Showing posts with label liz saville roberts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liz saville roberts. Show all posts

Thursday 6 December 2018

Why A Blog About Cyngor #Gwynedd Council ?

I feel it is time for a recap of the events that led to this blog being created.

The 2010 Independent Investigation - with all points upheld - was highly critical of Gwynedd SS and their management team in their treatment of an autistic child. But the recommendations of the Report were not acted upon and the child and family were ignored.

Our local MP, Liz Savile Roberts was contacted for help but her very good friend at the council, Marian Parry Hughes, intervened and Liz then ignored our request for a meeting to provide her with our evidence. Liz has continued to ignore our correspondence.

At the time, the child was on a CIN plan managed by a social worker whose attitude beggared belief, culminating in the social worker not bothering to turn up for a review of the child's case. A meeting that he, himself, had organised with parents and a teacher, letting them all down and wasting everybody's time.

A complaint was raised about his behaviour and that of the Head of Services. To say it was dealt with badly is an understatement and a Stage 2 complaint repeatedly refused. (The Ombudsman has since recommended that ALL officers involved in the complaint be given re-training in the Statutory Complaints procedure)

So I began to blog the story of how Gwynedd Council have behaved.

I have been careful to name only those officers who have behaved badly and deliberately not named one manager whom, I believe, had her arm twisted by more senior managers to misrepresent the Investigation of the censoring and mishandling of personal information and the Council's own data breach.

Gwynedd Adult services were recently lambasted by the Ombudsman for how they treated a young, autistic man. This case was only brought to the Ombudsman's attention because the Complaints department had refused to accept their complaint, also.
 
If those named would like the right to reply they have only to contact me. I am also willing to consider and/or publish their version of events if they so wish.

I would also like to thank those who have supported the family in our attempt to access services for 'high functioning' autistics and those children that continue to fall between the gaps in services.










Wednesday 17 January 2018

So We Emailed Cyngor #Gwynedd Council's Corporate Management Officers....

With Gwynedd council customer care (!) still refusing to respond to our questions regarding the Stage 2 complaint first raised with them on May 25th, last year, we emailed the Corporate Management Team, yesterday, with our concerns - Chief Executive, Dilwyn Williams, Corporate Directors, Iwan T Jones and Morwena Edwards.

FAO Gwynedd Council Corporate Management Team

As you will be aware we have a current Stage 2 complaint ongoing with Gwynedd Council Children and Families Department, first raised on the 25th of May 2017.

The Independent Investigator presented her completed report to the Council at the end of October.

We were then informed that the Council were seeking clarity from the Investigator and questioning the report.

The Council have been in possession of the completed Independent Investigators report for 11 weeks now.

The whole Stage 2 process is as you know to be completed within 25 days, do you find this acceptable ?

We have found the Counci's handling of this complaint and us as complainants to be obstructive, unhelpful and the Council to be utterly lacking in transparency and it is also obvious that Customer Care do not act independently of the Department as they should, which, we contend, leads to complainants being treated unfairly.

We have asked for information regarding the outcome of the Independent Investigation and also the Council's Complaints procedure.

No answers were given, or information provided.

We asked who within the Council we could contact to discuss our issues, we received no answer to this and worse were wrongly advised by Customer Care that we were free to discuss our complaint with the Ombudsman at any time.

We did indeed contact the Ombudsman to discuss the issues surrounding our complaint and were told -

"In relation to your dissatisfaction with the Council’s handling of your Stage 2 investigation, as I explained in my previous email, this matter does not fall within the scope of my investigation and therefore I am unable to consider it....
...If you wish for this matter to be considered by the Ombudsman, you would need to submit a complaint, by completing the online form on our website.  I am unable to speculate whether submitting a complaint to this office would affect the Council’s current Stage 2 investigation"

In light of the ongoing situation and the bad advice from Customer Care, perhaps you would be so kind as to furnish us with the information we require -

1. Were the six points of complaint upheld by the Independent Investigator or not ?

2. What were the questions presented, by the department, to the Independent Investigator regarding the report submitted to the Council in October ?

3. Who is the Adjudicating Officer in this matter?

4. On what date can we expect the Council to provide us with the report ?

5.Please provide us with a link to Gwynedd Council's Policy and Welsh Government guidelines that supports the Council in withholding the outcome of the Independent Investigator's Report and the Report itself.

6. Please advise us of our rights as complainants in relation to our being supplied with the above information, without delay.

7. We ask that if we were to raise a formal complaint into how the Council and the Customer Care department have been dealing with our formal complaint would this, in any way, interfere with or cause any further delay to our formal complaint first raised with the Council on the 25th May, 2017 ?

