Showing posts with label gwynedd head of finance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gwynedd head of finance. Show all posts

Monday, 27 January 2025

Cyngor Gwynedd Council - One Child In Care Costing £25,000 A Week...

Cyngor Gwynedd council held a meeting of their Governance and Audit Committee on Thursday, 16th January, 2025. It was not webcast and so not available for viewing later by councillors and the public.

The agenda pack can be found here - 
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/g5292/Public%20reports%20pack%2016th-Jan-2025%2010.00%20Governance%20and%20Audit%20Committee.pdf?T=10

A member of the committee raised concerns that the Plaid Cymru councillor, Dafydd Meurig, was not in attendance at the meetings...

The minutes of the previous meeting contain -  
           
Many people would challenge this statement especially in light of recent complaints that have avoided proper scrutiny. 

As the committee are probably not aware of these complaints pushed through via the cabinet they simply accepted the report...


It was believed that the performance of cyngor Gwynedd's information department in dealing with FOI requests was to be discussed. The agenda simply informs -
Note: Freedom of Information Requests Audit –
a request to consider that the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 are addressed by the Committee – the Committee to receive an annual report setting out the Council's Arrangements to deal with Freedom of Information matters.


Under the 'Implementing The Decisions Of The Committee, in relation to the -
REVENUE BUDGET 2024/25 - END OF AUGUST 2024 REVIEW -

The intention was for the Statutory Director of Social Services to provide an update during the 28/11/24
Committee on the work involved with the overspend in the Department for Adults, Health and Wellbeing.
Due to IT issues during the meeting, the Director was unable to report. The intent is for him to present/report in the next committee.
An update on the current situation - the outcome of the end of November 2024 review will be reported in a
separate item on the Committee's programme.

The director did inform the meeting that one child was costing the council £25,000 a week (£1.25 million a year). Huw Dylan Owen also made mention that one child was living in a caravan. The audio was not great for this part of the conversation.

One committee member asked questions of the director - the director did not answer them...
Towards the end of the meeting, the chair did bring attention to this and told the member that she would ensure the questions were answered albeit outside of the meeting.

The Capital Programme was discussed, along with the Savings Overview and the Forward Work Programme. The Audit Wales report was also presented.

Dewi Morgan, the council's head of finance appeared to take a swipe at the officer in attendance from Wales Audit, complaining that the media channel S4C had read the report and presumably raised concerns with the figures. Once again, the audio for this section was poor...

The Wales Audit officer simply responded by telling Morgan that the figures used were those that Morgan himself had supplied....

The committee also heard concerns from a member that the planning committee was refusing applications for social housing in the Llyn area and that their decisions were putting schools in the area at risk. The chair thanked the councillor for raising the issue.

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...



 



Wednesday, 14 February 2024

Cyngor Gwynedd Council - Collective Amnesia...

Cyngor Gwynedd council held a Governance and Audit Committee on Thursday, 8th February 2024. Unlike most other meetings of this committee, this one was webcast and can be found here -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/852366
Yet again, the translated feed is not working. This happens too often to be an error...

It was notable that the minutes of the previous meeting could not be presented...
Geraint Owen, the former Head of Democratic Services and now an executive director of the council, began by asking the committee not to scrutinise the reports...

The first report up is authored by Dewi Morgan, Head of Finance. His report is based on the Intenal Audit Section published last year by Luned Fon Jones which can be found here -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru/documents/s38031/OUTPUT%20OF%20THE%20INTERNAL%20AUDIT%20SECTION.pdf

At last years meeting, a service improvement group was elected to look into three main areas of concern -
Staff retention (exit interviews)
The Liberty Protection Safeguards formerly Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards DOLS
Smallholdings.

An excerpt from last years report -


Last years meeting discussed a possible rent increase for smallholdings. The committee, along with the Audit Wales officers in attendance will remember that Carys Edwards, a lay member, had to leave the meeting during the discussion on the rent increases as she herself lives in a smallholding rented from the council.

After the discussion ended and the lay member returned, the committee then elected her to the service improvement group totally ignoring the obvious conflict of interest...

Staff retention was a major concern for last years meeting and the exit interviews were deemed crucial to discover why staff were leaving the council and the SS departments in particular.

Dewi Morgan's latest report makes no reference to exit interviews - he now calls them 'Planning - Communication Arrangements'. He writes that 'plans are in place to re-establish the working group but no meeting has taken place so far...'

Why Gwynedd council's Head of Finance has altered the wording is unclear as is the reason for disbanding the improvement group in the first place. More importantly, are the committee no longer interested in staff retention? - have they all just given up?

The Estyn report was also discussed and yet another meeting that did not mention the arrest of school teachers and the effect that will have on school performance and the well being of pupils...
Estyn does comment that -

It would be interesting to discover how many of the 275 children looked after by Gwynedd council regularly miss school. Also how many of those with ALN/SEN are marked as absent?
Perhaps the exclusion officer could be asked for the information...?
Perhaps not...

The agenda pack for this meeting along with the reports sans minutes can be found here -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/g4963/Public%20reports%20pack%2008th-Feb-2024%2010.30%20Governance%20and%20Audit%20Committee.pdf?T=10

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