Cyngor Gwynedd Council - Meeting Concluded. Hmm.

The Minutes of the Extraordinary meeting held on the 6th November, 2018, have finally surfaced and have been presented to the Committee meeting on the 31st January, 2019.

The meeting in November was held to receive the Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) Report AND the Annual Complaints Handling Report of the Supporting Children and Families department.

Previous blog posts have publicised the emails sent to the members of the Care Scrutiny Committee in which issues were raised with the 'accuracy' of the Complaints Report, authored and presented by Dafydd Paul.

The minutes are, also, not an accurate record of the meeting and an email was sent to the Democratic Services on the morning of the meeting raising this point and asking for an explanation.

No reply was given and the meeting went ahead with the Minutes signed and are now seen as an accurate record - they are not. I wonder if the email was even presented to the Committee.

https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/400538

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd Council.

Cyngor #Gwynedd Council - And The Other Reports..?

So Gwynedd Democratic Services were made aware of the Independent Investigator's Report and the issue with the council refusing to accept it, in January, 2018.

But what are Democratic Services and what do they do ?

It appears to be a service within the council that advises and caters to the questions and needs of council members - the councillors.

Democratic Services are also the office to contact for an English translation to be made available for webcast as all council business is conducted in Welsh.


The October, 2017 Report highlighted failings with the Children's department relating to social workers carrying out assessments through to Child In Need Plans and records not being properly maintained.

The Ombudsman for Wales Report, April, 2018 into Gwynedd council highlighted service failure and maladministration from 2010 to 2016 including withdrawing support before assessments that showed 'predetermination' i.e set up to fail.

The Investigation of the Data Breach and mishandling and censoring of personal information, in June.

An investigation that still leaves the legality of the two officer's actions in question. Worse when it is realised that the same two officer's were dealing with an Official Complaint at the time - badly.
So badly the Ombudsman 'recommended' retraining in the Statutory Complaints procedure for the officer's involved !!


So many Reports that have been brought to the attention of Audit, Care Scrutiny and Democratic Services over the last period.

The Care Inspectorate Wales Review was presented to Care Scrutiny at the Extra-ordinary Meeting held on the 6th November to much praise and backslapping from members.

This backslapping went on for so long that the meeting must have over run and the presenting CIW officer had to leave the meeting before it concluded.

The rush to get the Complaints Handling Report through before lunch was obvious.
There was no mention of the Department's annus horribilis regarding any of the above Reports nor the fact it has been sixteen months since the last annual Report.

Any pertinent questions that could/should have been asked were batted away by both Cabinet Member, Dilwyn Morgan and the author of the Complaints Report, Dafydd Paul, stating to the meeting they did not wish to discuss individual cases.

Wow...and what of the serious concerns raised ?
                                                 

The Care Scrutiny Meeting was also NOT webcast - much to one council member's quite obvious surprise.

A request had been put to Democratic Services for the meeting/webcast to be to be translated, we were informed that this meeting would not be webcast. After asking for an explanation an email was received stating that webcasting hours were limited and then another, saying that it was an extraordinary meeting and, as such, would not be webcast but a translation would be available for any members of the public who attended.

Very odd when all other council extraordinary Meetings were webcast !

A member of the public actually turned up for this meeting and visited Siop Gwynedd, in Caernarfon for directions. The meeting was not on their computers and no-one knew anything about it.

It was only due to those on the desk who asked and phoned around that the wherabouts of the meeting was eventually located.

The Annual Complaints Handling Report is a legal document that is used by the Council, and other organisations, as an indication of the Department's performance in carrying out its Statutory Duties.

This Report does no such thing.

And where are the Minutes of this Extra ordinary meeting of the Care Scrutiny Committee ?