman is being kept busy in neighbouring Swansea Council;
BBC; Inquiry into top Swansea Lib Dems and Tory Councillor

Transparency - One step forward and two steps back

2011-10-25T14:57:00.001+01:00

I am pleased to see, courtesy of Alun Williams' blog, that Aberystwyth Town Council has made a small step into the world of transparency last night by allowing the BBC to film one of it's meetings;

Opening Democracy - BBC allowed to film Aberystwyth Town Council Meeting

Carmarthenshire County Council may wish to note that all the Councillors present made it out alive and unscathed.

With transparency in mind, or lack of it, I note that next Monday's Executive Board meeting of Carmarthenshire Council has a couple of items of note. They are, of course, 'exempt' and will be discussed away from the prying eyes of the public and press. Hence the 'two steps back' in the title of this post.

The first concerns a 'proposed capital loan' to the speculative Excel Project in Carmarthen. I have mentioned this before (The Council works in mysterious ways), mainly because this project, involving a bowling alley, and run by an American based evangelical organisation, the Towy Community Church, has already had £55,000 of council grants; £45,000 grant from Cwm Environmental (subsidiary company of the council most recently mentioned here); the benefit of the council owned land worth £750,000 as well as a direct cash grant from the council of £280,000 earlier this year, this was while frontline services were being axed due to budget cuts (and of course the council's social care budget is currently in the red to the tune of £2.2 million). The Towy Community church did manage to raise £17,000 themselves towards this £2.2m project, so on that sound financial basis I am sure that the loan (amount not specified) will be approved and no doubt, at a later date, quietly converted to a grant.

The second 'exempt' item concerns the next possible white elephant looming on the council's financial horizon, the former Technium Centre at Dafen, Llanelli. This was a Welsh Assembly venture closed last year after being branded a failure and a complete waste of money. In July it was announced that the Council had taken it over with a nominal lease with a view to buying it - the idea being that it becomes an business 'hub' to 'incubate' young people into the workplace. For some reason, I do not share Meryl Gravell's optimism in the likely success of yet another 'visionary' project but I do not wish to put a dampener on things - and the first step to success would be complete transparency, and it is unclear by the agenda what is even being discussed.

I am sure the Council legal team have come up with valid reasons for the secrecy of the discussions but I have a feeling that the reasoning is more to do with concealing the questionable use of public money rather than to spare the blushes of interested parties. This council always seems to forget that other 'interested party' - the taxpayer.

Incidentally, this blog has had sight of the 'Exempt Report' from May when the lease and earlier grant to the Towy Community Church was approved, there was no reason, as far as I can see for this not to have been discussed in public. Rather like the various deals benefiting the Botanic Gardens, the Parc y Scarlets stadium etc etc the amount of public money concerned and the ongoing financial risks associated with these projects (or 'visions' as they are known in County Hall) warrant complete transparency.

Update; on the subject of stadiums I had noticed another request for cash from the Scarlets, this, as a commenter below points out, will not even have to be approved by full council. I am lost for words. The Evening Post picks up the story today;

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Scarlets-plea-pound-20k-grant/story-13674638-detail/story.html

Accessing the Public Gallery; Welsh Minister responds

2011-10-23T22:56:00.000+01:00

Some time ago I wrote to the Welsh Minister for Local Government, Mr Carl Sargeant asking if he could challenge the bizarre, undemocratic and restrictive entry procedures to the public gallery implemented by Carmarthenshire Council officers after the 8th June. Prompted when another member of the public was turned away from attending a meeting. I have now had a reply and I copy my email and Mr Sargeant's (or his representative's) response below.

Despite the fact that I did not specifically ask for his views on filming I welcome Mr Sargeant's promise of encouragement to all local authorities, including Carmarthenshire, to webcast their meetings. I would prefer the word 'requirement' rather than 'encouragement' though.
My opinion, of course differs from his over the right for the public to film and record meetings, I hope he will reconsider and issue similar guidance as in England.
Unfortunately, it all rather predicts the eventual decision of the petitions committee who recently made an appeal through the local press for views on allowing the public to film.

I am also disturbed by the use of the phrase 'need for security' in this context. Patently ridiculous.

It was the matter of access to meetings I was asking about and in that respect he clearly has no control over Carmarthenshire Council, in fact I would go as far as saying that the regime in County Hall will be delighted with his response and his overwhelming support. They couldn't have written it better themselves... I am very concerned that the Welsh Government appears to be giving Carmarthenshire Council the green light to ride roughshod over the residents of this county, this does not just apply to 'access to meetings' of course but the systematic erosion of democratic accountability in all it's various forms. The situation in Carmarthenshire needs to be challenged.

After the MP's expenses scandal it has become of paramount importance that government of all levels, elected members or unelected officers, is perceived as honest, accountable and transparent. It is on this sound basis that policy can be implemented. This should not be a matter of party politics. If Mr Sargeant's reluctance to embrace an agenda of complete transparency comes from a personal moral stance then that is his prerogative, even as a Labour man, but I am concerned that this is more to do with a reluctance to engage the 'transparency agenda' of the current Conservative government in London, led by Mr Pickles and even perhaps the opposition in the Senedd. I am of no political persuasion and am merely campaigning to improve the accountability of local government, it will be a pity if such basic rights of the electorate, such as being able to freely access the public gallery, are overshadowed by misguided political allegiances.

This was my email to Mr Sargeant;

"Dear Sir

I am hoping that by now you are aware of the actions of Carmarthenshire County Council in restricting access to the Public Gallery for visiting members of the public.
Prior to the 8th of June, the public could walk straight up to the public gallery unhindered, this is how it should be in a democratic society.
The external door is now locked. The public must now go to the reception desk, read a warning on 'recording meetings', sign an undertaking, acquire a pass then wait to be escorted by two members of staff to the Gallery. The exit is now blocked requiring visitors to phone an extension number and wait to be escorted out of the building, again by two members of staff. This has never been the case before the 8th June.
Freedom of Information requests have revealed that there have been no fire risk assessments nor fire drills carried out with regards to members of the public in the gallery.
I am sure you will agree that this situation cannot continue.
A member of the public was turned away from a Council meeting yesterday for refusing to sign the undertaking, the Assistant Chief Executive failed to give an explanation as to the lawful purpose of the undertaking, I believe the member of public has now written to several Assembly Members.
Carmarthenshire Council have given several reasons for implementing these measures, none of which are lawful. I myself have been turned away but have now signed the undertaking twice in a week. I am not going to sign again and I expect to be allowed in, along with other members of the public, and these ridiculous measures to be lifted.
There was no democratic decision but was an 'operational decision' taken by Council officers.
These measures are humiliating, undemocratic and pose a threat to the safety of the public, please could you contact Carmarthenshire County Council, via email/telephone urgently to question their motives and insist, on behalf of the residents of Carmarthenshire that all restrictions are lifted with immediate effect.Please could you make your own views on this matter known to me, including whether you yourself would be happy to comply with these restrictions and please pass on to me any correspondence you may have with the Council.
Many thanks for your time and if you require further information please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely
Jacqui Thompson"

...and this was the reply;

"Dear Mrs Thompson

Carmarthenshire Council access to public gallery.Thank you for your e-mail of 15 September sent to Carl Sergeant AM, Minister for Local Government and Communities. I have been asked to reply.
Local authorities are obliged to allow the public entry to council meetings, unless the issues being discussed are considered to be exempt (in the main, confidential or commercial matters)
Our understanding of the issues at Carmarthenshire Council is that they have had cases of filming by members of the public, which had not been agreed to by the Council and of which members were not aware. The view of Carl Sergeant AM, whose remit this falls under is that councillors nor anyone else should be filmed without being aware or having given their consent for this to happen.

