Councillor Beca Brown presented a notice of motion re Neil Foden to a full council meeting of cyngor Gwynedd on the 4th December, 2025. The motion can be found in the agenda pack for the meeting -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//mgChooseDocPack.aspx?ID=5505
There were also 6 questions put to the council by elected members.
One raised by Councillor John Pughe Roberts asked -
The rest of the leader's response along with the other question and answers can be found here -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/b15108/ITEM%206%20-%20QUESTIONS%2004th-Dec-2025%2013.30%20The%20Council.pdf?T=9
John Nicholson, an ex governor at Ysgol Friars between 2013 and 2017, reports that he tried to raise concerns about Neil Foden but was not supported by other members of the board -
“If the maladministration was blatantly evident to me after
just a few months of becoming a school governor, it must have been
overwhelmingly clear to those members of staff who comprised the senior
management team.
https://www.northwaleschronicle.co.uk/news/25655748.bangor-former-school-governor-reacts-neil-foden-report/
In the same article, Jan Pickles, appears to reply to Nicholson directly -
“I understand that Foden was a controlling bully to children, staff
and governors, and I don’t doubt he behaved that way with staff within
the council’s education department.
“However, we are the adults in this situation. If he’s behaving like
that with you as a governor, how is behaving with children?
School governors did fail...
The chair and vice chair during the time of Foden's offending were Essi Ahari and Keith Horton - both serving police officers with North Wales Police.
Is Pickles saying that experienced, senior police officers were bullied?
Did the officers give evidence to Pickles?
Councillor Richard Medwyn Hughes was also a governor during this time.
Hughes resigned after Foden's arrest but cyngor Gwynedd reinstated him last year.
For why...?
There can be repercussions for those who do raise concerns...
An example from a BBC article dated 2020 -
Gwynedd head teacher Neil Foden 'victimised staff'
"I felt victimised by Neil
Foden due to the way he operated. You were either in his gang or you
were not," person D told the panel.
He
claimed he was never interviewed by school governors and that Mr
Foden's daughter had investigated the allegations against him.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51710557
Neil Foden was an abusive bully and used the system to protect himself.
It is part of a culture that appears rife in Gwynedd that includes not just schools and the education department but many departments within the council.
Raising concerns in Gwynedd...
To raise a complaint about a senior officer in Gwynedd can be fraught with danger.
The culture means that complainants have on occasion been gaslit and smeared to others.
Foden used the 'vexatious complainants' approach to shut down complaints.
The children's SS use the term 'tiresome complainants'.
***********
Safeguarding children or safeguarding themselves?
A reminder that the Pickles review was an 'extended' child practice review.
This means that some of the children were in the care of the local council or recently had been...
A whole team of social workers and their managers were meant to be protecting each child from predators such as Foden.
All failed the children...
Were any of the kids in foster care?
Were Youth Justice involved?
The head of children's services is still 'absent from work' and Dafydd Paul, their senior safeguarding officer appears to have been replaced by Elliw Haf Hughes.
Leader of the council, Nia Jeffreys, could have explained what is happening within the department.
She did not...nor did the cabinet member for children, or any of the senior officers present.
One Gwynedd councillor, Richard Glyn Roberts, saw through the mea culpa's -
Given the slowness in dealing with this issue and the lack of clinical focus on the procedural and organisational failures. one asks how we can have confidence in the leadership of the council.
Organisational failures of Gwynedd's senior officers will be detailed in the Woods report.
Councillors could ask Dafydd Gibbard to release this report which he has had in his possession since the Spring.
There was a question from Councillor Gruffydd Williams -
Following the fact that article 4 has been quashed by Judge Justice Eyre and as a result of what he said, "that there has been significant misleading by the Officers of this Council", will the Council apologise to campaigners who have fought so hard to enforce article 4
Williams was answered by Craig ab Iago, cabinet member for the Enviroment.
The reference to officers misleading councillors was not properly answered...
The webcast of the full council meeting can be found here -
The translated feed is not working...
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/1044728
In other news, the job of Gwynedd's workforce development manager under social care is being advertised. Those interested should contact the current workforce development manager, Gillian Paul.
Something is so very wrong within Gwynedd council...
