Throw back Tuesday - 6.3 revealed

With a distinct sense of déjà vu and "how could they not have a copy of that?", the next element presented to the full Ammanford Town Council Meeting of 9 December 2019 had again been delivered on 16 August 2019.

For a little context, the first fine/redress referenced was to resolve the 2017 complaint without the kerfuffle of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales performing a full investigation. The early resolution appeared to have been buried for the benefit of the "Iscennen Plaid slide" in 2018. The enclosed cheque was finally cashed by the Council on 2 December 2019 - delay due to not being able to visit a branch as the Council's accounts were still held at a bank that had closed their Ammanford branch years before. 

The PSOW received a letter from the new Clerk on 17 December 2019, which added greater confusion to matters, keeping the Complainant in the dark, causing the PSOW to re-open the case and instructing the Clerk to provide both a copy of the response and a cheque. Fair play, within an hour and eight minutes a counter-signed cheque was sent via Recorded Delivery, from Ammanford Post Office on 20 December 2019 (11:04 am) which was collected from the Sorting Office on Christmas Eve. The new Clerk also provided a copy of the 17th December letter through the Complainant's door on the 20th - presumably on the walk back from the Post Office.

No evidence has ever been produced to confirm if a cheque was written for the Member of the Public in October, but there have been conflicting reports about one being found in a Councillor's pocket later.

The new Clerk also raised the Complainants heckles by making a false claim the he could "find what is required on the Ammanford Town Council website". This was noted by the PSOW and fuelled the complaint in regards to item 6.2.

For the avoidance of doubt, and to crush some Facebook "sour grapes" lies put around by former Town Councillors, both the £125 early resolution redress and the £250 final report redress cost Philip Hammond (through the magic of Gift Aid) within hours of receipt. In the case of the £250 cheque, the Interim Clerk had witnessed the Complainant cashing the cheque on Quay Street two days after receipt. Knowing more of the chequered financial history of the Council (never wondered why "Banking update" has been a multi-year recurring Agenda item?) the Complainant now realises what a reckless move that was!

Lessons to learn:

• The Council didn't formally acknowledge receipt - complaints policy says five days (despite two phone call chasing). It certainly didn't resolve the issue within 20 working days - like the policy says "most" complaints will. This complaints policy was put in place as a direct remedy directed per the PSOW's original report.
• Taking almost four months to bring an item before Council is worrisome.
• Councillors should have reviewed the correspondence and asked questions.
• Dating items presented, as a policy, would have covered all these issues, and "protected" against an FOI request.
• Getting chopsy when apologising (again) reinvigorates Complainants, in this case staining yet another clean sheet.

The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales received this complaint on 8 November 2019 (one has to "exhaust" a published complaints procedure, or wait thirteen weeks before the PSOW will consider matters). This matter was formally resolved on 14 January 2020.

Throw back Monday - 6.2 revealed

Following on from yesterday's "how could they not have a copy of that?", the next element presented to the full Council Meeting of 9 December 2019 was dated 16 August 2019.

To provide a little context, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales produced a draft report in March 2019 which the Council agreed to be bound by - in a watered down form. It had taken more than 18 months to reach that point. The Council had employed an Interim Clerk for 15 hours a week, who appeared to be working her socks off to try and dig them out of a hole. Looking from the outside-in she appeared to have hit resistance; cheeky politics was being played and the Council seemed unwilling to step from the 19th century towards the 21st.

So here's 6.2:

Lessons to learn:

• The Council didn't formally acknowledge receipt - complaints policy says five days (despite two phone call chasing). It certainly didn't resolve the issue within 20 working days - like the policy says "most" complaints will. This complaints policy was put in place as a direct remedy directed per the PSOW's original report.
• Taking almost four months to bring an item before Council is worrisome.
• Councillors should have reviewed the correspondence and asked questions.
• Dating items presented, as a policy, would have covered all these issues, and "protected" against an FOI request.
• Publishing the documents referenced in an Agenda, per Welsh Law would have stopped this ever becoming an issue, currently corona-parked with the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.

The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales received this complaint on 8 November 2019 (one has to "exhaust" a published complaints procedure, or wait thirteen weeks before the PSOW will consider matters). 

The issues escalated further when the new full time Clerk committed to various actions and failed to implement, the PSOW deciding it was appropriate to investigate the Council, again.

Watch out for 6.3 tomorrow.

Throw back Sunday - 6.1 revealed

One of the astonishing revelations from Ammanford Town Council's Clerk (~£32K pa) was that he couldn't find correspondence presented to full Council on 9 December 2019,when he attended his first meeting to take up the reins on a full time basis {see Liar, Liar, Townhall on fire (pt4)} .

By virtue of  Section 57 of Local Government (Democracy) (Wales) Act 2013 these documents should have been made available electronically to the public when Councillors were summoned to the Meeting .

So, to be helpful, I thought I'd serialise things - having suitably redacted as the Council should have done to comply with the DPA2018 (GDPR) .

Let's start with item 6.1, of 28 August 2019: 

Lessons to learn:

• The Council has never formally acknowledged receipt - complaints policy says five days (despite a phone call chasing). It certainly didn't resolve the issue within 20 working days - like the policy says "most" complaints will.
• Taking over three months to bring an item before Council is worrisome.
• Councillors should have reviewed the correspondence and asked questions.
• Dating items presented, as a policy, would have covered all these issues, and "protected" against an FOI request.
• Publishing the documents referenced in an Agenda, per Welsh Law would have stopped this ever becoming an issue, currently corona-parked with the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.

Watch out for 6.2 tomorrow.