Enduring Gwynedd Council's SS Complaint Procedures...

For the Ombudsman to consider a complaint against 'the council' - a member of the public must first endure a council's formal complaints procedure beginning with a Stage 1 complaint. If dissatisfied with the outcome of the Stage 1, it is your right under law to ask for a Stage 2. If granted, a senior officer from a different department will investigate the complaint. Only then can the Ombudsman be approached.

Under SS procedures, the council will employ an Independent Officer and in the case of the children's department an Independent Person also - there to oversee proceedings in the interest of the child.

Independent Investigators are often senior officer's working for, or who have worked for local authorities. Many are excellent and will follow the evidence - some will not...

Once the investigator is chosen by the council - they then meet with the complainant to fully understand the grievance and work on the 'remit' (main points of complaint). This remit is then presented to the council's Senior Complaints Officer who will then decide if the remit is acceptable before the investigation can begin. 

One Gwynedd parent asked their 'independent investigator' to interview a witness involved with their complaint of an 'inadequate' assessment undertaken by two social workers. The investigator declined. Think on that - an 'independent investigator' not wishing to collect evidence and speak to witnesses in an investigation...

The investigator then presented her remit to the council for their permission to proceed - without the complainant's approval or knowledge...

Note - The person making the complaint is not necessarily informed of the remit at this point.

Emails show that this complainant was far from happy with the 'remit' and claimed that their evidence had been misrepresented by the investigating officer and contained factual errors.

Further emails show the Senior Safeguarding and Quality officer intervened and insisted that all correspondence with the investigator go through him....

The witness then asked to join the complaint. This was not welcomed by the council and the email thread shows considerable pushback. It concludes with the Senior Safeguarding and Quality officer implying that the only way he would allow the complaint to continue was if a child with complex issues and a diagnosis of autism be interviewed by council officer's - alone..

But the child had no desire to meet with even more officers of the department whose previous bad behaviour led to the former CEO, Dilwyn Williams, having to personally apologise for.
More on that here -
https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2019/09/an-apology-from-cyngor-gwynedd-council.html

Obviously, the complaint did not proceed and was eventually timed out by the council.
The council were well aware that past policies and procedures have meant the Ombudsman can not intervene without a complaint to take forward. (Policies and procedures have now changed)

Work undertaken on one recommendation from the Ombudsman of Wales but called out as fake was not investigated by the council. Questions remain to the integrity of the work undertaken by two social workers and the senior manager responsible for the 'assessment'. The email thread also raises questions with the actions of the 'independent' investigators.

The culture within the council has become increasingly more toxic since a joint investigation with North Wales Police, in 2014. The CPS dropped the charges after new information from NWP in 2016...

Yet another investigation report into this farce has been with the council for nearly two years now. Since then both the CEO and the Director of SS have left their posts. Is this another report that will find failings within the council? This time with Education and SS officer's and perhaps the council's legal team? What of the other agencies involved?

If there are no failings, one would assume that it would have been released immediately - along with the champagne corks...

What no report will detail is the emotional damage such underhand tactics cause to children and their families - nor the financial costs... 

Something is so very wrong within Gwynedd council...

 

 

Cyngor Gwynedd Council Scrutiny Committee Pass What Exactly...?

Cyngor Gwynedd council's Care Scrutiny Committee met on the 3rd February, 2022, to receive a progress report on the Occupational Therapy service and also to scrutinise the North Wales Population Needs Assessment.

Whilst the OT report was quite encouraging, if accurate - the Needs Assessment had not been completed.
The officer blamed the pandemic and a lack of data but promised the report will be ready to be presented to the Cabinet next week. So no proper scrutiny then?
Regardless, a vote on the report that was not a report was called for....!!!

A debate ensued - well sort of...
There appeared to be a plea for councillors to help in the collecting of data - then it was said there is enough data...!!
Concerns were raised that few people were responding with requests for information - surveys etc and were there mumblings that the data was not positive to the services?

The meeting bemoaned the fact not enough people are engaging to aid with data collection. But families have tried to engage and are ignored...or parent bashed. Councillors of the Scrutiny Committee have been made aware of the concerns for those with protected characteristics (and the data) for several years now - the committee has not engaged. Are members now asking for those with past experience of council services to come forward? It was all very confusing...

