Two years have passed since Cyngor Gwynedd council agreed to implement the recommendations of an Ombudsman for Wales investigation yet the council remain in non compliance...
The last CEO of the council had told councillors that all recommendations had been met 'bar a nuance' - this was not correct.
The present CEO was meant to have had a meeting with the Ombudsman in which he was to provide the Ombudsman with an update and discuss issues around compliance. Unfortunately.... 'technical difficulties' meant the meeting had to be abandoned. Why the CEO could not update the Ombudsman by telephone or email remains unclear.
It has also been over two years since the Ombudsman for Wales sent two of his officers to North Wales to take a complaint in relation to non compliance with yet another Ombudsman's investigation.
The officer's explained they could not take this complaint as the Ombudsman's office had already signed off compliance without really understanding what was required of the council. The Ombudsman has apologised for the actions of the officer who signed it off.
The Ombudsman's investigator also refused to take a complaint against the social worker involved in the Stage 2 complaint investigation that senior managers of the council interfered with as the SW may have forgotten what happened....and may deny the charge..!!!
Instead, the Ombudsman wished to focus on the assessment undertaken by Gwynedd council in response to a recommendation from his previous investigation.
Concerns had been raised with the Ombudsman that the council would not treat the assessment fairly and we asked that an independent social worker be assigned. The request was refused and the council then tasked Sharon and Barry with conducting the assessment. It has come to light that Barry was not there for the assessment and one can only wonder why he was involved in the process.
The assessment carried out ended up an exercise in parent blaming...
Questions remain of who was actually in charge of the assessment. The assessor visited the parents to inform the assessment was complete before flying off to holiday in Florida the next day. Yet comments made after this have found their way into the file. Which manager in the SS department was responsible for the handling of this assessment ? A SAR (subject access request) was requested but Gwynedd council's information manager has heavily redacted the information to the extent it is unreadable. Sshh...
Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...
