Showing posts with label CEO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CEO. Show all posts

Wednesday 30 September 2020

Autism Pathway ? - Cyngor Gwynedd Director Of SS Annual Report.

The Director of Cyngor Gwynedd Social Services, Morwena Edwards, has published her Annual report to be presented to the council on the 1st October.

Unlike the Welsh Government's generic report she presented last year, this report gives more detail of the performance of both the Adult and Children departments she is responsible for but like so many reports emenating from this council it doesn't seem to tell the whole story.

On page 31, under the title of Learning and Development, the Director makes mention that -

"The Department has been in contact with the Ombudsman's Office for some years now regarding one specific case....
The Department has
received many recommendations from the Ombudsman, and one remains as outstanding; however, slippage has been seen in the work as a result of the Covid-19 crisis."

The Covid-19 crisis is only the latest 'reason' for 'slippage', so somewhat misleading....

 (There have been 5 Ombudsman investigation reports into both the Adult and Children departments - in 4 years.)
 
In June, 2019, the Chief Executive Officer, Dilwyn O Williams, sent a letter to the family apologising for all the failings upheld by the Ombudsman's investigation and informed that the Children's department had agreed to implement the recomendations by September, 2019.
 
 The Ombudsman's recommendation regarding autism is as follows -

"71. The Council should (within three months) seek specialist input to develop a plan for dealing with future assessment and support requests from/for those suffering with Autism."
 
The Council's action to meet this recommendation was to provide the Ombudsman's investigator with a copy of the "Integrated Autism Service (IAS) North Wales Update- February 2018" and a copy of the "supporting guidance" document.

No specialist input sought.  Just yet another attempt to avoid creating any 'pathway' for autistic individuals seeking social services care assessments or support. 
 
This 'evidence' was obviously not sufficient to meet the Ombudsman's recommendation and in October 2019, an officer of the Ombudsman for Wales contacted the council for an explanation of why the recommendations had not been completed as agreed and a phone call was arranged with the director Mrs Edwards to discuss compliance matters. Even though this call was arranged two weeks previous, - the council cancelled the call an hour before it was due.
 
The IAS do not carry out 'care assessments', that is the domain of health and social services, although autism advice can be sought from the IAS during the process.
 
As robust evidence of compliance was yet to be provided to the Ombudsman, in November 2019, the CEO was summoned to Cardiff to explain the 'slippage' to the Ombudsman, himself, we were also informed that the Ombudsman had other matters to discuss with the CEO..... 

(I wonder how much this cost Gwynedd taxpayers claimed as expenses but at least there was an opportunity for the CEO to do some Christmas shopping in the capital.)
 
Earlier this year, the CEO admitted that the Ombudsman for Wales is 'outraged' with Gwynedd council.
Not that outraged, as Nick Bennett could have published a 'Special Report' as he did with the Wrexham council when they failed to comply with recommendations agreed after an investigation.
 
All this was many months before the #Covid19 crisis and for the Director of Gwynedd SS to now use the pandemic as an excuse to cover for her departments failings is disingenuous.
 
When the pandemic took hold, the Ombudsman for Wales did indeed grant Cyngor Gwynedd extra time to comply with the recommendations for improvement. On the 11th June 2020, the Ombudsman wrote to the family - 


Fair enough - the pandemic has affected everything, though the Gwynedd council staff outing where one officer contracted the virus on a night out forcing an entire council group to self isolate for two weeks was not appreciated by anyone.
 
The Ombudsman wrote again to the family on the 24th August 2020 - 
 
        
So why is none of this mentioned in the Director's Annual report ? Sshh....Is it a secret ?
 
Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council.


 
 


 
 
 
 







 


Monday 13 January 2020

An Ombudsman,Cyngor Gwynedd Council And Compliance.

With regard to the recommendations from two Ombudsman for Wales Investigation reports into Cyngor Gwynedd Children's Department. 

