February's Council meeting - with updates

Update 25th February;
And...it's gone. And on a Sunday, fancy that. Didn't even last the weekend.

Update 23rd February;

After three years, and intense media pressure over the past few days the council have rapidly backpedalled and are flying the Rainbow flag above County Hall this weekend. Good. It will also be flown every May 17th for International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

With the growing realisation that Carmarthenshire is being viewed as the only homophobic council in Wales, the Rev Emlyn Dole has released a statement claiming that he has 'intervened' in the debate and ordered that the flag is flown, he fails to mention that he has had the authority to fly the flag all along. The problem has not been Mr Dole, it has been Mr James.

Why this has taken three years is simply ridiculous. Let's not forget, as I have mentioned below, that it has been the chief executive, the devout Mr James, who has personally rejected several requests, but embraced, with £2m of public money, an evangelical organisation in Carmarthen. Make of that what you will.
I'd have liked to have been a fly on the wall in the Presidential Suite over the last few days.

County Hall 23rd Feb 2018...and it's upside down. Update 2pm; it's now been put the right way up. As with many things...Only in Carmarthenshire...

Update 22nd February; Flags

With the council's refusal to fly the Rainbow flag now in the news and across social media, it's worth re-stating that the policy states that ultimately it is up to the leader, Cllr Dole, whether a flag is flown or not (apart from the royal flags etc). On the other hand, the chief executive has stated that whilst the council is happy to support community ventures "this does not extend to flag flying at civic centres".

This begs that age old question as to who is running the council, not Mr Dole obviously, and why has the council spent over three years tying itself in knots to avoid flying the Rainbow flag, when no other public body seems to have a problem. Without spelling it out, I believe the answer lies, at least in part, in the main post below.
In effect the policy allows for the flying of the Rainbow flag, it is the personal preferences of the Leader, and chief executive to choose to reject the request.

Cllr Dole also stated, at last week's meeting, that the council are members of Stonewall. According to another FOI response, the council decided to 'pause and review' their membership last year. It is not known if they have now rejoined the network or if Mr Dole was stretching the truth.

* * *

There are a couple of points worth mentioning from yesterday's full council. For the connoisseurs, the whole epic can be seen on the archived webcast.
Firstly came the latest instalment in the County Hall flag saga. The saga largely involves repeated requests, over the past few years, by organisations and lately by a councillor, to fly the Rainbow flag during LGBTQ celebrations. The 'council', otherwise known as the chief executive, has resolutely refused and aside from a brief flutter after the Orlando massacre, the brightly coloured symbol of solidarity and inclusion has remained neatly folded in the Presidential drawers.

According to the council they were so inundated with flag flying demands they had to adopt a protocol in 2015, this was an officer decision with no record of it going near a councillor. I eventually got a copy of the protocol which I blogged about last September. Incidentally, there were only two recorded requests. (Please search this blog for previous posts)

A Labour motion to fly the flag before Christmas was kicked into the long grass to be discussed by CRWG. CRWG, you may recall, is the cross-party group set up following the pension and libel indemnity scandals and the damning WLGA report on the way the council was run. It's current membership is five Plaid; Emlyn Dole (Chair); Hazel Evans, Tyssul Evans, Peter Hughes-Griffiths and Dai Jenkins; two Independent coalition members Jane Tremlett and Mair Stephens and three Labour; Jeff Edmunds, John James and Rob James.
Four of the Plaid members and the two Independents are also Executive Board members.

True to form the group, which is supposed to promote good governance and transparency refuses to publish its agendas and minutes. Neither will the Chair, Emlyn Dole agree to discuss the complete removal the illegal and notorious, but currently 'suspended' libel indemnity clause. As CRWG is overseen by the chief executive and loyal legal Linda, this is, of course, not surprising. One of the criticisms reported by the WLGA was that the council was officer-led. It still is of course.

Anyway, it was left to Plaid leader Cllr Dole to respond to Labour councillor Andre McPherson's enquiry as to the outcome of CRWG's flag deliberations. As Cllr Dole drifted off into the council's efforts to promote inclusion it was clear which way this was heading. And there it was... apparently there was a unanimous CRWG decision to keep the policy as it was, there'd be no rainbow flag, or flags from any other organisations flown anywhere near County Hall. Cllr McPherson was then stopped from asking for a further explanation.
And, furthermore, the Union Jack will always be given prominence over the Welsh flag. Strange that, for a Plaid Cymru 'run' council.

