Why Wasn't Neil Foden Stopped? Cyngor Gwynedd Council

Why wasn't Neil Foden stopped...? Cyngor Gwynedd council

Earlier this year, Gwynedd council's children and family department reported that complaints of a historic nature had been received dating back to 2013. No action was taken by social workers of the Arfon team. When the report was presented to the Care Scrutiny Committee not one councillor commented or even asked about their welfare. Shameful...

Controversy has plagued Gwynedd council ever since its creation in 1996 after the North Wales abuse scandal. Concerns about its councillors have been raised in Parliament, too. More recently, the Ombudsman for Wales has found them guilty of maladministration - on several occasions.

In 2014, the safeguarding team along with officers from the education department and North Wales police began an investigation into a complaint of alleged cruelty against children at Canolfan Brynffynnon in Y Felinheli. The pupil referral unit (PRU) catered for children with behavourial issues and others who did not cope well in mainstream schools including those with disabilities. Two members of staff were arrested and suspended by the council.

It is believed that a few weeks later, a third member of staff was suspended after a separate incident was reported. It is claimed this staff member was interviewed by police who decided there was no case to answer.  

The initial allegation of cruelty has always been disputed and the case was dropped in 2016 after the Criminal Prosecution Service received new information from the police. This 'new information' has never been made public. 

This case is troubling on many levels. There has been speculation asking if the investigating officers followed law and official procedures when interviewing the children? Or did the investigation begin from a malicious allegation and then evidence gathered to support the initial complaint?

Wasn't Liz Saville Roberts, now MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, the Cabinet member for Education at this time? Perhaps she could throw some light on this case and put an end to the speculation?

Over £800,000 was paid to NWP by the council and then there is the cost of those suspended on full pay, plus the cost to the council conducting their own investigation(s) into the matter. A reminder that Gwynedd council have a history of interference in investigations and writing reports in spite of the evidence. 

Did the actions of the safeguarding team in 2014 make them reluctant to take on Neil Foden?  Or, as some have suggested, was he protected because of his paygrade?

The Foden case is a can of worms for senior officers within safeguarding, education and NWP. It is no surprise that senior officers wish for a review of safeguarding only - which will be so limited that it will be worthless.

Six months before Foden's arrest, Geraint Owen, executive of the council and councillor Dyfrig Siencyn, leader of the council presented the Ffordd Gwynedd Plan to the Cabinet. It talked of a change of culture and mindset within the council -
…This is all rooted in a change of culture, behaviours and mind-set and its aim of realising the ambition across all parts of the Council’s activities is acknowledged as a substantial challenge and one which requires a comprehensive programme of support…
Also -
Acting on the basis of evidence, rather than on the basis of what appears to be logical, is one of the cornerstones of the “way of working”and here there is an important function to ensure that managers and their teams use the information and data available to its full potential. 

The executive officers and many senior officers have worked for the council for 20 years plus. Are they responsible for the culture and mindset? To outsiders, the culture and mindset could be read as nepotism, bullying and collusion in cover up of bad decision making and even worse behaviours.

Then there is the Education Workplace Council investigation which found Foden guilty of unacceptable professional conduct. This alone should have been the end of him. What action, if any, was taken by the council and school governors at Ysgol Friars?

In early, 2022, a video was released online showing Foden appearing to grab a pupil by the scruff of the neck at Ysgol Dyffryn Nantlle, in Penygroes. What action, if any, was taken by the council and school governors at Dyffryn Nantlle?

This video was discussed by the Education and Economy Committee but no action appeared to have been taken by the then head of education, Garem Jackson,, nor the former Cabinet member for Education, Cemlyn Williams, at that time. It is believed that Elin Walker Jones, now Cabinet member for children was a member of this committee. Her knowledge of what the council knew of Neil Foden and the discussions that took place would be invaluable.

Something is so very, very wrong within Gwynedd council...

 

 

 

Cyngor Gwynedd Council - The Dog Ate My Homework...