The process that a local authority follows to allow public access to meetings is a matter for them, as they have to take into account the need for security in today’s society.

Welsh Government Policy is to support local authorities trying to engage with the public and a number of provisions within the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 are designed to encourage this. However it is a matter for the local authority to decide what methods and resources should be employed to make their meetings more accessible

Whilst the Minister has not issued any advice or guidance on this matter, he encourages all local authorities to make the maximum effort to enable the public to engage with their proceedings. I understand that Carmarthenshire Council are due to vote shortly on the public broadcasting of their meetings. This development is welcomed by the Minister who hopes other local authorities will consider doing the same
Yours sincerely
　
Scrutiny, Democracy & Participation Team"

It looks to me like my concerns were neatly side-stepped, I am beginning to wonder what the point of the Welsh Government is if they have no power, nor inclination, to intervene when a local authority behaves in this manner towards the electorate.

Carmarthenshire planning complaints - double the Welsh average

2011-10-23T22:44:00.000+01:00

I note, from the Ombudsman's 'annual letter' (2010-2011) that complaints about Carmarthenshire's Planning Services are nearly double the Welsh national average, for the second year running. If my email inbox is anything to go by, I am not surprised.

The figure (20) is of course tempered by fluctuations in the number upheld, partially upheld, dismissed etc. In fact, the Ombudsman's office is particularly proud of it's 'Complaints Advice Team' which aims to 'close investigations early', ie 'nip that one in the bud'. Anyone familiar with the whole turgid procedure knows that before you get anywhere near the ombudsman you have to go through the various debilitating stages of complaint with the council itself. The first line of defence (for that is the impression), in planning anyway, is the local planning office - if that fails you then you are referred to the Head/Director of the department. The final stage is to take your complaint to the Chief Executive. Of course, your complaint may be well dealt with successfully and off you go happy and content. If not, and after expending copious amounts of blood, sweat and tears and you still retain the will to live, you can then approach the ombudsman. By then though you may written a letter or two and been classed, (if not actually placed on the now all encompassing Unreasonable Complainants Policy) as a 'pain in the a**'. This label well may be conveyed either directly, or subliminally, to the ombudsman. You are now on the back foot. The next nightmare is to get the ombudsman to actually investigate your complaint, let alone uphold it.

The point I am trying to make is that if Carmarthenshire's figures are nearly double the Welsh average, that's is certainly saying something.

The last meeting of the Council's Standards Committee 'recieved' the ombudsman's report. Did anyone raise the issue of these figures? Did anyone say 'what's up with planning?' or were they happily fobbed off with 'oh well planning is always controversial' or 'complaints are high because we have an excellent, well publicised complaints procedure'? (The latter is a common excuse but in the several years I have been observing these things, I have not noticed any effort by the Council to improve or raise 'awareness' of the complaints system, in fact I've noticed quite the reverse).

Anyway, according to the minutes of the meeting, no one said a dickie bird.

As we now go into the next year's raft of planning complaints, I hear the ombudsman is already quite busy, I also know there have been several complaints made to the Welsh Government and a fair number are currently languishing with the Wales Audit Office. We now have a new Minister in control of planning, I wonder how many 'smoking guns' he'll need before stepping in? More than the previous Minister? Are those alarm bells ringing yet Mr Griffiths?

(Ombudsman's Annual Summary of Performance 2010-11)

Wales Blog Awards - today's Carmarthen Journal

2011-10-19T11:30:00.000+01:00

Pleased to see great article by @AlexMurraySmith in today's Carmarthen Journal about my nomination for the Wales Blog Awards, the finals will be on the 27th October;

Council Critic now running for top award

(Link to Wales Blog Awards)

Also in today's Journal is a letter from another Carmarthenshire resident equally concerned about the way things are heading within our council;

"Dear Editor
In common with other local authorities, clubs, societies and countries, Carmarthenshire has a constitution which sets out who is responsible for what and the rules by which the County Council runs its business.
This document is only a few years old, and it is therefore surprising to find that it has nevertheless been subject to frequent changes.
In most democratic institutions, constitutional changes are not undertaken lightly and are rare or infrequent events, and countries which frequently change their rule books are usually banana republics and dictatorships.
The declared aims of Carmarthenshire’s constitution are to set out "how decisions are made and the procedures which are followed to ensure that these are efficient, transparent and accountable to local people." In reality, what we have seen is a sustained assault on the principles of democratic accountability, with more and more powers being delegated by elected councillors to unelected officers, and a steady flow of rule changes designed to silence criticism and reduce transparency.
I could quote many examples, but four are enough to give readers a flavour of what has been happening, usually unreported and with little or no public debate.

1. Rules allowing the votes of councillors in committees to be recorded were abolished, and only councillors who specifically request to have their votes recorded now have their names noted. In practice this means that councillors who do not wish to let their electors know how they voted on controversial matters (e.g. major planning applications) can effectively vote anonymously.

2.The council’s Executive Board approved proposals to sell one of the Newcastle Emlyn’s public car parks without consulting the Town Council or any local residents or businesses. Protesters were told that the rules had been changed, and that consultation was no longer necessary.

3.Planning officers are to be given more powers to decide applications without referring them to elected councillors.

4.Recently several motions submitted by opposition councillors critical of various aspects of the way the council is run, including cuts to services for the elderly, have been rejected and debate not allowed.

This has been done under the Constitution which gives powers to the Chief Executive and the Council Chair to decide what may or may not be discussed. To make it even harder for such motions to be heard, more rule changes are now being brought in, raising the thresholds needed and so ensuring minority voices will be silenced.

The net impact of these changes is to undermine local democracy and make it harder and harder for voters to hold the council to account because real power is being concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite of officers we cannot vote out."

There is also a letter published today by Carmarthenshire County Councillor Sian Caiach who I have mentioned in several recent posts;
Our group is being silenced
and a further article on the changes to the constitution approved last Wednesday - nine of the councillors voted agasinst (including two from People First), so that's seven more than usual, and nine abstained - all from Plaid, I believe - is there a wind of change in the air? Another 53 to go though; http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Members-vote-rid-party-motion-rights/story-13598064-detail/story.html

Council scare tactics..oh, and three excited Councillors

2011-10-18T15:09:00.001+01:00

I read in today's Evening Post that Cllr Sian Caiach is under fire again, this time for having the temerity to object to the council's proposals to build a new primary school in Furnace, Llanelli. This is all part of the Modernising Education Policy and the objections (a parent governor has also objected) will mean the decision will be referred to Leighton Andrews at the Welsh Assembly.

