Chief Officers and disciplinary procedures

An interesting snippet of legislation was laid down just before parliament dissolved the other day which removed the requirement to appoint a 'Designated Independent Person' (DIP) in disciplinary proceedings related to errant chief officers. However, it appears to relate only to England.

The current procedure involves the setting up of a disciplinary panel which could issue a report recommending either disciplinary measures or dismissal. The recommendations could only proceed if the DIP, usually a QC or similar, decided the chief officer had a case to answer.

Under the new rules the necessity for a DIP has been removed and the decision would be made by a vote of full council and overseen by a panel made up of local electors.

One of the reasons behind the move is to cut the cost and time involved in the process, one case is cited as having taken 16 months and £420,000. It could also lessen the number of chief officers being offered (or demanding) inflated golden goodbyes by councils eager to avoid a costly legal process, which is basically what happened in Pembrokeshire with Bryn Parry Jones.

In Wales, the local government reform White Paper recognises that the extra employment protection is to protect senior officers from political interference but that this "must not prevent the council from dismissing them without compensation where they are not performing their duties responsibly". 

Indeed, if Chief Executives are, for example, acting unlawfully or interfering in the political process themselves, that extra protection becomes an enormous obstacle to democracy and accountability.

The White Paper also suggests that there should be term limits for Chief Executives;
"There is reason to believe that, in some circumstances, Chief Executives retaining their posts for long periods can lead to an entrenchment of power and influence within the Authority which can serve as an obstacle to effective relations between Elected Members and officers and threaten the independence of the Executive"

Something which is very evident (and alive and well) in Carmarthenshire where, as the White Paper quotes, "the balance of governance has become disjointed".
It's difficult to remember a time when the 'Executive' was independent, around thirteen years ago I believe.

The consultation on the Wales Local Government White Paper is open until the end of April.

This week's Herald

Update 30th March - BBC Wales are reporting that the home care company, Mitie, referred to in the post below, has now agreed to pay it's staff their travel time. Hopefully the firm will thank the two whistleblowers, both former members of staff, who brought the matter to their attention....

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I'm please to see that this week's Carmarthenshire Herald picks up on the critical report from the Wales Audit Office regarding child safeguarding which I mentioned earlier in the week. Featuring on the front page, it describes the report as 'hard-hitting' and the WAO's conclusion that members were "unfamiliar with risk management as a concept" as 'devastating', and rightly so.
Indeed, and it's perhaps a worrying fact that the council is trusted with the role of corporate parents for looked after children.
As usual, there was no comment from the council.

County Hall has been equally tight lipped over the home care pay scandal reported over the past week or two by BBC Wales and, in detail, over on Cneifiwr's blog. The story is given the front page headline in the Carmarthenshire Herald.

As I'm sure readers are now well aware, Village Home Care, or rather its parent company, Mitie, which is commissioned by the council to deliver home care to the elderly and vulnerable, is being investigated by HMRC for allegedly breaching minimum wage rules.

One of the issues is the ridiculously short time allowed to travel between appointments. Basically workers are not being paid adequately (an understatement) for travelling times, leading to 'clipping' which means that visits are cut short as the carers attempt to reach the next visit, maybe twenty miles away in the five minutes allowed.

The result of this is not only visits being cut short leading to poorer levels of care, but carers being actually paid well below the minimum wage.

The recent CCSIW report into Village Home Care itself noted the travelling time issue, lengthy hours and split shifts. It also found compliance failure regarding staff training, quality monitoring systems and annual quality of care reports.
The company was also informed it must not start care work without proper assessment and regular reviews.

This is nothing new. Locally, I am aware of several youngsters who were employed by Village Home Care. Once it became apparent that they were expected to work over 48 hours a week for what worked out to be about £3 an hour or less with little, if any training, they didn't last long. Those I knew were kind and caring but it is fairly obvious that many companies are prepared to take virtually anyone on.

One remarked to me as to how they were expected to arrive at a person's home at say 7.30am, stay there for the allotted hour then be half way across the county's rural roads to the next appointment by 8.35.

This was at least three years ago. Yesterday the council said it would be meeting with the company. 
Presumably to have a go at them for giving the council bad press. 
This is the council's idea of care in the community and it is inconceivable that they have been unaware of these problems. They have clearly chosen, until reported in the press, to turn a blind eye.

In addition, the council has just awarded four year contracts for home care services in the county and the 'Framework' agreement began on the 2nd March. Given that the issues identified above have been known for some time, and are possible not confined to just the company mentioned, it will be interesting to see who has been successful for the approved 'framework'.

Lastly, this week's observations from 'Cadno', who is rapidly turning into one of Caebrwyn's favourite columnists;

"Carmarthenshire has branded itself as ‘The Garden of Wales’ and certainly the rich green landscape that rolls across the landscape between Laugharne, Llanybydder, Llanelli, and Llandeilo suggests that there is something to that description. Criss-crossed by a few arterial roads and many small country byways and highways, the County’s charm is that wherever one is one is not too far from a rural idyll. 

The important thing about gardens, whether you are growing cabbages or carnations, is a plentiful supply of fertiliser. 

And so we come to County Hall, which produces more fertiliser than would be needed by a garden the size of the Sahara: to a depth of four feet and rising. 

So overflowing is County Hall with rubbish that it has even privatised its generation and recycling to its own pet company. 

Cwm Environmental is a purportedly private operator in which the sole shareholder is the local authority. In other words, and according to its own website, Cwm Environmental is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the County Council. 

As he who pays the fiddler calls the tune, you might wonder what advantages could accrue to the local authority by setting up a company in this way. 

Well, let’s look towards Llangadog. 

Sitting near Y Garn Goch, Llangadog is one of those rural communities that make up much of the patchwork of small settlements that are dotted around Carmarthenshire. A former centre for droving, its years of home-generated prosperity are past. It has fallen on increasingly hard times over recent years. 200 jobs were lost when the creamery closed in 2005.  