Cyngor Gwynedd council held a Communities Scrutiny Committee meeting on the 18th April, 2024. First up on the agenda was the 'Gwynedd and Anglesey Public Services Board delivery arrangements' report authored by the council leader, Dyfrig Siencyn.

The committee will remember last years annual report being presented. It was ridiculed for its lack of detail and concerns were also raised that documents were missing from the Board's website. Councillors asked how there could be proper scrutiny without them. One councillor compared the plans to a ‘slow motion car crash whilst laughing along the way.' A proposal to defer the report was voted down and bizarrely the committee passed the report in spite of their concerns.

Just as last year, Cllr Siencyn did not turn up for this meeting either and his report had to be presented by Geraint Owen, the council's executive officer. Councillors again criticised this report for its lack of detail and no 'meat on the bones'. Geraint Owen, who explained that he now sits on the Board agreed with some of the criticism. For councillors who were present at the July meeing it must have been a case of deja vu.

Just as last year, a councillor proposed that the report be deferred until more detail was provided. The chair, who had herself been very vocal in her criticism of the report asked that the conversation be completed first. 

But Elin Hywel did not deal with the request for deferral and went straight on to make her own recommendations one being to accept the report. Once again, a Gwynedd scrutiny committee passed a report in spite of their serious concerns and what many consider to be wholly inadequate.
A mere tick box exercise to cover for officers badly produced homework..?

This is NOT scrutiny.
For far too long, it would appear that Gwynedd councillors have followed the party line and supported senior officers to avoid reputational damage. The leader and executive officers have warned that the culture within the council must change - not fully grasping that they themselves are responsible for the culture that exists.
This culture exists because of the failure of scrutiny members to hold officers to account also.

The report, for what its worth, can be found here -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=40660
Cllr Siencyn's report is notable more for what the Board is NOT doing...

The webcast of the meeting can be found here - press the english tab for the translated feed.
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/875173

Something is so very wrong within Gwynedd council...

 

Focus On Appropriate 'Behaviours' - Cyngor Gwynedd Council...

For too many years, Cabinet members and other Gwynedd councillors have turned a blind eye to the behaviours and maladministration of senior officers but it is the CEO and leader of the council who are ultimately responsible for the culture of their organisation...

Cyngor Gwynedd's executive officers have commented on the culture within the council. They give little detail - and any insights are hidden amongst word salads with no explanations given. The comments can be found amongst the Ffordd Gwynedd report -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru/documents/g4839/Public%20reports%20pack%2007th-Mar-2023%2013.00%20The%20Cabinet.pdf?T=10

The report by the leader of the council, Dyfrig Siencyn, and Geraint Owen, Corporate Director states  -  
...This is all rooted in a change of culture, behaviours and mind-set and its aim of realising the ambition across all parts of the Council's activities is acknowledged as a substantial challenge and one which requires a comprehensive programme of support...

The report starting at page 18 begins well enough with the present CEO stating -
Building on the culture and way of working, which is based on the principle of providing the best possible services to the residents of our county, with every one of us supporting each other to achieve this, is central to the Council's vision. The aspiration to ensure continuous improvement can already be seen widely across the Council and the next step is to ensure that nothing prevents us from embedding that mindset further and aim to improve even further what is already being delivered" (Chief Executive)

But the leader and executive officer are more honest -
...in order to maintain the "way of working", the mindset must be changed above anything else.
Doing the right things before making the things better" is the mantra. Unless we change the mindset before, or during, changing a process, we will certainly fail and the changes will not be sustained in the long-term.

The executive are adamant that they will focus on collaboration and developing appropriate leadership behaviours
Also - Develop methods to nurture an environment where managers feel safe to declare that performance is not up to scratch.

But it is officers of a lesser paygrade and the public that do not feel safe. What methods have been developed by the executive to protect them? Recording all telephone calls to the council would be a start. Removing the senior safeguarding officer from his role as the senior complaints handling manager? Ensuring that cabinet members have the conviction to challenge the departments they have responsibility for? How are the exit interviews going?