I am not familiar with the situation in Llanelli or how popular, or not, the proposals are. I am more interested by the threats made by the Chief Executive that if interested parties exercise their right to formally object to Statutory proposals put forward by the council, the Welsh Assembly will get fed up with waiting and withdraw the funding, funding which has already been made available. As a 'call-in' such as this is part of a legally binding process this seems unlikely and maybe even unlawful, and is typical of the scare tactics used to drive through controversial council proposals with negligible consultation.
Cllr Caiach said that she felt the Council failed to consult people properly over it's plans and there were many concern about the project.

This, of course, has a very familiar ring to those opposing the closure of Pantecelyn Secondary school and the decision to build a new one 15 miles away in Llandeilo. Formal objections have been made regarding the closure and, as long as we can trust the impartiality of the Welsh Government, this decision will now be called in and a fair review of the Council procedures etc undertaken, presumably without Mr Andrews getting stroppy and taking the money 'off the table'.

The objectors to the Furnace proposals however, will now be 'written to', urging them to withdraw their concerns. I wonder if anyone will have letters from the council asking them to withdraw objections to the closure of Pantecelyn, that would be interesting! Of course, in Llandovery there were no awkward county councillors, all remained completely silent in the face of public opposition and supported the council's decision to close the school. Apparently they excused themselves by quoting the code of conduct and if they uttered one word about it, they wouldn't be able to discuss the planning application at a later date. However, this was no reason not to publicly oppose the closure of the school and would only apply, perhaps, to the siting of the new one. (see many previous posts)

Concerns over issues of partiality do not appear to have troubled other county councillors. I was quite amazed to read, in the council's media pages, the hearty endorsement and gushing devotion to Tesco Stores Plc expressed by the Executive Board Member for planning, Cllr Clive Scourfield and the barely contained excitement of Cllrs Pat Jones and Stephen James as they met with Tesco representatives to discuss the arrival of the store in Burry Port. Tesco have already been chosen as the preferred retailer by the Council when they sold the land earlier this year (another Executive Board decision). I do not live in Burry Port and as far as I know the entire town is clamouring for a giant Tesco, who knows?
According to Cllr Scourfield, they're positively champing at the bit;
"This is wonderful and long awaited news for Burry Port that will help enrich and develop the community",

Cllr Jones similarly enthuses; "I am excited Tesco are engaging with the community, planning a two-day public consultation about their proposals in the coming weeks to bring the community on board with the wonderful development."

Cllr James gushes; "Attracting Tesco is a really bonus. It will do wonders for the vibrancy and economic wellbeing of Burry Port. Our town and its people are really deserving of an enhanced shopping opportunity..."

An 'enhanced shopping opportunity'? 'enriching the community'? Where on earth has all this eloquent spin come from? The Tesco rep no doubt.
I wonder if Tesco will be successful in obtaining full planning permission? Sounds like they most certainly will doesn't it? I realise that, rather like the proposed Sainsbury's for Llandeilo, local opinions are split on the impending arrival of giant superstores but one would hope that the those making decisions about privately run enterprises would be a little more objective. By the way, a Google search for 'Tesco planning tactics' throws up some interesting results...

The three excited councillors

Update 19th October;
Just adding this post from Y Cneifiwr, another 'must read'; Foregone Conclusions

Taking Stock of Democracy Week...and more FoI requests

2011-10-16T23:16:00.000+01:00

As Carmarthenshire Council's 'Local Democracy Week' fizzles to an ignominious end, and is probably best quickly forgotten, I wonder whether anyone in County Hall will take stock of it's success? I doubt if anyone could care less. Naturally it will have cost money and, as a European 'initiative' maybe they even received funding, who knows. Anyway, predictably, the week was marked by further reducing the power of elected members; a public attack on two councillors; the continued appallingly unwelcome treatment of visitors to the public gallery and the bizarre and embarrassing Twitter experiment. All of which I have mentioned in the previous couple of blogposts. (including here)
Was there any evidence that younger people were more 'engaged' with local politics? Do the Council care? The answer is no to both. The announcement of a 'poster competition' to promote the May elections is hardly groundbreaking. In fact, if any more powers are delegated to senior officers it will become pointless having an election next May, the way things are going, the £1.3m a year it costs to keep 74 councillors might as well be spent elsewhere - perhaps a full body scanner for members of the public entering County Hall? with cattle prods for the guards in case they go astray?

The twitter experiment was a perfect opportunity for the council to directly communicate with people. Perfectly reasonable questions were asked, yet whoever was controlling the account (and I don't think it was Cllr Pam Palmer) completely failed to recognise the opportunity, or maybe suddenly realised the alarming possibility of critical tweets and lack of control - clearly the expensively well staffed press office couldn't handle that. Then again, perhaps it was the impossibility of providing a succinct 'council-speak' answer in 140 characters which was the problem. As the press office itself is on twitter, perhaps tweeters should be directing enquiries towards them? (@CarmsCCPress) Does the Council realise that even Freedom of Information requests can now be made via twitter etc? The Council also have a Facebook page of course, crammed with press releases, there is a comment facility, but surprise surprise, this facility is not available to me. Perhaps the other 'ignored' tweeters should try and pose their questions on there?

On the subject of FoI requests, I have asked a couple more.
The Western Mail reports today on Pembrokeshire Council's £15m credit card bill and the Daily Telegraph has been collecting data for sometime on UK figures and so far, there is nothing listed for Carmarthenshire. I can understand there will be advantages to this method of payment, especially to small local suppliers struggling with cashflow who will receive their money a lot quicker than by invoicing the council. The downside, according to the newspaper articles, is excessive use and lack of control. I am requesting the information on the basis that 'open data' means greater transparency, increased accountability, the possibility of public scrutiny, and maybe more thoughtful spending in the first place.

My second request follows on from this one, ('Just the Ticket') which is now the subject of an internal review. I am now requesting the Members' Registers of interest, gifts and hospitality. As several Welsh Councils already publish this information on their websites I am hoping for a positive response. I am aware that these registers are (or were, anyway) available for inspection, by prior arrangement and appointment, at County Hall - although it is a little difficult to establish this as the appropriate links on their very shaky website pointing to this information have been broken for months. As these registers are within the Council's FoI 'Publication Scheme', good practice should indicate that information within the Scheme be as widely available as possible and in this modern world, which has so troubled Carmarthenshire Council, this should include 'online'.

I trust the Council's 'Core Values' of openness, honesty and transparency will prevail, and, as this is an officer-led authority, that the review of my request for 'officers' interests' will result in a much more complete (as far as possible) disclosure.