It follows that Llangadog is a community that cannot take the loss of any jobs, let alone the ten that will be lost there if Carmarthenshire County Council has its way. 

You see, readers, there is something unusual about the Llangadog site that suggests a conflict of interest between the Council in its role as a statutory authority and its interest as a shareholder in a private company where the profit motive rules the roost. 

Our Council claims that Llangadog is an unfortunate casualty of its drive to save money. So skint is Carmarthenshire County Council after outfitting the Almighty’s favourite bowling alley that it cannot afford to renew its contract with the site operator, AWS.

More to the point is that Llangadog is the only remaining site of its type in the County which is not operated by Cwm Environmental. 

That Llangadog is an efficient and well-performing site is shown by the fact that over 80% of rubbish brought to the AWS facility is recycled. That’s an awful lot of copies of the Council’s in-house propaganda sheet Carmarthenshire ‘News’. 

In the whole of Carmarthenshire, that is, readers, in every other site managed by the Council’s own notionally private enterprise, the average recycling rate is below 55%.
If Llangadog closes residents would need to travel to Ammanford. 25 miles away. How ‘green’ is that, readers? You force people to take an hour and a half to travel backwards and forwards to a site which recycles under two thirds as much as the facility far closer to hand. 

The County Council’s disturbing lack of familiarity with the geography of the county it is supposed to serve is alarming. 

Last week, this paper reported that the Council’s celebration of its ‘success’ in building a new school near Llandeilo, ignored the human cost of transporting 400 students every day from Llandovery and the small communities around it to the new shiny building, leading to imminent closure for Ysgol  Gyfun Pantycelyn.

There is more to ‘public service’ than husbanding public money readers. The ‘service’ element should count far higher than it does. Shuffling thousands, if not hundreds of thousands and millions into the pet projects of a coalition without an electoral mandate, while bowing the knee to over-mighty officers is a betrayal of Carmarthenshire.  

Our county really does deserve an awful lot better than the current collection of rancid misfits and halfwits who are allegedly running the show. 

In a local authority in which the governing group has condoned funding libel actions for its highest paid staff member and then gone on to stomach a scheme to permit the same Chief Executive to attempt to stave off a tax liability on his publicly funded pension, we can guess that pound signs are more important than providing service. 

The question on the latter point – as seems to have escaped Kevin ‘Adequate’ Madge and the legion of the dumbed and damned that follow his blustering lead – is not whether or not the decision was legally correct but whether it was morally and objectively defensible. It was certainly morally reprehensible and objectively flawed. 

The Council was compelled to end the scheme by the Wales Audit Office, which it did with the type of spectacular ill-grace one would expect from a ten year old with their hands caught in the cookie jar and not from a collection of old nags and knacker-man leavings who really should have known better in the first place. 

So, readers, the question the Council needs to ask itself when considering withdrawing a local service should not be a calculation made in pounds shillings and pence (although Cadno suspects that such is the quality of debate in Carmarthenshire that LSD is in play somewhere).  Leave the bean-counters and their like in charge and we would all be driving beige Trabants and living in ‘efficiency’ apartments.  

There are more important things for Councils to think about. The effect of cuts and closures on rural communities, for one thing; the human cost of decisions measured in lives affected and not in pennies saved for another. 

Carmarthenshire County Council is very quick to blow its own trumpet about the success of its waste management and recycling schemes. At the moment, there seems to be an initiative a week. 

Cadno suggests, however, that the Council’s blathering on about its small ‘achievements’, pushing out releases to be printed without query or criticism in publications over which it has an editorial influence, masks a vacuum at its centre where common-sense and compassion should sit. 

Common-sense says that if you are serious about recycling you do not close a plant which is delivering it better than other facilities. You aim to bring your facilities – or that of your wholly owned subsidiary – up to the mark. 

If you are serious about the environment, you would know that a long round trip to Ammanford or – worse – Nantycaws will lead to lower recycling rates and – potentially – increased fly-tipping.
Spending £75,000 to make Llangadog prettier, or to put in prettier speed bumps, as recently announced, is not going to replace ten jobs. 

So, readers: which of the Executive Board will exercise their common sense? Moreover, which of them actually have any?" 

Cadno, Carmarthenshire Herald.

Cadno, the fox.

Incidentally, and unfortunately for County Hall, the contract to deliver waste services for the next few years expires this month and must go out to full tender. This has caused some problems and I understand legal opinions have been sought..as they usually are. 

One cannot imagine any company other than Cwm being awarded this contract but according to scrutiny minutes from last November, "CWM Environmental would not be treated any differently to other potential tenderer". You will recall that Cwm has also been in the news recently over long hours and low pay.

It will be an interesting one to watch.

Inhabitants of County Hall settle down to read the latest edition of the Carmarthenshire Herald

Noxious fumes

A few years back, after lengthy monitoring, Llandeilo's main street became a 'Air Quality Management Area' after breaching safe levels of NO2 emissions. The purpose of the official designation is that this should then influence council policy such as Highways, Transport and Planning.

Quite how this was 'considered' when the decision was made to close Pantycelyn School in Llandovery and bus four hundred children, twice a day, through the middle of Llandeilo to get to the new school site is anyone's guess.

Anyway, it now appears that Llandeilo is not alone in breaching pollution levels and has been joined by the centres of Carmarthen and Llanelli who are about to have AQMA status themselves. Presumably this has been factored into the 1200 home (and 2000 car?) 'West Carmarthen' development...not.

It will come as no surprise that County Hall is included in the Carmarthen 'AQMA' as it has been emitting it's very own pungent brand of toxic gas for some time...

County Hall, Jail Hill.

Thompson v James update

For information;

Further to correspondence exchanged in January, I received a letter from chief executive Mark James' solicitors, early this month, again regarding his personal damages arising from the unlawful publicly funded counterclaim.