Other nuggets from the executive incude -
Each person working for the Council should have a job description setting out core expectations for their role, duties and way of working.
Focus on appropriate 'Behaviours'
Acting on the basis of evidence, rather than on the basis of what appears to be logical, is one of the cornerstones of the "way of working"and here there is an important function to ensure that managers and their teams use the information and data available to its full potential.

"Acting on the basis of evidence, rather than on the basis of what appears to be logical..."
This admission is the most frightening. That senior officers have acted without evidence on the basis of their unconscious and conscious biases...?
Which officers? Which cases? How many people harmed? What cost?

In other news, there is a bin strike in Gwynedd. This is another crisis of the council's own making. Relationships between the staff and senior officers have not recovered since the pandemic when a bonus was denied the essential workers. -

From the article by Gareth Williams, July,2020.-
Sent to the authority’s leader and chief executive, the letter notes: “In our view its totally unfair to expect us to work through this period on standard pay while the majority of (council) staff have been sent home on full pay or are working from home.
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/gwynedd-bin-collectors-call-front-18556569

Now there is a cost of living crisis and the council are again digging in their heels...

Also the Education and Economy scrutiny committee met on the 14th September 2023, Due to legal matters, scrutiny of the Education officer was presumably constrained. This meeting, like so many others, was plagued by technical difficulties during the live feed and following the dicussion became impossible. The translated feed has still not been uploaded to the council's website...

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...

 

 

Gwynedd and Anglesey Public Services Board - 'a slow motion car crash whilst laughing along the way'

Cyngor Gwynedd Communities Scrutiny Committee met on Thursday, 13th July 2023.
Yet another meeting beset with 'technical issues' and translation problems.

The leader of the council, Dyfrig Siencyn, was to present the Annual Report of the Gwynedd and Anglesey Public Services Board 2022-23 - 
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/s38421/Annual%20Report%20of%20the%20Gwynedd%20and%20Anglesey%20Public%20Services%20Board%202022-23.pdf

The report lacks detail of the Board's work and committee members would have had many questions for the council leader. Mr Siencyn instead sent his apologies and did not attend the meeting.

Concerns were raised that the documents of the board's meetings were absent from it's own wesbsite and committee members asked how there could be proper scrutiny without them. An officer blamed admin for the site not being updated...

After a break to sort out more technical issues, a motion was raised that the meeting should be stopped. The motion was voted down and so 'scrutiny' continued...

There was discussion on the board's climate change subgroup and questions were asked to the meaning of net zero. One councillor reminded the meeting that CO2 is food for plants...

Questions were asked of the electric buses that should have been running since February. It was reported that Gwynedd council have three such buses but they can not be used. The officer blamed Scottish Power for the lack of infrastructure. Range anxiety was also mentioned.

The Welsh Government may have handed over four electric buses to the council - but technical difficulties made following the conversation difficult. Gwynedd council have since uploaded both the english and Welsh translations but there is a discrepancy with one being shorter in length -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/792005

Concerns were raised that bus services were already failing residents in outlying villages. It was revealed that due to 'issues' there will be even less buses running after 6pm. Will those issues be with the young people who had their youth clubs closed by Gwynedd council?

One councillor compared the plans to a 'slow motion car crash whilst laughing along the way...'
The reports were still accepted by the committee.

In other news, the council's bin collections are still a cause for concern.
Also the funding from Welsh Government for public transport during the pandemic will no longer be available from early next year.

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...

 

 

 

Cyngor Gwynedd Council - “extraordinary”, “ill-conceived”, and “emphatically wrong”.

Cyngor Gwynedd Council recently lost yet another Employment Tribunal. This case involved the Council dismissing two local school teachers.

So the Council appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London - and lost again.