And a very interesting article from tonight's Daily Telegraph; Council bosses use credit cards to fund lavish lifestyles

Local Democracy Week; Carmarthenshire Council and #pambot

2011-10-12T20:58:00.003+01:00

Carmarthenshire County Council circa. 2011

Before I turn to 'Local Democracy Week', a few points of interest from today's full council meeting (yes I had to sign the undertaking again). And, incidentally, one of the councillors asked whether she would have to sign the undertaking to access the Public Gallery, she didn't, so I am not sure what that's all about! She also asked what the meeting record was for using the two members of staff to 'escort' the public up and down from the gallery, 18 times apparently for one planning committee meeting. This is a farcical situation.
Anyway, back to the meeting, Chaired of course by the Chief Executive and occasionally by Cllr Ivor Jackson.
There were many self-congratulations over the latest Audit Report but the Plaid leader did manage to point out that if you turned to page two there were a raft of recommendations for improvement. And there was no mention of this either.

The £2.3m overspend in Social Services was mentioned but seemed to be adequately dealt with by several more pats on the back and lengthy speeches by both Cllr Gravell and Cllr Kevin Madge (I though there was a time limit?) Cllr Gravell managed to have another swipe at the Councillors and campaigners who managed to keep the care homes open but failed to mention the herd of Council concieved white elephants plundering the public purse, Garnant Golf Course being the latest in a long and unstoppable line.

The Chief Executive spoke at some length regarding the Single Status pay and conditions issue and (after more back patting) announced that 99.9% of employees had agreed to the terms, (see previous posts) I suppose there's one stubborn soul somewhere they're in the process of breaking.

The vote on the changes to the constitution came next, passed with a majority, despite several opposition councillors expressing their deep concerns over the dire state of democracy in the council, one said, "To remove the right of an individual councillor to bring motions to council is attacking democracy and a blow to the freedom of the individual." Further power is now delegated to the Chief Executive and Councillors will now only be able to put forward a proposal (Motion) if at least seven others support it, effectively cutting out the minority voice. Shameful.

Interestingly though, the amendment did not appear to be backdated and Cllr Arthur Davies has again put forward a motion of No Confidence in the leader Meryl Gravell - unless the Junta can come up with another excuse to block it, it may be on the agenda for the next full council meeting in November. Watch this space.

Lastly, someone asked whether, prior to the planning committee on the 15th September, a 'pre-meeting' was held between the Independent and Labour group to arrange to vote against (and vote politically) the controversial supermarket application in Newcastle Emlyn. The eminent members were shocked and rose their feet to deny that this sort of thing even happens (yeah right), even Exec board member Cllr Pam Palmer felt compelled to deny rumours (apparently heard in the gents toilet - what??) that such things happen, in fact she said that if she were going to do something like that she'd use the phone. (she hurriedly retracted this freudian slip by the way)

Please do go and read Y Cneifiwr's excellent account of today's ridiculous farce; Council of despair Part 1. Which reminded me about Cllr Wooldridge's thoroughly nauseating ramble about his (and Mr Sully's) trip to see royalty.
And now (13th Oct) we have Council of Despair Part 2 - Brilliant!

With some excitement that Carmarthenshire Council were forging ahead into the modern world, some of us Carmarthenshire tweeters noticed on Monday that the aforementioned Exec Board member Cllr @PamPalmerCCC was on twitter (for a week).
It's all part of 'Local Democracy Week', apparently, where youngsters are encouraged to engage with local politics and I presume, democracy is generally promoted. Naturally a very worthy cause. Unless it is in the hands of the increasingly undemocratic Carmarthenshire Council of course. I wonder whether the unsuspecting Cllr Pam Palmer even knew she was on twitter 'micro-blogging' as they put it, so far we have had a handful of very carefully crafted, and perfectly bilingual council PR tweets straight from the press office I suspect.

Several of us tried to 'engage' with the 'tweeting' councillor, whose extensive portfolio includes 'Communications' and 'Modernising local government' (some of you may remember he good lady from the 8th June #daftarrest incident when she famously asked, in a Chamber largely occupied by middle-aged/elderly men, whether 'permission was needed to film children'), anyway we asked a few democracy related questions. Nothing. Not a tweet back to anyone. Even the press office failed to come to her rescue. Another PR disaster.

The lesson that should be learnt is that if you have no real intention of embracing the spirit of democracy, the worst thing you can do is pretend.

Fellow Carmarthenshire bloggers have also commented on Cllr Palmer (or #pambot as we have given her as a handy hashtag);
http://cneifiwr-emlyn.blogspot.com/2011/10/modernising-local-government.html
http://towy71.blogspot.com/2011/10/pambot-on-twitter.html

Update 13th October; Excellent post from @mjmilan; The Strange Case of the #pambot

Petitions Committee call for evidence

2011-10-12T20:58:00.002+01:00

My petitions were, of course, for the filming of council meetings and the publication of local authority spending details over £500. The petitions committee at the Senedd has written to the local papers (not sure if it appears elsewhere) including the South Wales Evening Post and the Carmarthen Journal asking for interested parties and individuals to submit evidence for consideration by November 3rd. (number 3. is not mine);

"The Petitions Committee of the Assembly has recently received petitions on wind turbines, the filming of council meetings and local authority spending. These petitions have now finished collecting signatures and are before the Petitions Committee for consideration. We are interested in receiving views from individuals, groups and organisations on the subjects of these petitions. They are as follows:

1. Filming and recording of council meetings. This petition calls for councils across the country to allow the public to film proceedings. We would like to know whether it is felt that the actions called for in the petition are reasonable and/or feasible.

2. Local authority spending details over £500. This petition calls for details of local authority expenditure over £500 to be made public. Do your readers feel that this information should be published? If so, should this be mandatory or encouraged as best practice? What barriers could there be to providing this information publicly? Do people feel that £500 and over is the appropriate level of spend to be published?

3. Control of noise nuisance from wind turbines. This petition calls for restrictions on the noise caused by wind turbines in Wales. We would like to know what the public and those with particular knowledge of wind energy have to say about this issue.

Any views received will be used as evidence by the Petitions Committee in its consideration of the petitions — and I would just like to emphasise that we are looking for evidence on the subjects of these petitions, rather than support, or otherwise, for them.