Have any of the five recent Ombudsman's investigations been used to inform the Assessment? Has the Hugh Morgan, OBE review been used - apart from the cut and paste 'plan' presented to the last Scrutiny meeting?

Have we reached the point where departmental reports and data are in complete contradiction to recent investigations, reviews and people's personal experiences?

One of the counci's most important pieces of work to plan services for the next 5 years is being bodged...For why? The data is worthless....

Only one committee member saw through it all and voted against accepting the report, one other abstained - the rest voted it through....

The webcast of the meeting should be available on the council's website for viewing some time soon -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcasts

The North Wales Population Needs Assessment can be found here -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru/documents/s32793/20220223%20Appendix%201.pdf

Something is very wrong with Gwynedd council....

Cyngor Gwynedd Council - More Questions Re Compliance - Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman for Wales email of the 23rd, December, 2021, also mentions Derwen, Cyngor Gwynedd council's disabled children's service and states -

 
"The consultant’s review considered the role of Derwen (responsible for assessments of children) and of NEWIAS (with a remit for accessing adult diagnostic assessment) and the chart within the draft plan seen demonstrates how the agencies will work together.  The need in particular for a transitional social worker and additional training for relevant officers was identified and is to be implemented as well as establishing an Autism champion."

What draft plan? 

Gwynedd council and Derwen should have been working with agencies since 2008 and the introduction of the Autism SAP. How can they plan to work with agencies that they have been working with for the past 14 years?

With regard to an autism champion the Plaid Cymru Councillor for Glyder in Bangor, Elin Walker Jones, was the nominated autism champion from 2012 and was even nominated for an award in 2014 - she didn't win. What happened to her? 

The 'additional training' the Ombudsman mentions should have already taken place (details below)

 

It would be interesting to have sight of the evidence provided to Hugh Morgan's Review by Gwynedd senior management - and fact checked.

The SS departments these officers manage and their actions and behaviours have been heavily criticised in five Ombudsman investigations . Four of those investigations involved the bad treatment meted out to those on the autistic spectrum. their families and even complaint investigators. One investigation - not autism related - was because of a death in a local care home.

 

Have the Ombudsman's recommendations from that case been complied with? The council's last CEO, Dilwyn Williams, warned the adult SS department that the work was long overdue before he retired. Where is evidence of compliance? 

Hugh Morgan's review and recommendations that senior officers have accepted but also failed to implement can be found here -
https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2021/04/finally-gwynedd-councils-autism-report.html

 

But why is Mr Morgan raising issues with the Derwen 'criteria'...?
The council were meant to have already updated their Derwen criteria to align with law from a previous investigation - the Ombudsman has signed this off as completed. It makes no sense....

Also this from an Ombudsman's investigation which the council accepted in 2018 -

What is the point of costly and time consuming reviews and investigations when nothing changes?

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...

 

Cyngor Gwynedd Council "It will be presented to the Council’s Cabinet meeting in October for final approval and implementation."

Recent correspondence from the Ombudsman for Wales with regard to Cyngor Gwynedd council and the Autism plan - that should have been implemented in 2019.

"Unfortunately, the Ombudsman and the Chief Executive have not yet been able to find a mutually convenient date to have the meeting I referred to in my last update to you at the end of June. This meeting will be taken forward as soon as it can practically be arranged, regardless of what I say below 

I am pleased to confirm that further progress has been made by the Council and that the finalised version of the draft plan was agreed by the project board that has met since I last wrote to you. It will be presented to the Council’s Cabinet meeting in October for final approval and implementation."

It has been a busy time for the Ombudsman during the pandemic and with the new CEO still finding his feet the delay is understandable. But has he forgotten arranging a meeting with the present Director of SS to discuss these same issues - two years ago !!?? That meeting arranged weeks in advance was cancelled by the council one hour before due.

But with no fanfare from the council and much teeth pulling, the Ombudsman appears certain that the Autism plan will be finally approved and implemented in October. We shall see...

