The admission by one of cyngor Gwynedd's interim heads of the children and families department that their reporting is not 'completely accurate' comes as no surprise. There have been questions to the integrity of the council's reports going back many years...
One early example is the Annual Report on the handling of complaints by Adult, Health and Well-being Department and the Children and Family Support Department for 2015-2016, written by the former workforce support manager.
That report can be found here -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru/documents/s7887/Adroddiad%20Blynyddol%202015-16%20Sterfynol.pdf
The officer had personally led at least one of the investigations highlighted in her report which has been publicly called out as a whitewash.
A Stage 2 complaint was raised. The investigator asked the customer care/complaint officers who the senior complaints manager was? Nobody knew...
Dafydd Paul, the council's senior safeguarding officer, then became active in the role from 2018.
One recommendation from the Lost In Care report states - Every social services authority should be required to appoint an appropriately qualified or experienced children's complaints officer.
Since then, concerns to the integrity of the SS complaints handling reports have been raised with the council's democratic service, scrutiny committees, councillors and even cabinet members - all ignored.
A question to possible data manipulation has also been ignored...
Cyngor Gwynedd has also had issues with completing recommendations for improvement and has been caught misleading government agencies in the past. A reminder that an investigation by the agencies will cease if a local authority accepts the recommendations...
Councillor Gwynfor Owen has recently raised questions of the criteria used to access Derwen, Gwynedd's service for disabled children. It is presumed the councillor was not content with the officer's response. Nor should he be. The 'criteria' has been called out as unlawful and discriminatory in the past.
Pre pandemic, the PSOW made recommendations - agreed to by the council that -
70. The Council should review its Derwen policy to ensure its
criteria aligns with the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014
and the Equality Act 2010’s definition of ‘disability’, and ensure staff
are informed about any changes (within three months).
In 2020, the Ombudsman wrote of its expectaions of the council re its Derwen policy -
In spite of the further (and immediate) reviews supposedly undertaken by cyngor Gwynedd, the Hugh Morgan OBE report also recommends -
The Hugh Morgan report begins -
His full report can be found here -
https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2021/04/finally-gwynedd-councils-autism-report.html
Hugh Morgan, also recommends staff training in ASD, but according to information given to the PSOW by Gwynedd council this training has already been completed as a recommendation from a previous investigation.
The Ombudsman for Wales recommendations from an investigation in 2018 include - 
Have councillors had sight of any of the various reviews mentioned?
The Ombudsman's office has been provided clear evidence of wrong doing by senior officers - not investigated. It has also apologised for the failings of one of its officers and the former PSOW had to personally apologise to one family for failings in another investigation after an independent review.
The former children's commissioner, Sally Holland, also did not properly engage when concerns with children's social workers were raised with her office, in 2016. However, her office did comment on the council's criteria -
The
Commissioner and our policy officers are aware of the criteria issue
and this information will inform their ongoing work with Welsh
Government.
Professor Holland is now chair of Gwynedd's response plan programme board set up after the sexual abuse of children by Neil Foden and the failings of senior officers to hold him to account. Holland recently updated the council's cabinet members and that webcast can be found here -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/999635
In other news, the ICO has concluded a review into the council's handling of FOI requests. Gwynedd council are stating that it has been ranked 'reasonable'. Some FOI requestors would disagree. Has any councillor sighted the review from the ICO?
Something is so very wrong within Gwynedd council...
No comments:
Post a Comment