If your readers would like to submit evidence, we would be grateful to receive it by November 3. Further guidance on the submission of evidence can be found at http://www.senedd.assemblywales.org/

William Powell
Chair Petitions Committee
National Assembly for Wales"

Just the Ticket

2011-10-11T19:27:00.000+01:00

Well I finally had a response to my request for 'officers' interests' (last mentioned here) which can be viewed here;
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/senior_council_officers_register#incoming-217318
(you will have to open the link to the PDF document.)
The response was nearly a month late, I am not sure what they've been doing to come up with such a poor response, I have requested a review as they do not appear to have read my request correctly, I asked for business interests as well, not just a list of 'gifts and hospitality'.
As for the information which was supplied I am not sure whether the Director of Regeneration should really have accepted an invitation from Mott Macdonald (consultants to the Council) to attend 'with hospitality', the FA Cup final in Wembley in 2008 even if he was 'representing the Chief Executive'. Neither am I sure he should be accepting hospitality from a firm of property developers to attend an Ospreys v Scarlets rugby match in 2007.
You will notice there is quite a theme of rugby running through the document, with particular connections to the Scarlets and the WRU, it was nice of the Chief Executive to give the Head of Finance two tickets to see the Scarlets play Connaught in 2008. The Director of Resources, whilst a Scarlets season ticket holder (another common theme) must also like a game of footie, he enjoyed the hospitality (VIP no less) of the Football Association Wales at the Wales v Estonia match at the Parc Y Scarlets in 2009. Mind you, earlier that year the Head of Corporate Property gratefully accepted two tickets for the Wales v Ireland rugby international from David Pickering (WRU). The Head of Housing and the Head of Social Services both enjoyed tickets ('plus lunch') to a Wales v Australia International courtesy of the CEO of another consultancy, must have been a jolly day out.
I could go on and on but I suggest you look yourself, (and of course, the Chief Executive has had his fair share of free tickets to see the national sport including an invite in 2009 to a Wales v Ireland match at the Millenium Stadium in 2009 and, of course, a few visits to Parc Y Scarlets).

I suppose these are perks of the job, and I have a feeling they may have left a few out but I'll never know, and as long as they are 'declared' it's all ok then. But one should, for just one example, remember the protracted, controversial and continuing planning issue over the new Scarlets stadium/Stradey development as well as the continued taxpayers bailout of the new stadium itself. (as ever, please use the searchbox on the right).

Clearly, the way to a senior Council officer's heart, in Wales anyway, is the tempting offer of rugby tickets.

Councillors warned for trying doing their job

2011-10-06T23:36:00.000+01:00

Disturbing news has reached me that an attempt is being made to restrict the actions of a tiny minority of county councillors who are becoming more vocal in challenging the undemocratic way this council is run. They have recognised, and tried to stand up to this officer led regime. Also the press seemed to have recieved a copy of this letter (below) before Cllr Caiach, and the first she knew about it was when a reporter phoned this morning and asked her for a comment. Arthur Davies had not been sent a copy despite featuring in the letter and listed as a recipient. He had to go to County Hall to get one.
I have been asked to reproduce the letter which I am happy to do as it is widely believed by those who know the two councillors concerned to be an unwarranted step to prevent them questioning procedure and representing the wider concerns of all residents of the county.

Cllr Caiach has stated;

"For information, the time the Chief Executive reported Arthur Davies to the ombudsman [2005 ish] was for the offence of speaking on a planning issue while unaware that his brother in law had written a letter of objection - at that time he needed to check all objections for people he knew. This, under the new rules would probably not be regarded as prejudicial.
It is true that I recently asked the new acting head of the legal department what her legal qualifications were, She has not replied.
What sort of democracy is it when an unelected officer arranges total supervision of our contact with all council officers and appoints himself as arbiter of what he will allow us to do and has restricted the actions of 2 councillors and their ability to represent their electorate"

I am sure there will be plenty of comment but I would just like to add that if these two councillors are really using up more officer time than the remaining 71 put together, then, to my mind, it begs the question as to what exactly the other 71 are doing?

(previous posts include; http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/10/council-motion-blocked-by-chief.html and please use the searchbox on the right eg Cllr Sian Caiach)

Must just add this excellent post from Y Cneifiwr on the many changes to Carmarthenshire's Constitution and the erosion of democracy; Tweaking the Rules - Subversive Questions (with the next batch of 'amendments' coming up for approval at next Wednesday's full council meeting) ...and an interesting cost cutting move from Wiltshire, courtesy of the BBC; Wiltshire Council to axe Chief Executive in 'radical' restructure

Update 10th October;
WalesOnline; http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/10/10/rude-and-aggressive-councillor-and-people-first-colleague-told-to-lay-off-staff-91466-29567299/

Oh the Irony

2011-10-05T14:28:00.000+01:00

Further to last week's post about my petitions at the Welsh Assembly, there is an article in today's Carmarthen Journal. I am very pleased to see that the irony has not been lost on them!

'Web petition handover is shown online

IT was not without a sense of irony that Jacqui Thompson watched her petition being handed into the Welsh Assembly live on the internet last week.
She was watching a live web-cast of a meeting of the Welsh Assembly's petitions panel.
Mrs Thompson, from Llanwrda, handed over a 233-name document calling for Carmarthenshire Council to record and broadcast its own meetings — the very system with which she watched the action in Cardiff Bay.
She said: "I was quite pleased with the reaction it received from the people on the committee.
"I had the pleasure of watching it on the web, broadcast on their website. They seem to do most of their meetings like that."
She said the petition would now be passed on to Minister Carl Sargeant with a recommendation from the committee.
Mrs Thompson added: "Carl Sargeant has previously said these things are up to the councils themselves. I am hoping now he'll say something more positive."
The petition was started after Mrs Thompson was refused the right to film meetings of Carmarthenshire Council and its planning committee.
In June, she was arrested and led away in handcuffs after refusing to stop filming a meeting. She was later released without being charged. The council has always said filming and recording meetings is prohibited'
Carmarthen Journal 5th October

Council Motion Blocked by Chief Executive

2011-10-05T11:08:00.000+01:00

Further to Monday's post Motion of no confidence in Meryl I hear that Cllr Arthur Davies, the proposer, recieved an email this morning from Chief Executive Mark James blocking the motion. Sadly I am not surprised that, given a couple of days, a way would be found to get round this. It would seem the Leader is being protected.
Cllr Davies' colleague, Cllr Caiach, responds;

"Cllr Arthur Davies received an email this morning from chief executive Mark James saying that he is rejecting the motion of no confidence in the council leader because some of the matters raised in Cllr Davies' motion will be discussed later in the same meeting.

It for the chair to decide what is acceptable and legal .I have never heard such a pathetic excuse to reject a properly constituted motion submitted in good time.

What is relevant is that although he offers Cllr Arthur Davies the opportunity of putting the motion in again next month, the council will be asked by Cllr Gravell to change the rules of debate this month to increase the number of proposers of a single motion to at least 7 councillors. Mark James is counting on Cllr Davies not being able to get six signatories behind him next month.

Mark James has his salary reviewed by the leader and Meryl Gravell is responsible for him earning more than Carwyn Jones and also for the best paid directors of services in Wales with all of them over £100,000 p a.

Carmarthenshire has become a dictatorship. There is no point in having elected councillors if the rules change at the whim of the Chief Executive.

Where else would an unelected chief executive refuse to allow the councillors to debate a vote of no confidence. I understand his loyalty to his cash cow, Meryl Gravell, but where is democracy?"

Following on from 'In the shadows of County Hall' Cllr Caiach has had a charming response to her complaint from the acting Head of Law and Monitoring Officer, Carmarthenshire Council. Cllr Caiach has as you will read below, replied.

Dear Cllr. Caiach,
This is not a Monitoring Officer matter.