The full judgment can be found here - Copy and paste the address into your browser.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ed79310e90e0754cd08d6c4/Gwynedd_Council_v_Shelley_Barratt_and_Other_UKEAT_0206_18_VP.pdf

Below are extracts from the judgment. 
My emphasis in bold.

The Claimants were dismissed for redundancy following the closure of the school where they worked. They were unsuccessful in applying for positions at a new school that opened at the same location. The Tribunal held that the dismissals were unfair because of the failure to provide the Claimants with a right of appeal, the absence of consultation and because of the manner in which they were required to “apply for their own jobs”. 

The Respondent local authority appealed on the grounds that the Tribunal had erred in its approach to the assessment of fairness under s.98(4) of the 1996 Act in that it had treated guidelines as to what an employer should do in a redundancy dismissal as inflexible legal requirements; and had failed to take account of the particular limitations on the Respondent’s role in relation to recruitment at a maintained school.

8. On 18 August 2017, the chairperson of the Governing Body of School 1, Mr Siencyn, wrote to the Claimants’ representative apologising for the fact that no opportunity to make representations or appeal had been given. 
However, Mr Siencyn went on to say that the failure to allow an appeal did not cause any disadvantage to the Claimants and that the appeal would have made no difference as the dismissals were caused by the closure of School 1,which was something that no appeal panel would have been able to reverse so as to avoid dismissals. 

The Tribunal found that the assertion by the chair of the Governing Body of School 1 that denying the Claimants their right of appeal did not cause any disadvantage was “extraordinary”, “ill-conceived”, and “emphatically wrong”. 

6.An appeal is ingrained in principles of natural justice and, although I do not say that the absence of an appeal would render every dismissal unfair, I do determine that it requires truly exceptional circumstances to refuse an employee the right to appeal against their dismissal. Such exceptional circumstances do not exist in this case, particularly where the Claimants have a statutory and contractual right of appeal. It was substantively and procedurally unfair to deny the Claimants in the case the right of appeal. Furthermore, no reasonable employer would refuse to consider an appeal in circumstances where an employee had a clear right of appeal. 

37.Mr Siencyn was also wrong in his contention that the claimants’ appeals would have challenged the closure of the school. Both he and the Respondents conflate the closure of [School 1] with the inevitable dismissal of the claimants. The claimants were merely 2 teachers of many. They had never complained about the reorganisation of educational provision in general nor the decision to close [School 1].There is no factual basis to support the contention that the Claimants were opposed to the reorganisation affecting their school. Indeed they cooperated with the Governing Bodies by applying for their jobs/substantially similar jobs in the new school. It is a fiction (and indeed disingenuous) for Mr Siencyn to say what the claimants appeal would have been about without asking them. The vast bulk of teachers were not dismissed and were able to continue their employment with the respondent as (sic) the new school.

 39. Threatening to dismiss staff and compelling them to apply for their own jobs or similar jobs ignores years of jurisprudence on dealing with potential redundancy situations. It abrogates the employer’s responsibilities and seeks to circumvent employment rights. Mr Adkins submitted that the appeals would have challenged the Respondent’s approach to this reorganisation/redundancy and this was something that Mr Siencyn should have allowed. 

From the original Tribunal hearing -

41.... Some processes adopted by the employer are so unfair and so fundamentally flawed that it is impossible to formulate the hypothetical question of what would be the percentage chance the employee had still been dismissed even if the correct process had been followed: see Davidson v Industrial Marine Engineering Services Ltd EAT/0071/2003. This is an instance where the breach of a proper process was fundament (sic) and profound. I am not prepared to make a Polkey deduction in such circumstances.
                                                      
                                                    ********************


The school in question, Ysgol y Gader, had long been dogged by claims of poor management and heavy absenteeism of teachers leading to poor educational standards.

On the 15th March,2014, the Daily Post published an article with the subheadline - 
'Governors raise concerns over the number of experienced staff who have recently left the Dolgellau school and parents have signed a petition.'