But what of the other cases where Gwynedd council have not complied with the recommendations of Welsh Government agencies ?

This may prove difficult as the Ombudsman's office has signed off some compliance issues without checking the veracity of the departments evidence or really understanding the issues involved to the obvious benefit of Gwynedd and how many other councils ?

After a recent review the Ombudsman has now changed the process of ensuring compliance with his recommendations are met. The old system of the officer's chasing up on compliance arising from their own investigations did not work well for some reason. Will Care Inspectorate Wales be undertaking a similiar review ?

This will effect all Welsh councils but too late for many people who have brought complaints with the Ombudsman in the past and also those not realising that 'recommendations for improvement' can be downgraded with a 'variance' discussed behind closed doors months after the investigation has finished.

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...

 

Cyngor Gwynedd Council - Nuance, Slippage And Non Compliance.

In 2019, the CEO of Cyngor Gwynedd, stated to Councillors that all the Ombudsman for Wales recommendations had been met 'bar a nuance'. This was not correct.

Five Ombudsman for Wales reports into Gwynedd Social Services departments over four years - with major recommendations of the Ombudsman ignored.  At this very moment a  piece of work is being prepared by the Adults department to present to the Ombudsman in the hope it will finally achieve compliance already overdue way before the pandemic. The author, Manon Trapp, was recently warned by the departing CEO that further 'slippage' will not be tolerated by the Ombudsman - so that will be an interesting document...if the council ever release it. Sshh...

This past year has seen a marked increase in complaints against the SS departments.
The present Director gives the reason for the increase as the result of a 'new' system of recording any expessions of dissatisfaction as a complaint. For several years, the departments recorded some complaints as enquiries only which would have affected the data on behaviours, performance and trends.

But, earlier this year, the Director herself downgraded a complaint to an enquiry so this makes no sense. The complaint concerned the actions of officer's that according to the senior safeguarding officer went against their very ethos - so maybe it does. Sshh...

Is Dafydd Gibbard, the new CEO, aware of the issues that the Ombudsman has uncovered over the last few years ? Of course, he is - the CEO has been with Gwynedd council since 2003 and would have heard all the stories. Nick Bennett has made quite plain his 'outrage' at the last incumbent and may already have been in contact with Mr Gibbard to ensure the new boss is aware of what is expected of him and the senior officer's. So much going on behind closed doors...

The SS department recently turned down a request for a copy of the Review of Autism Services, by Hugh Morgan, OBE, commissioned after a recommendation from an earlier Ombudsman's report - that was initially ignored. The complainants informal request was treated as a Freedom Of Information request by the Director and after the regulatory 20 days had passed the request was refused. After an Internal Review the Monitoring Officer overturned the SS decision and the report was finally released - though it is named the Derwen report for some reason. How confusing....Don't mention the A word. Sshh...

Think on that. A Monitoring Officer overturning the wishes of his own council's Director of Social Services. There has also been a recent change to the council's Constitution asked for by the Monitoring Officer that distances himself from the SS departments. What is going on...?
There appears to have been no proper scrutiny of council operations since before the pandemic and so much goes on behind the scenes unminuted and undocumented but this is not usual.

There has been a shuffling of positions within the Care Scrutiny committee too - a new Chair has been appointed. Dewi Roberts, who attempted to challenge the SS departments during his tenure has been replaced by the man he replaced, Eryl Jones-Williams - who did not. The Chair is the most important position on any committee and controls what will appear on the agenda - usually discussed and formulated at a pre-meeting with senior officers that is not open to the public and no minutes are taken.

Where is the voice of the Cabinet Members in all this ? Why the silence ?
£35,000 per annum plus expenses plus pension...comes with legal duties and responsibilities. Doesn't it? 

Care Inspectorate Wales ?
We do not investigate individual complaints.
Still..?

And what of another Ombudsman's investigation and the findings from 2018 -

"69. - In my view, these failings not only caused Mr A a significant injustice but also impacted upon Article 8 of his Human Rights.

 However, I have decided that the finding I have made of maladministration is so clear and so serious that to consider the human rights issues further would add little value to my analysis or to the outcome.I have therefore decided to say no more about that."