The Business Management Group (known at one time as the "Modernising Local Government Group") is an informal Advisory Panel appointed by the Executive Board and advises on constitutional, modernising and housekeeping issues. It has 6 members (and 3 permanent substitutes). Although it does not need to be, it is in fact politically balanced. Sorry to be so blunt, but with your group being so small you would not be represented on it.

You are not "disenfranchised" in that the BMG has no decision making powers in that it merely "advises" the Executive Board. Constitutional reform is a Council function and whilst the Executive Board can make recommendations to the Council on constitutional matters the actual decisions can only be taken by the Council, so your group has its say and vote at full Council.

You are not "discriminated" against nor are your "human rights" breached in that it is the small size of your group which stops you from having representation on it, not any discriminatory practices.

Linda Rees-Jones
Acting Head of Administration & Law

and the reply;
　
Dear Ms Rees Jones,

Thank you for your reply. I am seriously concerned that you dismiss Human Rights Law and discrimination so casually and even refer to human rights in inverted commas. In my own profession, as a forensic physician, which is governed by the Human Rights Act, a written statement by myself which mentioned human rights in such a fashion would lead to severe reprimand not only by my superiors but by any defence counsel or judge in any case where I gave evidence.

It is interesting that the group apparently does not make decisions other than the decision on how to advise the executive. However, in council minutes there has never been to my recollection a case of their advice being rejected, simply a record that they have requested or formulated whatever to be done and it has been agreed. If they are merely advisory there must be many occasions where their advice has been amended or rejected and I would like some exemplar minutes to show that their advice is debated and not simply accepted every time.
I would like to see the documentation of the Modernising Local Government Group, how it was constituted and the minutes of the meeting at which it was formed as well as any mention of timescale and review period.

Also can I see the documentation of the name change to BMG and the council minutes related to this, whether there was any change of remit etc or change of composition.

Is there a chair of this group who delivers the report to cabinet and does the chair stay the same or rotate and if there is one, who is it? When I have observed the executive board meetings the reports of the BMG are not formerly presented there by a representative of the BMG. When does this happen?

Could you please list all the members of the BMG and state which officers attend the meetings. Is a legal representative present who checks the legality and probity of what is discussed?
If the meetings are not minuted how do the members scrutinise what is being passed on to the executive board?.

What is the legal position under local government law on advisory bodies set up in this manner which consist of members of the council who are not specifically elected to these posts by the full council. Who appoints the members of this group?

This group is using public funds, is unrepresentative, probably in reality does make decisions as I am unaware of incidences where its advice has been rejected by the Executive Boards, and is discriminatory to individual councillors and small groups.

Finally, addressing you as Monitoring Officer, please make a statement on your own position as regards the Human Rights Act 1998 and exactly how you see this legislation impacting on a county council. You imply that a small group has less rights in your eyes than a large group and I presume therefore that unaffiliated members are similarly regarded by you, Madame Monitoring Officer? At what level of number of councillors do legal Human Rights become significant to our monitoring officer? Also, what is your consideration of the rights of the several thousand electors that myself and cllrs A.Davies and John Jenkins represent?

Cllr Sian Caiach
Leader
People First Group

Motion of no confidence in Meryl

2011-10-03T18:49:00.000+01:00

It has been brought to my attention that Cllr Arthur Davies (People First) has delivered a motion of no confidence in the Leader of Carmarthenshire Council Meryl Gravell ('Independent'). It has, I believe, been accepted as valid for inclusion in the Agenda for the full council meeting on Wednesday, October 12th (10am County Hall).

I assume there will be a vote and it will be very interesting to see how it goes. I have no further details at the moment as the agenda has yet to be published. I also wonder which way the Plaid members will vote this time? Ten years ago she survived a previous no confidence vote with their support. Regular readers of this blog will know how I would vote, if I could. This meeting will be unmissable for Caebrwyn and really ought to be recorded for posterity.

Meryl under Fire

UPDATE 5th October; Council Motion blocked by Chief Executive surprise surprise,

Filming meetings - A ray of hope from Pembrokeshire?

2011-10-01T21:02:00.002+01:00

Have just noticed this rather positive article from today's Western Telegraph, fingers crossed that these discussions over the county border will prove fruitful! Hopefully the next door neighbours, Carmarthenshire Council will take note;

Pembrokeshire County Council will discuss future filming of meetings

"Members of the public could be allowed to film County Council meetings in the future.
Proposals to allow filming by the public, or to introduce web cams to the council chamber will be discussed as part of Pembrokeshire County Council’s new constitution.
Councillor David Howlett had submitted a notice of motion to the Corporate Governance Committee that;

“members of the public be allowed to film public council meetings as long as they do not impede or obstruct proceedings”.

In June, a member of the public was arrested for filming a Carmarthenshire Council meeting on her mobile phone.

Cllr Howlett said that allowing the public to film meetings would add “confidence, transparency and openness” as the council “moved with the times.”

Council leader, Councillor John Davies, agreed that it was reflection of the changes in how people communicate.
He agreed that the matter be further discussed as part of constitutional changes with a “positive marker at this point that we accept the principle of what the notice of motion intends to achieve”.

(Source; Western Telegraph)

I am trying to monitor developments regarding the filming of meetings from around the 22 Welsh local authorities as well as the National Parks and would be grateful if any sharp-eyed, agenda- reading observers could let me know of any progress in their area - in case I miss it.

Wales Blog Awards 2011 - Caebrwyn Shortlisted!

2011-10-01T13:28:00.000+01:00

I feel very honoured, and delighted, to have been shortlisted as a finalist for the Wales Blog Awards 2011 in the political blog category. Many thanks to those who nominated me.

The final will be held on the 27th October and this year features an online *Peoples Choice* vote as well, also to be found on the website. voting closes on the 21st October.

Good luck to all the finalists.

In the Shadows of County Hall

2011-09-30T08:01:00.000+01:00

I have, over time, whilst trawling through council documents and agendas noticed mysterious 'referrals' from the 'Business Management Group'. It sounded, by the title, to be like some sort of financial advisory team and I gave it little thought. A few weeks ago though it came to my attention that it is actually a rather select group of party leaders and senior officers of Carmarthenshire County Council who conduct regular meetings and make decisions and recommendations. There are, apparently, no minutes, just 'decision notes' and they report to the equally 'select' Executive Board.
Not only does this group appear to operate independently of full council but, as Cllr Sian Caiach points out, it is possibly discriminatory, not even representative of all the groups and Members. Neither does it appear in the Political, nor the Organisational Management Structure sections of the Constitution. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that yet again the undemocratic and shadowy way this council is run is brought into question.

Cllr Caiach has made a complaint to the Monitoring Officer;

"I would like to make a complaint about the Business Management Group who appear to be a body which is not constituted as part of the Council. This group's composition appears to be officers of the council and the leaders and deputy leaders of the three large political groups and excludes my own small group and other unaffiliated independent members. I do not know how and when and by whom this group was formed but I have never been invited to a meeting or contacted for my opinion on the matters discussed.

