Cyngor Gwynedd council's Care Scrutiny Committee meeting held on the 25th November, 2021 was interesting on so many levels....
All councillors on the committee bar two, were emailed calling out the Autism plan as a cut and paste of Hugh Morgan's, review summary and recommendations. Only one response was received and 6 councillors excused themselves on the day as not able to attend the virtual meeting. Gwynedd council's 'public' webcast does not include the start of the meeting where those apologies were given.
The webcast of the meeting can be found here -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/621168
Moving on, the Cabinet Member for Children and Families, Dilwyn Morgan, talks about the difficult times during the pandemic but sees the autism plan produced during these times with 'pride'. He also mentions the importance of listening to young people and their families...
The councillor appears to have forgotten that in 2018, he, along with the children's senior complaints manager, refused point blank to discuss an investigation into this case with the Care Scrutiny Committee. Has he also forgotten the email exchanges he had with a family who raised issues of bad behaviour by officers where he stated in relation to the first Ombudsman's investigation that the council has 'accepted and acted upon his recommendations' ?This was not correct...
It is also a matter of concern that issues were raised with the Cabinet member regarding the accuracy of annual SS complaints handling reports written by the children's department. A SAR has revealed that the Cabinet Member did indeed discuss the matter - not with the council's democratic services as one may expect but with the senior complaints manager for children and families. The conversation does mention that a corporate complaint could have been made, but the email exchange has been so heavily redacted by Gwynedd's Information Manager that the remainder of the conversation is unreadable.
Regardless, the Cabinet Member did not pass on that information...Sshh...
During the webcast, Dilwyn Morgan attempts to blame the system for the deficiencies highlighted by the various investigations and implies that he and the officer's will 'sort it out'.
The same people who ignored their responsibilities under the Autism SAP, the Equality Act 2010, the SSWB (Wales) Act 2014, NICE guidelines, code of ethics et al and ignored the SS complaints procedure (in order to squash complaints)...will now sort it out. Right oh...
Regarding the training of members and staff, the Cabinet member states - "it would frighten you how few members of staff undertake these trainings..."
Imagine
what it is like for people on the receiving end of these untrained
staff - from a Head of Services that does not know what the Equality Act,2010
is to a Gwynedd social worker who 'suggested' parents setting up an autistic child
up to 'fail' re safeguarding - "I can't help him otherwise..."
He also states that the situation is more difficult and far worse in other counties of Wales. Which counties are those, Mr Morgan and have you raised concerns ?
And where was the voice of the Cabinet Member for Adults, Dafydd Meurig ? Still sitting on an Ombudsman's report where an autistic young man was left to rot in bed when his commissioned hours were taken from him and the staff used elsewhere in the home to cover for its own staff shortages...
Something is so very wrong within Gwynedd council...