The recommendations ordered by the Ombudsman in this case were also not fully complied with.
Lessons learnt ?

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council.

 

Cyngor Gwynedd Council And Their Problem With Autism.

So what was in the 'Independent' Report that Cyngor Gwynedd Children's Department felt the need to 'overwhelm' and 'bully' the Investigator to change ?

Four possibly five pages are missing from the original Investigation Report and where the original upheld all parts of our complaint - as did the second - the third version did not.

This part related to the inadequate assessment of an autistic child's needs undertaken and questioned the ability and professionalism of the social worker involved.

Our complaint also involved one officer responsible for mishandling and censoring our personal data but that customer care officer left the Council before being interviewed by the Investigators.

That officer then rejoined the Council after the Interviews had been completed.

The social worker on the other hand simply misled lied to the Independent Inverstigator and the Independent Person.

A Subject Access Request (SAR) reveals that senior managers were aware of the social worker's deception and covered for her, presumably to cover for their own failings. This social worker is now a 'team leader'

The Ombudsman for Wales was given this evidence but commented that they had not included it in their second (2019) Report as more serious issues were concentrated on, though this (we were assured) was not meant to trivialise the issues lied about.

To be fair the PSO Wales did comment that one officer's evidence was 'disingenous'.

There is a Care Scrutiny Committee meeting on Thursday the 14th, 2019, at which, the Social Services Annual Complaints Handling Report should be scrutinised.

It could be an interesting meeting as it is now known that there are, in fact, two Ombudsman for Wales Reports highly critical of the Children's Department and its failings, including causing injustices and possibly impacting on a family's Human Rights.

It should be of concern that the Children's Annual Complaint Report, authored by Marian Parry Hughes and presented to Cabinet in July, makes no reference to the failings found by the Ombudsman, nor the behaviour of the department heads and their treatment of an independent investigator.

The Complaints Report for Cyngor Gwynedd Adult SS is also on the agenda.

This, too is of interest as we await the Adult department's explanation of their treatment of an autistic young man and which the Ombudsman reported on, last year.

It makes for grim reading relating to assessors within the Adult Care field using the man's disability against him. Appalling.

The Ombudsman for Wales Report into that investigation can be found here -

http://www.lukeclements.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Ombudsman-Gwynedd-Council-report-201700388.pdf

Copy and paste the address into your browser.

The Mother of an autistic man with mental health issues raised a complaint on behalf of her son, on 6th of November 2015 and was unhappy with the Council's response on 19th of November 2015, so raised further concerns with the Council on 23rd of November 2015.

After the mother receiving a copy of her son's Care and Treatement Plan the mother submitted another complaint on 13th of December 2015.

A meeting was held with the mother and husband in January 2016 to discuss the complaint, but all concerns were not addressed properly at this meeting.

Following further reassessments and failure to implement her son's care plan and provide him with adequate support, the mother raised her complaint to Stage 2 on 15th of September 2016.

The stage 2 complaint was investigated by an Independent Investigator and concluded in November of 2016, but most parts of the complaint were not upheld.

Two recommendations were made, one of these was that the Council agreed  to 'improve the information on ASD on their website' - we note that they have done no such thing.

Documentation of this particular complaint and the details of it are absent in the Annual complaints Reports for the relevant periods, except for one mention in the 2016/17 report that mentions a stage 2 that will be available in the next quarter, even though the complaint had concluded months before, the Stage 2 was not included in the next Annual Report either for 2017/18.

The Mother then complained to the Ombudsman in April of 2017, yet the Annual Report covering that period states that no Stage 2 complaints had gone to the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman's Report was completed on the 4th of July 2018, yet there is no mention of this Ombudsman's Report in the 2018/19 Annual Complaints Report, but it is stated that there were no Ombudsman's investigations undertaken during 2018/19, although this one was obviously still ongoing in 2018, this is not mentioned anywhere.