I believe this group acts in a discriminatory fashion as it does not consist of representatives of the whole council body and makes recommendations and decisions without consulting or being answerable to the members outside the main groups.

I am told there are no minutes, only decision notes and the group reports to the executive board.
All participants in this group are supported by public funding.

Clearly there is always concern where political groups and officers meet in a manner which excludes other elected members. This disenfranchises not only the members concerned but also their electorate. It gives unfair advantage to the large political groups and does not consult beyond the membership of those groups.

You do not need to be reminded of human rights legislation as it applies to representative elected bodies. The Human Rights Act 1998 Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) is quite clear that there should be no discrimination against person or persons on the grounds of their politics or that they are a minority.

It appears to me that this group could be practising misfeasance in public office by limiting its membership in a discriminatory manner. Please investigate this complaint.
Leader, People First Group
cc Public Service Ombudsman (for information)
District Auditor

Update; 5th October; http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/10/council-motion-blocked-by-chief.html

What's a few £million?

2011-09-29T22:22:00.001+01:00

The next meeting of the Audit Committee will be 'signing off' the council's accounts, drafts of which were prepared earlier this year. An entry for Cwm Environmental Ltd caught my eye. This is a subsidiary waste management company of Carmarthenshire Council (which I have mentioned before) running as a private concern and registered as such at Company House. Anyway, under the inoccuous heading 'Summary of corrections made to the draft financial statement' (by the Wales Audit office) was this;

"Value [of correction]; £4,639,000
The net assets of Cwm Environmental Ltd disclosed in the draft financial statements were amended from £351,000 to £4,990,000"

(link to report)

Now I am not an accountant but even to me this seems an alarming 'correction'. To explain the significance of the £4.6m difference I did the sensible thing and asked an accountant. A quick glance at the last set of accounts of Cwm Environmental (December 2010) clearly shows the net assets as £4,990,000 and this is the figure that Carmarthenshire's accountants should have used - we can only wonder where the figure of £351,000 came from - perhaps they haven't looked at the accounts of their subsidiary for several years? Who knows.

The other point is, does it matter? Well for a 'correction' of this magnitude to be necessary one wonders how many other 'errors' go unnoticed. And is it material to the Council's income? According to the audit office this amount is under the figure they deem material, ie which could mislead the reader or have an adverse effect; their limits are £5.7m for income/expenditure items and working capital balances and £14.5m for other balances (other issues such as legal requirements or political sensitivity are also considered)

So that's that then, even if, at nearly £5m, it's nearly 8% of the projected council tax reciepts for the forthcoming year. It seems material to me. But what's a few million?

My friend would like to know, and so would I, how on earth such an easily verifiable material error has been overlooked by both Carmarthenshire Council's own finance staff and the Auditors until now??

And another excellent post from Y Cneifiwr; Culling the White Elephants - An Armchair Auditor Writes which includes yesterday's press release from Mr Pickles and the Council code for transparency..in England; http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/localgovernment/transparencycode

Round of Golf? That'll be £200k please...and other news

2011-09-28T15:23:00.000+01:00

I see from today's Carmarthen Journal that the council have finally, after a year, managed to offload the failing Garnant Golf Club after rejecting 23 other offers. It hasn't come cheap and will cost the taxpayer £200,000 over three years;

'as part of its 25-year lease, Clay's will not pay rent for six years, and give back a percentage of the profits after that. The council is to pay the company £80,000 a year for the first two years, and £40,000 the third, which is what it estimates running costs at the club will be'

It makes you wonder what possessed them to build it in the first place but that was back in the heady days of 1992 - maybe there are more appropriate places than the golf course to conduct council business these days - rugby stadiums perhaps?

I see that our Council Leader, Cllr M Gravell is fretting about the £2 million overspend in the social care department. So concerned is she that she is taking the unprecedented step of appealing to the Plaid group in the council for 'ideas' on how to deal with it. So unprecedented is this plea that one feels slightly suspicious that political tactics are afoot. With Meryl's worries that Plaid may make gains in next years local elections, and the retirement of Executive Board member Cllr Hugh Evans announced today, her hold on the Executive Board may be under threat - what better way to avoid such a catastrophe than to lovingly embrace the opposition in preparation for another Meryl Gravell administration. Maybe a better deal on the golf club may have helped or perhaps a rethink over the £200,000 going to the Botanic Garden over the next couple of years or even the £1m to the evangelical bowling alley. To name but three.

The continuing pattern of offloading council services by bunging a few quid in the direction of community councils or the 'third sector' (or 'local volunteers' as they're known) continues apace. As they wash their hands of the public toilets, the elderly day centres, luncheon clubs and the libraries (and credit goes to local people who have taken over the responsibilites) it looks, from the next education scrutiny meeting, like the mobile library service could be under threat. I do not doubt that a review of the service is probably a good idea - to make it better of course, but once they use words such as 'streamlining' and 're-structuring' you can guess what's happening;
'There are currently five mobile libraries within the fleet; continued sustainability at the current level will need to be considered'. And there's that word 'sustainable' again.
Personally, I don't think Carmarthenshire County Council, in it's present form, is sustainable - but who listens to me...
It would be a pity in this largely rural county with it's scattered remote hamlets to lose a service like this. I am sure they are aware of their legal obligations under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 to '..provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons desiring to make use thereof...'
There's a several legal challenges to library closures around at the moment and I am sure the council wouldn't want that.

I though perhaps Carmarthenshire Council may have celebrated International Right To Know Day by answering my most recent FoI request. Already two weeks late, it looks like I'll have to wait a few more days. But I have just heard my Subject Access Request is complete, (for information held about myself) but because of the quantity, I have to go to County Hall to pick it up, I shall go on Friday. Something for the weekend.
The subject of the FoI is to request the registers of business or other interests for senior council officers. Such openness is of course vitally important to ensure that the public have faith and trust in those charged with spending our money, there's nothing like a national scandal involving 'vested interests' to further erode the remaining scraps of faith lingering in our establishments.
My FoI request is not to 'expose' wrongdoing, but to continue to encourage an embryonic culture of openness, progress is being made in a scattering of English councils including Leeds amd Bolton. How much happier I would be to know that all is above board to start with, when, for example, the Council embark on their latest search for several construction firms to join the £100m four year 'framework' agreement; and delegated power is given to officers to award Assembly/euro business investment grants to the tune of £35,000 rather than, as previously, £5000.

I have been meaning to mention for some time just how lucky this council is compared to the London Borough of Barnet with it's small army of determined bloggers trying, with considerable success, to winkle out the usually elusive concepts of transparency and accountablility from their local authority. At least they have the presumption of 'localism' and Pickles-style council 'transparency' agenda on their side - something we could do with in Wales. Anyway, Carmarthenshire Council have little to worry about - so far. There are only a couple of us at the moment and they managed to have one of us locked up...and then locked out. Let's all take a lesson from the feisty Barnet bloggers and get writing!!
I particularly like Mrs Angry's letter to Mr Pickles; http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.com/2011/09/uncle-erics-citizen-samizdat-barnets.html If you're interested, have a search for them and be inspired!