My (somewhat desperate) proposal of a temporary and realistic, good faith, small token monthly payment was rejected out of hand, I was reminded of the charge on my home and a demand was made for details of any equity and 'credible' proposals by the 24th March. I was also reminded that the running total currently stands at £32,479.15

The final paragraph however refers to this blog and makes two points. The first concern a statement that I will 'not pay a penny' to their client.

The second reads thus;

"We also note with concern that you continue to malign our client's good name through recent articles that you have posted on the blog. Our client's position remains reserved in this regard"

I responded to the letter on the 10th March and made it clear that their client has given me no choice other than to fight this all the way. I will not volunteer any information and I stand by my statement that I will not pay their client a penny.

As for the unspecified legal posturing at the end of the letter, if Mr James has a specific complaint, this time he might like to mention it before issuing any further proceedings. Otherwise, and as I said in my response, it seems to me to be nothing more than a demand for money with menaces.


I have not yet received a response.

Due to the circumstances I have nothing further to add at the moment and, with apologies to readers, will not be publishing comments on this post.

Lollipop sweeteners

In a somewhat bizarre move, and a month after the budget, the council decided to issue a press release the other day about the handful of services 'saved' by the Executive Board, including of course, that old red herring, lollipop patrols.

Whether this was an attempt to use the press office for a bit of thinly disguised electioneering on behalf of local Labour party candidates is anyone's guess. To make matters worse, the Llanelli Star dutifully transformed the headline to 'Carmarthenshire council to prioritise children's safety in budget cut choices'. Instead of handing out free tins of soup to boost sales, the paper might been better advised to look beyond the spin and nonsense churned out by County Hall.

A relatively simple check would have revealed that within the budget, £173,000 has been cut from social work teams, £100,000 from fostering support, £75,000 from Behavioural Support, £35,000 from Women's Aid, and so on. In addition, recent reports from the Ombudsman and the Wales Audit Office show that they're not overly impressed with the council's record on Child safeguarding either.

There is more to 'prioritising children's safety' than a quick, disingenuous PR stunt over lollipop patrols.


At the other end of the age scale, you may have seen the reports that firms engaged by the council to carry out home care for the elderly have been paying their employees considerably less than the minimum wage - Cneifiwr's latest post is a 'must read' on the story.

Jumping the gun - Library for sale?

In it's hurry to sell off any council owned building which isn't tied down, the council have got a bit muddled over the wording of a consultation to move Llandeilo Public Library, which has occupied it's own purpose-built building in Crescent Road Car Park since 1980.
'Views are being sought' from local residents about moving it into the council offices at the other end of the car park.

Unfortunately the first part of the consultation blurb describes it as a 'development opportunity' and appears to be addressing future purchasers and developers, suggesting, god forbid, that the decision has already been made;

The reality is that £250,000 of cuts to the library service have been approved for the next three years, and £40,000 has been paid to a consultant to consider the outsourcing of the whole leisure department into a 'trust' anyway. So if it does move into the council offices, make the most of it, it's unlikely to be there long.

Child Safeguarding - A critical report...and other news.

Although clearly not connected to the ongoing police investigation, Operation Almond, Rhydgors Special school was back in the news today following a critical CSSIW report.
It followed an earlier Estyn report which found that its prospects for improvement were “unsatisfactory”.

With that in mind, it's perhaps worth noting the most recent report from the Wales Audit Office regarding the council's Child Safeguarding procedures which appears on the agenda for the next meeting of the Audit Committee.

You may also remember the public report issued by the Ombudsman in January which found serious failings in the council's duty of care towards a four year old child.

The WAO report describes the procedures as "mostly adequate" - which in local government parlance means 'could do a lot better'.

Anything less than a finding of 'excellence' should give serious cause for concern.

The report has found that there was no clear and defined safeguarding policy, and child safeguarding did not appear on the Corporate Risk Register. It also said that "Members...were unfamiliar with Risk Management as a concept". 

It also found that whilst the council operates Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) which checks the suitability of those working with children, this should be extended to all services which regularly come into contact with children. The inference here is that there is a possibility of holes in the net.

Another significant finding was a lack of safeguarding training with the take-up rate in Carmarthenshire Council well below the Wales average.

Significantly it found that neither the Executive Member for Safeguarding, nor the Chair of Scrutiny for Safeguarding "could report on having received safeguarding training which raises concerns about their ability to effectively deliver their responsibilities" 
The Council also had a much higher than average percentage of people who had never received safeguarding training.

We can only hope things have improved.

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Also rearing its ugly head on the Audit Committee agenda is the WAO annual audit of grant management procedures and yet again, for the third (or is it fourth?) year running, many of the same weaknesses have been identified.

Over half the grants put forward for audit were 'qualified' (ie something wrong) and nearly half of the claims had to be amended.

Due to the lack of significant improvement even though less grants were audited this year than last, the work involved has meant an increase in audit fees.

Similar problems have arisen as in previous years (covered every year by this blog) and the WAO have highlighted issues such as poor compliance with procurement rules and, in so many words, a lack of proper paper trails.

We also know that the South West Wales Property Fund grant, administered by Carmarthenshire council has been in the spotlight over the past year.

This arose after concerns were highlighted over 'Meryl's millions' and further concerns were reported to the WAO by the now retired Director of Resources, Roger Jones.
In December the WAO announced it was looking specifically at these grants, or a couple of them anyway.

The matter appears to be slowly progressing and this latest report states that;
"due to concerns identified, we have also issued separate reports on the awarding of two grants under the EUR01 Property Development Fund grant. We await a response from the Council and will summarise our findings in a separate report"

So, there we are, we'll have to wait and see.

Questions and concerns over the council's grant management procedures were swiftly dismissed by the chief executive, Mark James last year who said that once they had a word with the Wales Audit Office, they usually 'backed down'.

Unfortunately, as we know only too well, that arrogant and cavalier attitude is very familiar to anyone and everyone who has criticised the council in some way and is definitely not the best approach, nor mechanism for further scrutiny and improvement...