Meanwhile the Welsh Government, police and other councils happily fly the Rainbow and other flags without even a hint of such complex and lengthy prevarication. There are some who wonder whether the Evangelical Christian zeal of certain senior officers, well, one in particular, is creeping into public policy. Readers might recall the gifting of millions to Carmarthenshire's very own evangelical bowling alley. It is notable that it has been the chief executive, Mark James, rather than the leader (as it should be, even under their own protocol), who has rejected requests to fly the flag...

(17th Feb; Cllr McPherson has started a petition to fly the Rainbow flag above County Hall during LGBT history month, you can sign here)

The next item of interest was to approve a £250k loan, and generally give the nod, to the newly formed arms length trading company, Llesiant Delta Wellbeing Ltd. This will replace the Careline 24 hour social care response service and, as I mentioned here, is the latest in a series of wholly owned ventures which include housing and waste services. As I also mentioned in that blog post, the company was registered at Company House a week before the Exec Board gave their approval, which begs the question as to who authorised it.

It made a refreshing change to see some opposition from the Labour benches. This might not be privatisation per se, but by putting 'Ltd' at the end of any council service it smacks of the thin end of the wedge towards outsourcing. They are right to be cautious, there are no guarantees. As with waste services etc it remains to be seen just how secure the transferred employees terms and conditions will be, let alone the accuracy of the predicted 5 year profits, and as these will be trading companies, scrutiny and monitoring will now be further hampered by claims of commercial sensitivity.

The director of communities and deputy CEO Jake Morgan was asked how much had been spent on consultants so far for this new company, he didn't know, which is disappointing as he's paid £134,000 a year to know. Perhaps he just didn't like to say. In fact up to the end of the last financial year it was £62,000 and that's without the specific remit this year to set up the company.

Predictably, both Pontificating Plaid and their Independent colleague, Jane 'your grandmother's safe in my hands' Tremlett, the exec board member for social care, accused the opponents of jeopardising jobs and the future of Careline. Let's hope this sentiment doesn't come back to bite them. Dear Jane is becoming more like Dear Meryl every day...
Whilst Plaid were quick to accuse Labour of scaremongering and political point scoring, they may recall, in March 2015, shortly before acquiring power, they were making similar attacks on Labour's 'outsourcing' plans; 'the obsession of the Labour council with effectively outsourcing services and reducing democratic oversight inevitably reduces the operational control the council has over our public services'. This was in reference to another of the council's supposedly 'wholly owned' companies.
C'est la vie.

Council webcast fans haven't got long to wait until the next instalment with the council budget up for the rubber stamp next Wednesday. There's been some backroom juggling and which shaves a few grand off some of the cuts, a pot of cash set up to help schools with their 'efficiency savings' and, for the third (or fourth?) year running the closure of respite centres has been dropped. Given the regularity with which this particular cut is proposed, then dropped, one can only wonder if it's a plant in the first place. Makes for a good press release though. If I remember correctly it was promised, a couple of years ago, that this would never appear on the budget proposals again.

It will be interesting to see what happens, the current Chair of the council has had an easy ride so far and will have avoided bruised shins from the gentleman to his left, (rumours circulated a couple of years ago that previous Chairs, of the female variety, earned a gentle pat on the thigh as a reward for silencing troublesome Members...). Hopefully there'll be some searching questions over the City Deal and the Wellness Thing, if not next week (why not?) then whenever some sort of update finally appears. If the Swansea Libdems can muster a few published concerns then so can a few Carmarthenshire councillors, before it's too late.

The bottomless money pit, into which taxpayers' money will be happily poured, will make the rest of the budget, with the hefty cuts to social care and the axing of free college/school transport for 16 to 18 year olds, to name but two, look like peanuts.

Update 21st Feb; After an hour of debate the budget was passed by a majority, there were no amendments. Labour did make a couple of proposals, with a view to preventing the rise in school dinners, to cut the Executive Board membership from ten to eight and remove some of the extra payments to committee Chairs. They also suggested that a cross-party group be set up to deal with the eye-watering levels of senior officer pay. All of which sound like a good idea, but are unlikely to happen. The meeting will be available to watch when archived.