Conflict Of Interests - Cyngor Gwynedd Council...

Cyngor Gwynedd council - After the intervention of a Cabinet member, the translated feeds of the council's meetings are now working - the webcast library can be found here -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/home

At the Governance and Audit Committee held on the 8th February, 2024, Clare Hitchcock, a lay member of the Committee raises concerns with how Gwynedd council deal with the recommendations for improvement they have agreed to undertake. 

The meeting can be found here - https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/852366
Clare's comments begin at timestamp 14.30.

At the committee's meeting in May, 2023, a Task and Finish Group was set up to look into the long standing issue with rent arrears and the low rents of council owned smallholdings. It was also meant to be dealing with -
DOLS (Deprivation of Liberty)
Exit Interviews/Staff Retention now called Planning - Communication Arrangements.

Last week, Gwynedd council reported that the group did not meet in 2023 due to 'a long term illness in the Internal Audit Service'. Have they met in 2024...?

The Cabinet member for Corporate Support/Democratic Services also passed on concerns that Carys Edwards, a lay member of the group lived in a smallholding rented from the council.
Conflict of interest...?

Gwynedd council responded with - 
...We agree that any member of the Governance and Audit Committee who has declared an interest cannot the be on the working group that considers the same matter in further detail.  In the matter that you have specifically raised, Carys Edwards will not be able to be at the working group when smallholdings are discussed.  The Head of Finance has informed me that this matter was subsequently discussed between the Chair of the Committee, the Internal Audit Manager and the Head of Finance.

Last year, the Chair and members of the committee allowed this without comment.
At least one officer from Audit Wales was also in attendence at the meeting...

More recently, the monitoring officer, Iwan G D Evans, had ruled that two Councillors put forward to a Task and Finish group to oversee the review of Gwynedd's Autism Plan were ineligible due to a conflict of interest. 

Many Councillors questioned the MO's decision and believed the Councillors experiences would be invaluable to the working group and so a special meeting was called so that the Councillors could apply for 'special dispentation' and join the group.

At the special meeting, the monitoring officer actually supported the councillors and 'dispensation' was granted. The financial cost to the public purse of this special meeting was £793...

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...

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...