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Lastly, and on a lighter note, the 'Chairman's Diary' often provides a good illustration of that parallel universe inhabited by the pillars of Carmarthenshire Council.

In what only can be described as the ultimate sacrifice, the Mark James budget passed last month included a reduction of 'official cars' from two to one. How they will manage I don't know.

Incidentally, I have to be careful what I say about who is actually in the 'chauffeur driven limo' as, surprisingly, it turned out to be a very touchy subject in the libel case. My argument that such archaic civic luxuries were wasteful and unnecessary, no matter who was being ferried around, fell on deaf ears.

Anyway, booked into the Diary for next Friday is a trip to Haverfordwest to attend the Pembrokeshire County Council Civic Dinner. Whoopee! Cllr Daff Davies, plus consort (presumably Mrs Daff) will be donning the gold plated regalia and cruising west to wine and dine with their Pembrokeshire counterparts.

One wonders if they will compare notes over the vol-au-vents on representing the two basket cases of Wales?

And what will the toast be in that Victorian parallel universe? "Ladies and gentlemen, raise your glasses please.....to our glorious chief executives, both past and present"!

Ffos Las homes and another Section 106 agreement 'revisited'

The Ffos Las racecourse in Trimsaran has been one of the jewels in Meryl's crown and, over the past few years planning permission has been granted by the council for a whopping 528 homes on the largely greenbelt area surrounding the racecourse.

The 528 home development was roughly split into two halves. Permission for the first was granted in 2009 and the second wave of 280 homes was granted in 2012. One of the reasons put forward by Ffos Las Ltd was that permission for these 280 homes was essential for the future viability of the racecourse.

The council duly obliged and Ffos Las Ltd were given three years, as is usual, to submit full plans and five years to start the construction.

There was also a Section 106 planning obligation that 15% of the homes were to be affordable and £100,000 to be used for community facilites, eg play areas, within this large development.

Over the years Carmarthenshire Council has been fairly casual over the requirements for affordable dwellings from developers. At the Stradey site there was no requirement at all for the 300-odd home development. An arrangement described as 'unusual' by the head of planning himself.

Ffos Las Ltd applied late last year to extend the time limit to begin this second phase of 280 homes. Not particularly a problem perhaps.

However, buried within the application was a request for the authority to reconsider the S106 agreement, whether this pertains to the affordable housing or the community contribution, or both, is unknown. No details are provided but Ffos Las submitted a 'Viability appraisal prepared by Savills which demonstrates that the proposed development is not viable with the current planning obligations'

Anyone, of course, can comment on a planning application but given it's title; 'Extend time period within which reserved matters applications may be submitted' this one appears to relate entirely to the extension of time, one has to dig a little further to find the reference to the S106 agreement.

Also, sufficient documentation must be made available for interested parties to make an informed comment. A Freedom of Information request for the 'Viability Appraisal' was refused under commercial confidentiality.

With Carmarthenshire Council ranking second from bottom in the provision of affordable housing according to figures released last month, any variation on a S106 obligation, in a development of this size is of great significance.

The application has yet to be decided but it would appear that this should be a contender for a decision by the planning committee rather than through delegated power, so at least, if nothing else, the proposed S106 'variations' can be checked out. 

Ministry of Spin - leopards don't change their spots

Friday's Policy and Resources Scrutiny agenda sees, at last, a draft revised Press and Media Protocol. This has been an ongoing exercise which officially began in January 2014 but which has been called for long before that.

County Hall has, for years, deliberately compromised the ability of the local press to report negative stories, it has attempted to deter investigative journalism, even adding that unique clause (currently suspended) to it's constitution to provide funds to sue should anyone get too critical. Another example was a phone call from County Hall's presidential suite putting paid to a FOI request made by a local reporter regarding senior officer expenses. 

The nonsense of threatening to withdraw advertising funding from local papers as punishment for negative stories has gone on for years and, in the past, both the Carmarthen Journal and the South Wales Guardian have been in their sights; blackmail, in other words. 

Late in 2012 a leaked email from the council press office gave overwhelming proof that a mildly critical story published by the South Wales Guardian had led to the withdrawal of advertising. 

The Plaid opposition brought forward a Motion for full council to respect the freedom of the local press. The chief executive decided that this wasn't going anywhere near full council and kicked it into touch. 

The matter was dealt with behind closed doors by his loyal disciples, Cllr Pam Palmer and press manager Ms Debbie Williams, the latter being herself the author of the infamous leaked email. Ms Williams has also acted as ears for the chief executive, one documented occasion saw her reporting, to the chief executive, an overheard conversation between a Member and a reporter.

2012 also saw the long running saga over the Sainsbury's press release, for which the leader, Kevin Madge, had his knuckles rapped by the Ombudsman for using the council press office for political attack. It later transpired that the offending article had been signed off by the chief executive.

Things also took a turn for the worse with the publication of the Wales Audit Office reports in January 2014 with the press office again galvanised into action to attack the auditor, politicians and anyone who disagreed with the Mark James world view. 

Many controversial 'press releases, including demands for the auditor to retract his opinions over his 'unlawful' findings have been attributed to unnamed spokespersons, this even breached the old protocol.

The emphasis on reputation management has been of paramount importance to County Hall, and readers of this, and Cneifiwr's blog will know that the press office has not been called the Ministry of Spin without good reason. The first thing to suffer is always the truth. Internal emails before, during and after the #daftarrest episode show that defensiveness and damage limitation were the priority. The chief executive even decided on the wording of the #daftarrest council meeting Minute to reduce the scope for criticism and analysis.

Another bizarre example, last year, saw the chief executive rejecting opposition budget proposals in the Carmarthen Journal. 

Not only is the press office one of the most generously funded in Wales, recent figures unearthed by opposition councillors show that the wages bill for technical services (emptying your bins etc) has fallen by nearly 10% since 2009. The wages bill for the press office, on the other hand, has risen by nearly 13% in the same period.

