On the 16th March, 2018, Gwynedd Council's Corporate Director and Head of
Social Services, Morwena Edwards, finally responded to our Stage 2
Complaint, nearly 5 months after the completed Report was received by
the Council.
The entire process has taken over 10 months to conclude - a process that according to Gwynedd's Statutory Policy should take 28 days.
Our complaint(s) were upheld by the 'Independent' Investigator and her Report - twice sanitised by the Council - still makes for some very interesting reading. But that is for another time.
The Data Breach and censoring of our personal information are currently being investigated as a separate complaint by Gwynedd's Information department. But we have now been told that the Manager is not able to deal with the issue of a senior manager, Melvin Panther, writing disparaging comments about the family to other agencies - so our complaint in this respect is still not concluded.
The official response from the Council is signed off by Morwena Edwards and she attempts to totally whitewash the highly critical Report into her department.
According to the Welsh Government Guidelines on Social Services Complaints, the Council were obliged to offer to meet with us to discuss the report and their response. They have not offered a meeting and as we have yet again been denied the opportunity to discuss the report and their response to it, we wrote in response to the Council.
We pointed out that the Children and Family department attempts to gloss over the systemic failings uncovered by the 'Independent' Investigator and still seek to blame anyone but themselves.
Social Workers and other Council Officers admit that the child's case was allowed 'to drift'.
Our reply to the Corporate Director(s) was that her response is nonsensical and farcical and disregards the failure of Social Workers and the appalling state of record keeping within the Children's department.
During this time, the Ombudsman for Wales has also been investigating Gwynedd Council.
Their Report upholds all our complaints and highlights maladministration and service failure by Gwynedd Social Services going as far back as 2010.
Yet this time Gwynedd Council have held up their hands to the Ombudman's Report and agreed to implement all the recommendations made - including certain officers being retrained in respect of the Council adhering to their Statutory Duties.
The Council would have received the Ombudsman's Report early last week. They have still not contacted us.
Something is so badly wrong within Gwynedd Council.
The entire process has taken over 10 months to conclude - a process that according to Gwynedd's Statutory Policy should take 28 days.
Our complaint(s) were upheld by the 'Independent' Investigator and her Report - twice sanitised by the Council - still makes for some very interesting reading. But that is for another time.
The Data Breach and censoring of our personal information are currently being investigated as a separate complaint by Gwynedd's Information department. But we have now been told that the Manager is not able to deal with the issue of a senior manager, Melvin Panther, writing disparaging comments about the family to other agencies - so our complaint in this respect is still not concluded.
The official response from the Council is signed off by Morwena Edwards and she attempts to totally whitewash the highly critical Report into her department.
According to the Welsh Government Guidelines on Social Services Complaints, the Council were obliged to offer to meet with us to discuss the report and their response. They have not offered a meeting and as we have yet again been denied the opportunity to discuss the report and their response to it, we wrote in response to the Council.
We pointed out that the Children and Family department attempts to gloss over the systemic failings uncovered by the 'Independent' Investigator and still seek to blame anyone but themselves.
Social Workers and other Council Officers admit that the child's case was allowed 'to drift'.
Our reply to the Corporate Director(s) was that her response is nonsensical and farcical and disregards the failure of Social Workers and the appalling state of record keeping within the Children's department.
During this time, the Ombudsman for Wales has also been investigating Gwynedd Council.
Their Report upholds all our complaints and highlights maladministration and service failure by Gwynedd Social Services going as far back as 2010.
Yet this time Gwynedd Council have held up their hands to the Ombudman's Report and agreed to implement all the recommendations made - including certain officers being retrained in respect of the Council adhering to their Statutory Duties.
The Council would have received the Ombudsman's Report early last week. They have still not contacted us.
Something is so badly wrong within Gwynedd Council.
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