Democracy in Action

2011-09-27T09:58:00.000+01:00

Well, I was very pleased with the Petition Committee's response to my petitions. (Filming meetings and publishing spending details over £500) Further evidence has been sought for both from the Minister for Local Government, Carl Sargeant which will be available by the 3rd November.
The Committee members recognised the significance of both petitions to bring further transparency and openness to local government and, if nothing else were considered 'sensible'. Good!
The Chairman stated that he had supported the Statement of Opinion previously signed by 15 Assembly members regarding filming. The success of Senedd TV in promoting accessibility and transparency of Assembly business could be mirrored accross Wales. Importantly the issue of free re-use of the material was recognised in bringing proceedings to a wider audience.
It was also recognised that the two petitions complemented each other; not only would people be aware of what is being spent but would also be able to see local authorities spending it (to a degree).
And the benefits of livestreaming? - I didn't have to go to Cardiff, I didn't have to wait two weeks for the 'minutes' and I could sit here with my coffee and watch democracy in action! Later on the meeting will be archived and I will be free to embed the video on my blog - which I will do.
Can't be bad.
I look forward, with slightly more optimism, as to how this will progress.

Here's the Meeting, my petitions start at 6 minutes 35 seconds into the proceedings;
http://www.senedd.tv/archiveplayer.jsf?v=en_200000_27_09_2011&t=0&l=en
or just click on the picture above.

(Have just done brief interview with Radio Carmarthenshire, to be broadcast (perhaps) at 1pm)

September 28th Carmarthen Journal; Council film plea debate

Carmarthenshire Solicitor Investigation Update

2011-09-26T15:50:00.000+01:00

(Police now investigating - see link at end of this post)

Updating my previous post (and reason for my interest in this) regarding John Owen Solicitors Llandeilo; whilst the facts and details of this case remain a matter of rumour and speculation, the the Solicitors Regulation Authority issued this report on the 23rd September outlining the reasons for closure of the office and suspension of Mr Owen's practicing certificate;

"On 15th September 2011, the Panel of Adjudicators Sub Committee resolved to intervene into the practice of William John Owen (85026) and Moreb Limited trading as John Owen Solicitors(329436), formerly based at Corner House, 6 Carmarthen Street, Llandeilo SA19 6AG.
In relation to both Mr William John Owen and Moreb Limited trading as John Owen Solicitors the grounds for intervention were that the Committee was satisfied that:

1. There was reason to suspect dishonesty;
2. There was a failure to comply with the Solicitors Code of Conduct 2007;
3. There was a failure to comply with the Solicitors Accounts Rules 1998 and;
4. It was necessary to exercise the intervention powers in order to protect the interests of clients (or former or potential clients) or the interests of the beneficiaries of any trust which Mr Owen or Moreb Ltd trading as John Owen Solicitors is or was a trustee.

By virtue of the intervention Mr Owen’s Practising Certificate has been suspended with immediate effect"
http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/solicitor-check/329436.article

Mr Owen has now resigned as Carmarthenshire coroner and the deputy coroner, Ms Pauline Mainwaring, from the same office, has been appointed by Carmarthenshire Council as an interim.

Update 27th September;
Looks like Dyfed Powys Police are now involved; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-15065729

'Police are working alongside the Solicitors Regulation Authority in their investigation into the former Carmarthenshire coroner.

Solicitor John Owen resigned as coroner last week after his practising certificate was suspended.
Dyfed-Powys Police confirmed they received a referral from the SRA which is now being evaluated'

Update 22nd December 2011; Mr Owen arrested. http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.com/2011/12/former-carmarthenshire-coroner-arrested.html

Carmarthenshire Planning Problems and more

Is Meryl Gravell's reign finally over?

Gardens and Thrones

More questions for Cwm Environmental Ltd

'One just can't get the staff these days...'

Welcoming Committee

Cwm Environmental - final response

Glossing over

Cast your vote on webcasting Carmarthenshire council meetings

Council Leader calls constituents 'rabble'

Council fined £3000 by Ombudsman....and FoI updates

Private Eye again! - and today's full Council meeting

Short and Snappy

You can tell there's an election on the way...

Transparency - Let's move forward, not back

The 'ideal world' of Carmarthenshire Council

A few thoughts...(while it's quiet)

New 'vision' for Carmarthenshire.....

Llanelli Town Council calls to scrap filming ban

Former Carmarthenshire Coroner arrested

Private Eye - Hat trick for Carmarthenshire Council!

Towy Community Church - Declarations of Interest

Mercy Me!

ICO, FOIs, CEOs and PCC

'Cut' - The Forbidden Word

Evangelical Alliance and the Towy Community Church continued..

Towy Community Church and Full Council Meeting

Pantycelyn Update

Access to emails....and a response to my RIPA request

The Sacred Parchments

The Runaway Train

The 'Magnolia Monstrosity'

Thought for the Day

Swansea Council to allow filming but doesn't go far enough

Carmarthenshire credit cards - Part two - Travel

Weird World of Carmarthenshire Consultations

Carmarthenshire Council credit card spending details

Defending Democracy....Cllr Caiach and more from the Carmarthen Journal

'Mrs T request - Register of Members' Interests'

Carmarthenshire Council in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs

The Council 'Minutes'....and no mention of Jacqui?!

Wales on Sunday reports on the Towy Community Church

I Have Issued Proceedings for Libel

#Daftarrest Parking Ticket

Filming and Spending petitions discussed at the Senedd

Public Gallery nonsense now with the Ombudsman...and FoI news

Do we want this in Carmarthen?

Council spends £100,000 on Private Detectives

Carl Sargeant to 'encourage' councils to allow filming

No round of applause for Jacqui

Even #dafter arrests in Wisconsin, USA

Chief Executive still blocking debate on future of Council leader

Fire hazards - complaint to the Council

Poetry Please

Transparency - Monmouthshire CC leading the way

Carmarthenshire democracy takes another turn for the worse

The Listening Council

Trapped in the stairwell....and today's meeting

Back to Business

Best Politics Blog - Wales Blog Awards 2011!

Councillor quits Plaid group over democracy...and round two of the golf club row

Transparency - One step forward and two steps back

Accessing the Public Gallery; Welsh Minister responds

Carmarthenshire planning complaints - double the Welsh average

Wales Blog Awards - today's Carmarthen Journal

Council scare tactics..oh, and three excited Councillors

Taking Stock of Democracy Week...and more FoI requests

Local Democracy Week; Carmarthenshire Council and #pambot

Petitions Committee call for evidence

Just the Ticket

Councillors warned for trying doing their job

Oh the Irony

Council Motion Blocked by Chief Executive

Motion of no confidence in Meryl

Filming meetings - A ray of hope from Pembrokeshire?

Wales Blog Awards 2011 - Caebrwyn Shortlisted!

In the Shadows of County Hall

What's a few £million?

Round of Golf? That'll be £200k please...and other news

Democracy in Action