Over the years numerous calls have been made to end the publication of the council propaganda free sheet the 'Carmarthenshire News'. The decision to reduce publication from six to four editions per year has meant even more drivel and pictures of officials in hard hats has to be packed into each issue.

The council's 'partners', eg the health board, fire service and colleges also have to cough up for the privilege of sustaining this nonsense.

You'll always be hard pushed to find a mention of an adverse report anywhere on the council website, let alone in the 'media' section. The link to the recent public report from the ombudsman was there for exactly the time required by law - three weeks. However, the nauseating press release announcing that the chief executive was staying, signed-off by Kev and Pam is still lingering as 'news', like a bad smell, six weeks after it first appeared.

The very recent WLGA governance review recognised the enormity of the problem and said that the council 'will not seek to suppress or censor the activity of an independent press and media'.

The remit of the group reviewing the press and media protocol can be found here and the draft protocol, authored by Ms Williams of leaked email fame, here. There's still no recognition of the independence of local media. 

The trouble is, leopard's don't change their spots and whilst a few tweaks to the protocol might tick boxes, the toxic culture remains alive and well, for now. It will take the continued determination of the local media, including bloggers to play their part in exposing the spin, pushing for change and making the local authority accountable.

Whilst I'm on the subject of Friday's scrutiny meeting, another item on the agenda, and not one you will read about in the Carmarthenshire News, is that the authority have spent £2.88m on external consultants over the past year. That's around £15 per man, woman and child in the county.

The majority of the expenditure involves the technical services department and of course the list excludes the cost of external legal advice, representation and various 'opinions'...

Sian Caiach - Candidate for Llanelli

As I said back in January Carmarthenshire County Councillor Sian Caiach is standing for Llanelli in the general election on May 7th. She is standing under the 'People First' banner.
True to the party title, Sian is asking the people what they want and what is important to them, and has issued the following press release;

People First promise to consult on all issues whenever possible before making decisions of your behalf. We have compiled a questionnaire based on the issues which were raised the most by you on the doorstep. We will try to get as many filled as possible both my our canvassers and by voters filling it in online at www.peoplefirstwales.org.uk or we will send paper copies out on request through the contact links on the website.

The results will guide our policies. Other political groups decide their policies first and then try to get them accepted by the voters. We feel that it should be the other way round!
The questions refer to both local  issues as well as Welsh and UK ones. We will also be interested in taking some smaller samples from neighbouring areas to see if there are any major differences, for instance between Llanelli and the Carmarthen seats. 

Our candidate, Sian Caiach, is our first Parliamentary Candidate and we hope to eventually field many.more candidates.We would actually like every candidate to consult locally and represent their areas based on local needs.This doesn't fit in with the "one size fits all" policy of the big parties. We are committed to the best quality of representation of the voters and believe that they must be asked to find out what they want.   The results of this poll will be published in April.

In the meantime we will collect as many opinions as possible. We are interested in all responses, whether you intend to vote for us or not.

Facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/pages/People-First-Wales/103559119774630

The Carmarthenshire Herald - the fox is on the case...

This week's edition of the Carmarthenshire Herald picks up on County Hall's relationship with the Towy Community Church and their recent appearance on the Executive Board agenda.
All summed up in this fine opinion piece by 'Cadno' (the fox);

Cadno detects a lapse of judgement

"Einstein once said: “God does not play dice with the universe.” We can, however, be confident that whatever sports or pastimes are pursued by your own god or gods (if you have any) that should Yahweh pop along to Johnstown of an evening, he would at least have the opportunity to go bowling. 

There, alongside the sweeping curves of the Towy, the Almighty could pop in to see the Towy Community Church. The Church’s website proclaims that: ‘Towy Community Church, Carmarthen is a place where everyone is valued. Where inclusion and respect are practiced and where we strive to build strong and healthy community regardless of age, background or race.’ 

Fine words. After all, is not the lesson of Matthew 7: 1-5 that when we exercise judgement we should be wary of being judged ourselves? That would particularly seem to be the case when the relevant text refers to hypocritical judgement. After all, readers, it would be dreadful to say one thing and practice another. 

If a church says it practises inclusion and respect then we are entitled to examine just how much it practises what it preaches. 

February was LGBT History Month. 

Across Wales, Councils flew the rainbow flag that showed – or at least appeared to show – that local authorities practised inclusion and respect for the LGBT community and those members of their staff who might choose to categorise themselves as one or the other of the relevant consonants. 

But not, Cadno is sad to report, in Carmarthenshire. Carmarthenshire County Council took a vital stand for another group who feel they are unrepresented: the bigoted, the prejudiced, and the intolerant. 

Carmarthenshire County Council did not fly the rainbow flag. 

Cadno does not suggest for one minute that having pumped almost £1.5m and rising into ‘a Christian enterprise’, that the evangelical tail wagged the secular dog. That would be unfair to the Council. 

It would also be a vile calumny to suggest that some pointy-headed senior nincompoop with an abiding belief in the literal truth of The Bible put the kybosh on the idea. Cadno will have none of that speculation, readers. Remember: judge not lest ye…etcetera.
No, readers, what people do on their knees whether in their private lives, in the tabernacle of their choice, or in their own home is none of Cadno’s concern. 

Pray, read your psalters, testaments and holy books. Prey, do. 

Cadno’s gripe is rather more to the point of what our Council does with public money that it should spend on behalf of and for the benefit of all Carmarthenshire’s residents.  

So, Cadno’s complaint is not even that public money – Carmarthenshire’s public money - is being pumped into a project favouring one faith group above others 

No, readers, baldly put it is not for a Council to bankroll ANY church, sect, or faith group. 

Why one group should be favoured above others is not the point. The business of the Council is delivering and improving key public services to the communities it serves. Bin collections, dog wardens, safe roads, better schools, disability services, more opportunities for adult education.  