We also ask that you view the emails between ourselves and Customer Care, as that will give you further insight into our very pertinent concerns.
                                           ******************************************

Today, we received an email from a Senior Executive Officer on behalf of Morwena Edwards.
It was brief - 3 sentences - thanking me for our email and included the line -

"I can assure you that Gwynedd Council takes all complaints seriously and I will endeavour to respond to the specific questions detailed in your email within 5 working days."

Well.. we are not assured - who would be after being treated so badly for so long ? - and so emailed back with the question we have been asking ever since the Independent report was received by The Council in October, last year.

"Have our 6 points of complaint been upheld by the Independent Investigator ?"

The email was swiftly answered by the council -

"Whilst I understand your frustrations, without having had the opportunity to look into the matter, I am unable today, to answer your question. I will respond to you within 5 working days."

More delay in a process that has taken nearly 8 months now.

Something is so badly wrong within Gwynedd Council.

More -  https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.co.uk/













Wednesday 28 June 2017

A Missing Letter, An MP And A Support Team(!). Gwynedd.

And a quick recap....

A stage 2 complaint from 2010 showing serious failings in the Children and Families Department at Cyngor Gwynedd was upheld by Independent Investigators.

From 2014, meetings and decisions made concerning a child's future were being held behind closed doors by managers and a social worker without the knowledge of the parents or professionals involved in the case.
Worse was the fact that a social worker and other professionals were being ignored....as they did not feel the child's needs were being met,

A social worker who acted without thought for the code of ethics that he has agreed to uphold.
Or worse - a social worker who has been instructed by managers to behave so....inappropriately and against the interests of a vulnerable child - the client.
The jury is still out.

A failure of the children and families department to deliver the services granted by Gwynedd social services and when they finally appeared - after having their arm twisted by a solicitor - were shockingly bad.

So bad that a complaint was raised and which Aled Gibbard closed  - against statutory policy - and also without informing anyone !?!?

Kenealy Jones - you said a search was made for the letter to Mr Gibbard he claims he never received. Did you look in the bins ?

I have sighted your email to your colleague, Aled, voicing your concern about where this case could go.

The service(!) provided involved the support worker - yes him of the grunts and no feedback - leaving the client alone in a car when he attended to his own bits and pieces.
You did read the risk assessment, Iolo - yes ?
Is it council policy to leave clients alone when in their care ?

All of this even before I asked the #Plaid_Cymru MP, Liz Saville Roberts for support.
Liz, who shook my hand, looked me in the eye and said "vote for me... and contact me if you ever need help".

MP's tut - some of them will say anything to get your vote.

















Friday 24 March 2017

Gwynedd Council Services Scrutiny - Needs Updating (Or Something)

Just came across this link on the web.

https://democracy.cyngor.gwynedd.gov.uk/documents/s7887/Adroddiad%20Blynyddol%202015-16%20Sterfynol.pdf

Its slightly long winded so I will not reproduce it here in its entirety but I would like to comment on some of it as it seems so...well...personal to me.

This is an excerpt from a Cyngor Gwynedd Council report written by Margaret Kenealy Jones.
10.3b
Complainants

During this year we have recieved(sic) numerous complaints from the same individuals.
The individuals in questions will recieve(sic) a response and will return within a couple of weeks with a slightly different issue they would like to be addressed. They will also contact through different channels, for example

Solicitor or the Local Member of Parliament.
Example

A parent has been in contact herself regarding the hours of support work her son recieves(sic). As she is unhappy with the response,she contacted her Solicitor and her Local MP. In this case, as the Service had only recently recieved(sic) Access to the child in question they had not been able to produce a comprehensive assessment of need and therefore the hours agreed during the summer period was based on the information provided by the parent directly.

The Service are in the process of working with the family to complete a comprehensive assessment of the child’s needs in order to ascertain the amount of support needed. This has been closed as a complaint, and is now an operational matter being monitored by Senior Managers.

Does the new regulation allow for such a whitewash of the facts in this case ?

No mention in the report that this particular case has been ongoing for years.

No mention that in 2010 an Independent Investigation upheld an official complaint against the Council in this case.

No mention of the person being so ignored and denied access to services by the Council and so, in desperation, contacted a solicitor - and only then - strangely -  were services granted.

No mention of the Ombudsman for Wales agreeing with the parent that a stage 2 investigation should be allowed.

No mention that the Ombudsman for Wales was then mis-informed in this case and superceded their original decision only after Gwynedd council supplied said 'extra' information.

No mention that Liz Saville-Roberts, MP, was contacted, as advised by the Autism Champion for Gwynedd, Elin Walker Jones.


Please, Kenealy, you are required by Statute to produce a yearly report.

I understand it is your job to paint the council and yourself in as good a light as possible but official reports presented to the public should always be used to give some modicum of accuracy and fairness.

Will you be updating the public on how this case has progressed in your next report ?


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