Update 14th October;
The Wales Audit Office have informed me that "our local audit team is bringing our audit enquiries in respect of the matters raised in your email of 17 July 2017 to a conclusion. I therefore, should be in a position to provide you with a response to your email by 20th October 2017"
This week's Carmarthenshire Herald reports that a council computer was used to trawl through this blog immediately prior and during the time that the chief executive, Mr James, was making his first complaint of alleged harassment against me to the police last year.
The two saved logs show very extensive searches, either to download or print blogposts on the 18th April 2016, the same day that the police visited County Hall to take the chief executive's initial complaint and collect 'evidence', and again on the 22nd June 2016. This second trawl was a couple of days before police again attended County Hall to take his full detailed statement.
These searches strongly suggest that the council were involved in compiling a dossier for the police.
So, this is either an astonishing coincidence or your council tax is being used, yet again, to pursue and support the chief executive's 'private' legal manoeuvres.
As Cneifiwr recently pointed out;
'Of course, it would be outrageous to suggest that council staff and resources were used to perform work for which a solicitor would have charged a small fortune because, as the council likes to remind everyone, this is an entirely private matter between Mr James CBE and a resident.'
And as The Herald notes it would be
"wholly inappropriate for any officer to use council IT infrastructure to assist another officer in the preparation of a private legal matter, and that it would also be wholly inappropriate for any officer to ask or instruct another officer to do so"
The council failed to respond to the Herald's enquiries.
The Wales Audit Office have informed me that "our local audit team is bringing our audit enquiries in respect of the matters raised in your email of 17 July 2017 to a conclusion. I therefore, should be in a position to provide you with a response to your email by 20th October 2017"
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This week's Carmarthenshire Herald reports that a council computer was used to trawl through this blog immediately prior and during the time that the chief executive, Mr James, was making his first complaint of alleged harassment against me to the police last year.
The two saved logs show very extensive searches, either to download or print blogposts on the 18th April 2016, the same day that the police visited County Hall to take the chief executive's initial complaint and collect 'evidence', and again on the 22nd June 2016. This second trawl was a couple of days before police again attended County Hall to take his full detailed statement.
These searches strongly suggest that the council were involved in compiling a dossier for the police.
So, this is either an astonishing coincidence or your council tax is being used, yet again, to pursue and support the chief executive's 'private' legal manoeuvres.
As Cneifiwr recently pointed out;
'Of course, it would be outrageous to suggest that council staff and resources were used to perform work for which a solicitor would have charged a small fortune because, as the council likes to remind everyone, this is an entirely private matter between Mr James CBE and a resident.'
And as The Herald notes it would be
"wholly inappropriate for any officer to use council IT infrastructure to assist another officer in the preparation of a private legal matter, and that it would also be wholly inappropriate for any officer to ask or instruct another officer to do so"
The council failed to respond to the Herald's enquiries.
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| The article is not online, please click to read |
4 comments:
How do CCC get away with it?
Not ustice IMHO, just the boyos looking after each other
I suspect is is evidence once again that the Chief Executive is a law unto himself, I very much doubt that any elected member had any input into the matter. Which in its self is reason to sweep aside the whole structure of a Chief Executive running the council as a council manager and downgrading the position back to what it was once, County Clerk, under the control of the council rather than the extremely powerful position that it has now become. BTW this does not just apply to Carmarthen - it should apply to all councils in Wales.
How did local government become the monster that it now is? Many years ago I worked in the Education Dept of Pembs CC on St Thomas Green in Haverfordwest and I doubt very much if there were more than 15 to 20 people in total in that department, including clerks and typists, covering all aspects from nursery to further education. And that was pre-computerisation days. The three counties of Dyfed CC managed with one Director of Education but as soon as it reverted to three authorities, Carmarthenshire suddenly needed one Director and three Deputies with goodness knows how many heads of this and heads of that. I assume this was replicated in Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion. This expansion has never stopped so we end up with hordes of "managers" and "workers" - doing what? Any more than in the old days? It would be interesting to compare staff numbers pre-Dyfed, during Dyfed and present day.
As Cibwr says, we need to get rid of the Chief Executive title and revert to using the nomenclature of Clerk to the Council because that it was the position is. It has become a post of far too much power in the wrong hands.
Correction: !! "that is what the position is" - not the gobblydook "that it was the position is" that I wrote originally! Old age is catching up with me.
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