That delivering these services and improvements in them might be evidence to the faithful that a living Lord indeed walks amongst us should be of only tangential interest; particularly when deciding where to spend money the Council holds on trust for everyone. 

Yet, and after mean-spiritedly carving £18,000 out of the budget of Carmarthen’s Myrddin Special and Autistic Unit, it has been seriously suggested that the Council use some of its dosh to subsidise the work of Jehovah by stumping up £20,000 for a new boiler for the Towy Community Church. On the planet occupied by the Council member concerned – take a bow Cllr Jane Tremlett – verily is it said that the Labour/Independent coalition taketh away from each according to their needs and giveth to those who have trousered a load of dosh already. 

On planet Earth, even in County Hall, such a politically maladroit comment by the Executive Board Member for Social Care and Health should start the alarm bells ringing. 

However, since it appears that those highly-placed at County Hall have more bats in their collective belfry than are seen in the opening credits of Scooby Doo, perhaps all the flapping about is drowning out the warnings. 

But that is as nothing with the real problem with the Council’s treatment of the Towy Community Church. 

The real problem is that the Church is being treated as a special case on a matter of enforcement. It has received preferential treatment from the Council in relation to breaches of the planning permission granted to it for the use of the building it occupies. Readers, this is not right.  

There is no planet where the needs of a small extremist sect should entitle it to expect that the Executive Board of this council will let it get away with breaking the rules. And in order to facilitate breaking the rules the Executive Board went on a jolly outing to God’s own bowling alley so they could see for themselves the multiple breaches of a legally binding agreement between the Council and the Church. Isn't there something somewhere about rendering unto Caesar…? 

One can but guess as to why the Executive Board is so supine in its dealings with Towy Community Church. Perhaps they are answering to a higher voice; to their own immanent divinity. If they are, Cadno has some minatory words that may be of use to them. They are also from the Gospel of Matthew. At 7:15, we are all enjoined to: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” 

Of course, readers, bearing in mind the largesse being strewn around the Towy Community Church, the profits are very real."

(Recent and relevant posts on this blog include; No fly zone for the Rainbow flag, Bending over Backwards, and Roads and religion. Earlier posts include a 2011 article in Private Eye) 

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The Carmarthenshire Herald's letters page carries a welcoming message from a Carmarthenshire resident describing its arrival as a breath of fresh air. The writer goes on to say;

"...Keep up the good work to fearlessly report the machinations going on inside County Hall in Carmarthen - something that those without access to certain 'blogs' have been denied for years!

However, I hope that 'Cadno' manages to avoid the 'hounds' and the 'huntsmen' from the Kremlin - sorry, County Hall in Carmarthen. They can be ruthless and firm believers in censorship"


Yes indeed, good luck to Cadno, and the Herald, as only last week I received a legal threat from chief executive, Mr Mark James in relation to this blog.

Roads and religion - yesterday's Executive Board meeting

The £5m link road

As predicted (and covered in detail) over on Cneifwr's blog, the Executive Board were quite happy yesterday to plunder those supposedly precious reserves to fund the £5m link road for the Carms West housing development on behalf of private developers.

As the Carmarthenshire Herald also pointed out on Friday this is in "stark contrast to the stance it has taken on using reserves to cushion the blow of savage cuts to council services...the council appears to be helping out private business interests while slashing services for the elderly and families". See also 'Reasonable and necessary priorities'

After having planned this whole development, totalling 1200 homes, for at least six years that I know of, it is quite incredible that there was no firm plan as to how this road, essential to the development, would be paid for.

Things reached a head a few weeks ago when the application for 250 homes on part of the site was deferred when the Welsh Government intervened, with concerns over the road. This application had been made by a small consortium of private investors called Carmarthen Promotions Ltd based in East Anglia which appeared to have started trading just last September.

In order to get the application approved there was clearly some hard negotiating between the parties. The council, ever keen to please, hurriedly promised to cough up the lot in the vague hope that they might get it back from the developers and a wing and a prayer that the WG might have a whip round. As it happens, the WG have insisted that no more than 60 homes can be built before the road is completed.

Today's decision to fund the road scheme was held as an exempt item, even though most of the information was already in the public domain.

The press and public were excluded but following the WLGA recommendation, and in what must have been torture for the Exec Board and officials, non-Exec Board councillors were allowed to stay and observe. Unheard of in Carmarthenshire, this practice is in fact commonplace across western democracies

I'm not certain whether they had to sign the official secrets act but the non-exec councillors were warned about breathing a word on pain of death, or excommunication.

Praise be!

Also on the agenda was the item concerning the Towy Community Church and the evangelical bowling alley, (See 'Bending over backwards' and previous posts). As also predicted, the good folk were not whisked off to court for breaching legal agreements or planning permissions but treated to a special visit from the Board no less.

I am not certain what took place on the visit, hopefully not a visit to the evangelical bar, but the option of the church vacating the areas of the building they had moved into which breached the agreement was not even discussed. Re-jigging the legal Agreement was the only option on offer.

What has been strange about this whole development has been the utter devotion, financially and spiritually, County Hall has shown to a small organisation, which also happens to be a limited company. Anyone is free to set up a community enterprise but you are highly unlikely to receive the level of support from your local authority as this one seems to have done but as I have said before on this blog, the lord moves in mysterious ways, not least of all in the corridors of County Hall...

The Executive Board members had clearly seen the light (again) and there was some seriously fundamentalist hot-air. Cllr Jane Tremlett was so excited she even suggested they should go bowling on a team building exercise. Not content with that, she also suggested they 'facilitate' grant funding of £20,000 for a new boiler in the area which they're not even supposed to occupy yet. Praise be! And only the week before, she'd voted in favour of cutting £18k of funding from the Myrddin Special Unit...

The last word has to go to dear Cllr Pam Palmer who described it as a 'Christian enterprise' taking things forward with a 'wonderful bowling alley'. She went further and mentioned 'bad press and bloggers who had been unfair...libellous in my opinion'. Really Pam? Do you have some evidence of that?