The case in question relates to failings of a man with 'high functioning autism' and the Ombudsman's Report is indicative of how Gwynedd treat such individuals. It makes for shocking reading, yet who is to know about such failings and maladministration if the details are omitted from the Annual Complaints Reports by Officers

The idea of the Annual Complaints Report is supposed to inform members, scrutiny commitees and the public what is going on within the Department and of any failings and lessons to be learnt. Sadly this case is yet another example of Gwynedd Council's lack of transparency and wish to be open and honest and as a result, no scrutiny of such horrendous failings will ever take place (as is usually the case)
The following is a small excerpt of the Ombudsman's Report, it speaks for itself.....

"69, In my view, these failings not only caused Mr A a significant injustice but also impacted upon Article 8 of his Human Rights.11 However, I have decided that the finding I have made of maladministration is so clear and so serious that to consider the human rights issues further would add little value to my analysis or to the outcome, I have therefore decided to say no more about that."

One of the Ombudsman's Recommendations that the Council agreed to was that Gwynedd Council, within 6 months of the final report (4th July 2018 ) -

 "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."


 So, Gwynedd Council....did you undertake that review within 6 months?

(Part of Gwynedd Council's Compliance correspondence with the Ombudsman for Wales)

Monday 11th March 2019

"Ymhellach i’r cais isod am wybodaeth, dyma’r gwybodaeth diweddaraf gennym am y sefyllfa o ran gwasanaeth ASD. Nid oes adolygiad penodol wedi bod ond mae hyfforddiant dwys wedi ei gynnal (ac yn y cynlluniau) yn y pwnc. Wedi paratoi ateb isod. Croeso i ti basio hwn ymlaen gan hefyd esbonio fod ddim adolygiad penodol wedi digwydd eto."

(Translation)
Further to the request below for information, here’s the latest information we have about the situation in terms of the ASD service. There has been no specific review, but intense training has been undertaken in the subject (and in the plans).I have prepared an answer below. You are welcome to pass this forward, by also explaining that no specific review has yet taken place.

"The staff delivering Learning Disability services are acutely aware of the increasing need for timely and effective provision of high quality services for people living with ASD. We have implemented an extensive training and awareness programme as evidenced by the Training Unit. In addition, we are proactive members of the North Wales Integrated Autism Service (details attached). We have also begun work to establish a new team within the Learning Disability service which will be taking a preventative approach to service delivery, with effective ASD provision being an integral part."


No....thought not. Have you since? Who knows? and what are your 'procedures' for dealing with high functioning autistic adults and children now? Do you even have such  procedures?

This recommendation specifically asks for the Council to address their procedures for dealing with 'high functioning autistics' but yet again the Council refer to what the Learning Disability Service is doing - this is not a service that is open to 'high functioning' autistics, so is irrelevent.....

The 'intensive training' mentioned is mainly PBS (7 sessions) and 'Indirect Support' ( 26 sessions) again this is the domain of the Learning Disability Service, though there are 'Autism Awareness'  days. ( 3 sessions) Hardly Intensive Training for those Social Workers and Officers dealing with high functioning autistic people.

In relation to the Ombudsman's 2019 investigation into our own case The Head of Children and Families Department states in her Annual Complaint Handling report of 2019, under 'lessons learnt', that -

"It is not a requirement for Social Workers to have any expertise in autism. Neither are they required to undertake autism training. Autism training is currently available to Derwen Service staff, but it is not open to the rest of the Department's officers. There was a strong view in the Ombudsman's final report that there was a need to raise awareness amongst all of the Department’s remaining officers, and therefore another lesson would be to ensure that autism training is available to all within the Children and Supporting Families Department."


Yet again the training given is for those that work with autistic individuals with a learning disability, not for the officers that will be the ones working with 'high functioning'autistic individuals. So Marian Parry Hughes have you any plans to provide autism training to all of the Department's Social Workers ?  More smoke and mirrors.....

The Reports of both department's are NOT an accurate record bearing in mind that there are now at least THREE highly critical Ombudsman's Reports, that Council Officer's would rather not explain or discuss and certainly do not want scrutinized.


One Councillor has already referred to one Ombudsman's Report into the Children's Department as 'damning'.

What would he make of the Ombudsman's Report into Gwynedd Council of July, 2018 ?

A young autistic man with other issues that was left to rot in bed after having support withdrawn.

Something is very wrong with Gwynedd Council Social Services....