It continued - 
One of the main concerns are pupils  complaining of not having formal lessons and being taught by classroom  assistants.
There are also concerns about the  number of experienced staff who have  recently left the school, and claims of a  culture of “overbearing management”  causing “a serious issue with staff morale”.

The full article can be found here - 
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/gwynedd-ysgol-y-gader-pupils-6835574


The Daily Mail also reported on March, 27th - 

• Parents at Ysgol y Gader school, Wales, created petition about absent staff
• Meeting arranged and staff absenteeism was put at the top of agenda
• But headteacher Peter Maddocks was not present - and is now not at work
• One parent said: 'The meeting was a farce. Someone needs to step in'

Cllr Dyfrig Siencyn, chairman of governors at Ysgol y Gader said: 'The governing body recognises that there are concerns regarding staff absenteeism at Ysgol y Gader during the current academic year.

From the parent's petition - 
We believe that the school is failing to provide suitably-qualified staff to cover lessons during long-term staff absences, which leads to a lack of consistence and rigour in the standard of teaching and learning.

The full article can be found here - 
 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2590885/School-fire-high-levels-absent-teachers-holds-public-meeting-discuss-issue-head-fails-attend.html

Ysgol y Gader was closed in 2017 and replaced by a 3-16 all-through, super school, Ysgol Bro Idris.

Dyfrig Siencyn is now leader of Gwynedd Council.

Cyngor Gwynedd Council Covid19 Confusion Over Payment Criteria

The recent opinion article, dated 7th May, 2019 by Dafydd Meurig, Deputy Leader of Cyngor Gwynedd Council in Nation.Cymru is highly critical of Welsh Government's performance during the Covid19 crisis.

https://nation.cymru/opinion/a-shambolic-welsh-government-have-offered-no-leadership-for-local-government-in-this-crisis/

Gwynedd Council's deputy leader writes that delivery of the original testing regime was 'farcical' and involved sending 15 names of symptomatic employees to Data Cymru who then send the names to Public Health Wales who would then send the names to BCUHB (in this case) for them to arrange testing with each individual.

These tests were then 'to be driven to Cardiff for analysis'. Public Health Wales would then send the results to Data Cymru to send the results to the Local Authority to inform the person of the result.

Farcical indeed if true.

Mr Meurig goes on to complain about second home owners and says that £18 million from Welsh Government would have found their way into 'the pockets of some second home owners, who live outside the area'. Adding -

'Cynically some of these second home owners have flipped their property over to the Business Rate system in order to avoid paying any Council Tax at all'.

'The drawn-out discussions and delay has resulted in thousands of genuine holiday businesses having to wait weeks for their payment'.


But two weeks previous on the 24th April, the Leader of Cyngor Gwynedd Council,  Dyfrig Siencyn is quoted in the North Wales Chronicle.

“We are pleased that the minister has listened to us and changed the business guidelines available to support small rural businesses in Gwynedd and other counties across Wales,” said Cllr Siencyn.

The government’s new guidance states that three specific clauses need to be adhered to:

Self-catering accommodation produce two years of trading accounts to 31 March 2019

Self-catering accommodation must let the property for 140 days or more in the financial year 2019-20

Self-catering accommodation business must be the primary source of income for the owner (minimum threshold is 50%).

He adds -

“Whilst we did not agree with the exact wording of the changes to the guidelines, we’re confident that the changes will mean that no second home owner will be able to claim this grant money without presenting evidence that the majority of their income derives from the property.


Why was the Deputy Leader not informed of the successful change to the guidelines before publishing his article two weeks later. Has the confusion amongst Members led to any delay in payments to local businesses ? How many payments have been released so far ?

For the full article copy and paste the address into your browser -
https://www.northwaleschronicle.co.uk/news/18403296.welsh-government-shuts-second-home-grants-loophole/

Dafydd Meurig, is also Cabinet Member with responsibility for  Gwynedd Council's Adult SS.