What can we expect next? County Hall bankrolling a civil lawsuit on behalf of the Towy Church? Nothing would surprise me..

Update 12 March;
The minutes of the Exec Board meeting have now been published and do not, of course, record for posterity Jane and Pam's immortal words above.

However it does appear that Mr James was full of his characteristic, er, spiritual benevolence and  "...it was suggested that any other members who wished to see the facilities be invited to contact the Chief Executive’s office which could then facilitate a visit." 
More boilers on the way.

End of the road

Finally, and not on yesterday's agenda, it appears that the entirely non-religious, non-privately run Adult Community Learning centres will be closing. These are located in Llandeilo, Glanaman, Carmarthen and Felinfoel. In a report to Scrutiny tomorrow (11th March), the original plan to get the college of further education to run the courses appears to have run out of steam. The council emphasises that they don't have to provide this service, they only have to make sure someone else does.

The council is very keen to blame cuts inflicted by the Welsh Government and makes much of the fact that the service is predicted to be over-budget by a whole £34,000 this year. It appears that the council have been keen to rid themselves of these community centres for sometime and the Welsh Government has provided a useful excuse.

The Mark James budget is ratified

The first half of today's full council meeting was essentially to ratify the budget approved last week.
As I and others commented at the time, it was the intervention of the chief executive which was particularly inappropriate. Today's Carmarthenshire Herald seems to have reached the same view;

'Watching the meeting on playback a key role in the budget debate was played by controversial chief executive Mark James. Intervening in political repartee, and siding with the administration after stating that the Council's head of finance could not comment on the oppositions proposals, Mr James proceeded to comment on them and roundly reject them.

Mr James, whose 'peculiar' pension arrangements were the subject of a humiliating climb down by the council last year, and who lately had his request for a £400k+ severance package booted into the long grass, appeared intent on ensuring that the budget proposals before the council were accepted as written without amendment nor redaction.

The Labour/Independent grouping made sure that Mr James' bidding was followed."


As today's gathering was largely a technical rubber stamp for last week's decision the chief executive didn't need to join in. Safe in the knowledge that the decision could not be rescinded. The matter of cutting £18,000 from Myrddin Special School funding was mentioned several times but the Labour and Independent speakers chose to ignore it.

The argument over the use of reserves continued, which can all be seen on the archived webcast.
Plaid councillor, Elwyn Williams, proposed that £1.2m (1%) be taken from the earmarked reserves to cap the council tax at 3% instead of 4.8%. Plaid's original proposal to use £4.2m of reserves was defeated the previous week.

Mr James and legal Linda quickly intervened to claim that the constitution forbade such a vote being taken as it would affect last week's decision. The only way the proposal could continue to a vote was if the Standing Orders were suspended.

The vote to suspend Standing Orders was defeated by the Labour and Independents. So that was the end of that. Once again, Mr James' bidding was obediently followed. The proposal to cap your council tax didn't even get to the vote. 4.8% it is then.

As a reminder, the council currently has £122m in reserves stuffed under the County Hall mattress.

One final point with regards to the use of council reserves, or rather the refusal to use them. Earlier in the meeting there had been unanimous horror at the decision by the National Police Air Service to stop using Pembrey as a base for the police helicopter and all were agreed that they's send a stern letter to the Home Office.
Kevin Madge then went on to criticise the Police Commissioner for sitting on police reserves of £43m, some of which could have been to fund necessary frontline policing....oh dear.

The meeting then moved on to the Local Government Reform consultation, a topic which I covered briefly here. What was very strange was that the item had to be introduced by the chief executive (not the Chair of course..) as a 'debate'. Holding a debate, apparently, was not something they'd ever done before. As it was such a new concept he even asked for feedback on how they all thought it went.
Not sure what anyone thought was supposed to happen in the Chamber for all these years.

Kevin Madge proceeded to ramble on at length giving the Labour groups' view on the entire paper until somebody stopped him.

Anyway it doesn't seem that our councillors are very impressed with Minister Leighton Andrew's attempts to end the culture of 'old boys' clubs', not even from the old girls. There was much disgust over the 'five term' time limits for councillors and equal dismay at the possible reduction of allowances. Kevin Madge argued that the basic allowance was too low, although didn't comment on proposals to reduce senior councillors's pay, his being £49,000 per year.

Cllr Palmer also thought the idea of having an independent panel for the senior management selection process was an 'abomination', no less. Only councillors, such as her good self, and dear Meryl naturally, could know what was good for the people of Carmarthenshire...

There was a general consensus that the report was short on detail and not well thought through. Several interesting arguments were made (all available to view on the archive), but time ran out. The 'debate' will continue at the April meeting... so a subject to which we'll return in more detail.

Oh, and before I go, the annual Pay Policy Statement was also up for the rubber stamp. Not that I'm cynical about these things being PR exercises or anything but by happy coincidence, benevolently removing the lowest points on the staff pay scale, the ratio of Chief Exec pay to lowest earner has, er, 'plummeted' from 12.4:1 to 11.95:1.
Although of course these calculations wouldn't take into account any extra pay or benefits that the chief executive might happen to receive such as unlawful pension supplements, returning officer fees or unlawful legal costs.

The Carmarthenshire Herald - First Edition - updated

Pic source; Carmarthenshire Herald

Today's first edition of the Carmarthenshire Herald leads with the allegations of historic child abuse at Rhydygors Special School and Cartref-y-Gelli Children's home, as reported in the media this week.

In what can only be described as a refreshing change, The Carmarthenshire Herald (the Llanelli Herald was also launched today) has given the story the prominence, and in particular the headline, it deserves.
A very promising start.

Update 14.23
After having now bought a copy there is little more to add to the headline story.

The Herald was contacted by a former pupil of Rhydygors who said that not only was such abuse rife 30 years ago but it was a well known fact that it was happening.
Sadly this is a story we hear all too often these days.