The Chief Executive, Dilwyn O Williams, confirmed to Cyngor Gwynedd Care Scrutiny Committee, held on the 14th November, 2019, that all recommendations had been met and goes on to mention a 'miscommunication' with the Ombudsman - amongst other things.

We rang the Ombudsman for Wales seeking clarification of the officer's comments.

The Ombudsman for Wales informed us that that statement from the Chief Executive regarding compliance was not correct - at that time - but could comment no further until viewing the webcast.

Nearly two months have passed since the meeting between the Ombudsman and the CEO, in Cardiff, to discuss (non) compliance in regard to recommendations regarding assessments and retraining of officer's. Already long overdue.

The Ombudsman for Wales has, we notice, without delay issued special reports when other Councils have failed to address recommendations and improvements. 
                                            ****************************

Another Ombudsman's Investigation into Gwynedd SS Adult Department, dated 2018 - Case number - 201700388 led to the following recommendation -   

Undertakes a review of its ASD procedures, specifically those for adults and children with high functioning ASD, and ensure that the requirements of the SSWA 2014, MHM 2010 and ASD SAP have been met.

A recent FOI request to the Ombudsman for Wales has provided evidence that the Council, at that time openly admit to not yet carrying out this review, thus NOT ensuring that the Council was and is even now meeting the requirements of the SSWA 2014 , MHM 2010 and the ASD SAP.
Regardless of this, the Ombudsman then signed off on compliance, we do not know if such a review has since been undertaken.
                
This case - involved untrained council officer's behaving in a way that caused injustice(s) to and impacted on the human rights of a 'high functioning' autistic adult with mental health issues, features in the Ombudsman's casebook on Equality and Human Rights 2019/20 -

Copy and paste the address into your browser.
https://www.ombudsman.wales/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/104483-Equality-and-Human-Rights-Casebook_Eng_v03.pdf

Whilst this case is reported by the Ombudsman for Wales, it is concerning that this Report, published in 2018, has still not (to our knowledge) been presented to either Full Council, Cabinet or even the Care Scrutiny Committee.




Ultimately, responsibility for the organisational culture within the Council lies with the Monitoring Officer and also with elected members.

"The Monitoring Officer has a statutory responsibility to ensure that the Councils operates in a lawful manner and that it does not do anything which could amount to maladministration."

From -  "Do we have to accept it, Dilwyn", one councillor asked in response to the recent Wales Audit Improvement Report, critical of Gwynedd Council and how it dealt with its Youth Service cuts, through to Councillors and Cabinet Members who have no wish to examine evidence of maladministration.

Cabinet Members who fail to present critical reports of their departments for scrutiny.

Senior managers who bully and overwhelm an Independent Investigating Officer to remove critical references and recommendations for improvement of the Children's Department in her final, final, final report.

The Council's own report of their data breach that manipulated our evidence to whitewash its failings and create essentially an inadequate report. An earlier blog gives more detail - 
https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2018/09/cyngor-gwynedd-councils-report-into.html

A social worker who misled an Independent Investigating Officer and Independent Person, during the Stage 2 Complaint investigation into her inadequate assessment of an autistic child's needs - we have evidence that senior managers and also the Director of Gwynedd Social Services were aware of this and re-wrote their response letter accordingly to cover this up.

A Monitoring Officer who mentions that there will be 'implications' and 'consequences' to a complainant, if that complaint is to proceed in the way they wish, then repeatedly failing to respond and explain to the complainant what those 'implications and consequences' would be when asked. 

A disabled social worker, who claimed disability discrimination and bullying by her senior managers within the Children's Department was suspended for two and a half years. The Employment Tribunal found against Gwynedd Council.
The Tribunal Report can be found here -

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5cf61dd7e5274a0771578036/1600022.2017_Mr_S_Parry_v_Gwynedd_Council_-_CORRECTED_JUDGMENT_AND_REASONS.pdf

How many Cyngor Gwynedd employees has this Council suspended for protracted periods of time and why ?

It would be interesting to have the thoughts of the Union representatives on such matters. 

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd Council.