The Herald asked the council what contact it has had with the police over both the 2000 and this latest investigation and whether it had ever had similar allegations or complaints made to it, outside of these police investigations.

No allegations have been made with regards to Carmarthenshire Council's handling of its role in the investigations but given the example of Clwyd County Council's refusal to publish a 1996 report into north Wales child abuse, apparently on the advice of their insurers, prompted the Herald to ask Carmarthenshire whether its own insurers had provided any advice with regards to both the 2000 and the ongoing investigations.

So far the council have only confirmed that they are working closely with the police to investigate the matter and "As this is a legal matter, it is not possible to give any further information at the moment".

The council also declined to comment on the 1998 Social Service Inspectorate report concerning Cartref-y-Gelli Children's home. (Again please see earlier post for links)

Earlier post here.

Reasonable and necessary priorities?

Last week, amongst the budget proposals, the council approved over £200,000 in cuts to services for children with special educational needs or disabilities.
The budget was pushed through by officers and approved by the Labour and the Independents at last week's meeting.

The reality is illustrated by an article in this week's Carmarthen Journal concerning the Myrddin Children's Special and Autistic Unit in Carmarthen. The unit will see it's council funding of £39,000 cut by £18,000, nearly half of it.

Last October, Leader of the council Kevin Madge said that the payment of nearly £27,000 to Tim Kerr QC to defend (unsuccessfully) the unlawful payments received by the chief executive, Mark James, were "reasonable and necessary".

I guess it all depends on your priorities as to what constitutes 'reasonable and necessary'....

Bending over backwards

Next Monday's Executive Board meeting has a couple of interesting items. The first concerns County Hall's evangelical friends at the Towy Community Church, or the Xcel bowling alley as it's more comfortably known.

The Item concerns a breach of the legal agreement by the church for using parts of the building designated for phase 2 of the project. Phase 2 consists of the creation of a 600 seater 'auditorium' (a church) and various 'therapy' rooms and offices. The church has breached the agreement by using some of the space to house it's furniture recycling facility before presenting detailed plans of the phase 2 works.

Allowing this current breach to continue might appear reasonable but this agreement was put in place to prevent 'piecemeal development or occupation' and to ensure the church were able to deliver phase 2 of the agreed scheme. If they were not able to honour the agreement, the council would then have had the the option to secure possession of the remaining part of the property for an alternative use. How phase 2 will be funded remains to be seen...Cneifiwr's most recent post on the subject is well worth a read.

The council, so far, has been extraordinarily generous towards it's evangelical partners giving them over £1.4m in land deals, loans and grants. Requests for correspondence between County Hall and the church were flatly refused, in fact it's turned out to be something of a sensitive subject. All this, including the controversy over the proposed Mercy Ministry, has been covered on this and Cneifiwr's blog.

The church are now seeking to alter the agreement to 'legalise' the breach.

What strikes me as odd is that the church would have been very well aware that parts of the building were legally off limits and I can only assume that they would have also been well aware that County Hall would happily iron out any legal creases.

We can also safely assume the new agreement will be rubber-stamped on Monday. The added threat that the council's lease could become void will help. When mere mortals have been found to be in breach of some council agreement or other, including building regulations or planning permission, they are swiftly hauled over the coals. Perhaps if you let them know you're a believer in the literal truth of the bible, it might help...

Bending over backwards for a small fundamentalist Christian organisation may be entirely reasonable but we can only speculate as to why County Hall refused to fly the Rainbow flag...

The second item concerns the Carmarthen West development - this clearly relates to the £5m link road and will be held behind closed doors. Cneifwr has covered this and also explains how the council are funding the landed gentry of England.

Before I go, there is yet another full council meeting on Friday to rubber stamp the budget by formally setting the council tax. The meeting is only listed for two hours and includes a notice of motion to retain the police helicopter base at Pembrey. This is a worthy cause but one which I am sure everyone will be in agreement on and I daresay will want to speak on.

All this leaves little time for the item on the recent White Paper regarding local government reform. As I said at the beginning of February, this is an important consultation and if the council are going to provide a corporate response, it must have as full input from all councillors, it's not something that should be left to Legal Linda to fill in in her tea break.
  

Historic child abuse allegations at Carmarthen special school - updated 25th May 2017

Update 25th May 2017;

Dyfed Powys Police have issued this statement;

Update 4th March 2015 17.10;

BBC Wales have obtained a Social Services Inspectorate report dated 1998 regarding the Cartref-Y-Gelli Children's Home. The home closed in 1998 but Carmarthenshire Council will not say why.

"The report published in 1998, obtained by BBC Wales, makes 14 recommendations for Carmarthen's Cartref-y-Gelli.
It says not all children were confident "of being listened to and some expressed a feeling that it was not worth complaining".
Carmarthenshire council has been asked to comment."

Full article here; Abuse probe home children 'ignored'

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Grim news (BBC Wales) emerged this week that six people have been arrested in relation to allegations of sexual and physical abuse of children at Rhydygors special school and Cartref-y-Gelli childrens' home in Carmarthen. The allegations date from 1976 to 1990.

Rhydygors is a pupil referral unit for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, Cartref-y-Gelli closed some time ago. The allegations relate to abuse of over twenty victims and all involve members of staff, none of those staff still work at the school.

Allegations relating to Rhydygors were first investigated in 2000 and referred to the CPS but criminal proceedings were not instigated. Those allegations and the investigation were not reported to the media at the time.

Additional allegations, including those at Cartref-y-Gelli, were made in 2012 and the subsequent criminal investigation, called Operation Almond looked again at the earlier allegations afresh. The investigation, which is ongoing, has now resulted in today's arrests.

Carmarthenshire County Council has said it is working closely with Dyfed-Powys Police to fully investigate the allegations.

Rhydygors Special School

Statement from Dyfed Powys Police here