Coming soon: How useless is....?

"Well. Well, well, well. I, uh, see some familiar faces here today. Some welcome, some not so welcome."

It's time to draw from the personal horde of horrors from recent years and give credit where it's due in a blog series. Numpties, charlatans, duffers, and especially:

ICO calls time at Swansea

 

Time stands still at the Guildhall, is this why FOI are delayed?

A result in 17 hours for the Information Commissioner's Office, who forced Swansea Council to disclose that they had made 202 Personal Data Breaches, which had affected more than 3,435 individuals in the period from May 2018 to December 2021 [1]. 

The full FOI request for the number of  "Personal data breaches since GDPR day" is publicly available on WhatDoTheyKnow.com.

In a strikingly unusual move, a case officer responded to an FOI complaint in nine days, compelling Swansea Council to respond: 

Some have questioned whether the new Information Commissioner, John Edwards, who took up his role on 4 January 2022, would uphold the 2000 Freedom of Information Act. There's a massive backlog of cases, in many instances not addressed for over a year.

Has John Edwards as new Commissioner brought with him a new broom for the New Year? 

Was Swansea Council's failure to respond according to the law - promptly and in any event no later than twenty working days - too blatant and egregious for even the ICO to overlook?

Does the intersection of GDPR and FOI risk shaming the ICO if had let it slide, grossly undermining any authority it needs to discharge the Commissioner's duties? Knowing how many mistakes have been made and how long it took for the Council to comply with its legal obligations to decide whether to notify (under 2018 DPA/GDPR) is a bread-and-butter metric that should be at the tips of a section head's fingers.

Does adding Annotations to WhatDoTheyKnow, publicly shaming public authorities,  trigger the PR department/ministry-of-spin to jump on the Freedom of Information team?

Has John Edwards simply done some comparative maths? Public authorities like billion-pound Swansea have budgets splurged on bulging PR departments and second-rate consultants' reports, whilst their FOI and data protection clean-up crews are woefully understaffed and in many situations not empowered to gather timely, nor (in some cases) truthful responses from their own colleagues. If the humble citizen is resilient enough to file and pursue a complaint at the ICO then Mr Edwards' teams will simply pick up the costs of enforcement - I've a pretty easy fix for that.

Command Post Bunker on Mumbles Hill
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Nigel Davies - geograph.org.uk/p/3064574

Swansea itself has monuments scattered around the city to mark the bravery of the air-defence units that sought to protect her citizens, throughout the Second World War and especially during the Three Nights' Blitz. As a young child I remember clambering through the Command Post Bunker up on Mumbles Hill. A friend's father would jam 2-5 of us into the back of his Mini to take us there, in the days before seatbelts! We'd run around, playing innocent hide and seek, then inevitably pretend to strafe and kill each other as we'd defend or attack a bunker, playing out being imaginary soldiers with sticks for Sten guns.

Mr Thomas would describe the huge anti-ship and anti-aircraft guns, the devastating noise and damage to homes they'd make during firing drills, and the intense searchlights that would scour the sky during a raid (Coastal Defence 299 Battery A on the rocks way below). We were perhaps too young and innocent to understand the trauma of living through it, the true horror of war. We dismissed the notion that the city centre was "new". We only saw the first part of Dylan Thomas's "ugly, lovely town", years before the tag of "Pretty Shitty City" was imprinted on celluloid. Come and see for yourself, when COVID restriction safely allow, it's a lovely place to walk to earn yourself a Joe's Ice Cream, and remember those who made sacrifices to protect their communities.

The impact of a personal data breach can be devastating to an individual, and their family. Thousands of families in the Swansea Blitz had their homes and private lives literally blown open, relationships and even "permanent" structures within their communities razed and rocked. Each of the 3,435 individuals affected by these 202 personal data breaches is a person. Many of those individuals won't even know it happened - if the clean-up crew has covered over a mistake *and* decides the breach wasn't notifiable. In some cases those breaches will have exposed people to physical, mental and financial harm or destroyed trusting relationships. It may started from a simple mistake, but can have very serious consequences. 

Swansea Council may not know, or even care, just how deeply these personal data breaches can cut. Many times some would love to train a 6 inch naval gun on an organisation. Standing on the hill and pretending with binoculars can be quite cathartic, or so I'm told, and won't get your personal data added to a watchlist 😉

Shining an intense search-light by asserting information rights is a formidable weapon in and of itself. The cascade of mistakes and misdirection that fell out from one simple mistake in this instance are breath-taking. The failures documented, laws broken and contradicting lies revealed are truly shocking.

"Upholding information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals" is the tag-line, for now, of the ICO. Let's hope that this rapid-intervention, keep ing short-accounts to prevent the FOI backlog from ever starting to grow, is maintained. The ICO needs to be more than flashy jackets, buzzwords and sandboxes. Citizen audit, driven by a desire to put right personal injustices, is a massively powerful tool that strengthens our society. The Freedom of Information Act is right at the heart of that. 

If you are wondering if *you* are part of the breaches, then ask for your own data from Swansea and check for free here - they might even fix some of the errors and social engineering on the page if they have a few more visitors (reported to ICO July 2020).

[1] Note strictly the FOI responded to was only for Personal Data Breaches since GDPR day, and therefore 199 breaches affecting 3,432 individuals, rather than 202 affecting more than 3,435.

Councillor, Don't stand so close to me

The overnight press-release from Carmarthenshire County Council, pinpointing the source of a Covid-19 cluster to an illegal gathering at Drefach, pleaded with residents to take some responsibility to prevent further spread.

Care homes have taken a hammering from Covid-19. The Ammanford area has not been immune. I was therefore alarmed in May to be shown pictures that had been posted by Ammanford Town Council on their Facebook page and circulated to the local Press. The images clearly show Ammanford town councillors breaching the Welsh Government's guidance and law [The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (Wales) Regulations 2020].

Some weeks ago I stopped (safely) on my second post-lockdown journey to measure the sign at Ael-Y-Bryn care home in Penybanc (contactless). Its external width is roughly 1.35m. Applying a modicum of common-sense, if two councillors stood either side of the sign then they would still be closer than 2m ('cos 1.35m < 2m).

Pictured in 2m : Mayor Julia Bell (Plaid Cymru), Deputy Mayor Gruff Harrison (Plaid Cymru), Town Councillor Llio Davies (Plaid Cymru) 

The back-story to this debacle was Ammanford Town Council finally meeting (remotely) on 4 May 2020, and wanting to do "something" to help. Wanting to help is a good thing. Waiting to help for so long, not such a good thing.

Ruling out directly helping/visiting the residents was a good thing. Thinking of the Care Workers - a while before much of the MSM picked up on their diligence - was a really good thing.

There was a slight wrinkle in the discussion, as the brain-trust worked out that none of the care homes "in Ammanford" were actually within Ammanford Town Council's ward boundaries. In March the Council had brutally dismissed an appeal for help from Cruse Bereavement Care, sent from a Garnant address, despite knowing they supported residents in the Ammanford Town Council catchment. None-the-less, consistency has never been one of this Council's strong points, and so the plan was hatched to deliver "goody boxes" to care workers at the homes just out of Ward.

(Out-of-ward is perfectly pragmatic. Care workers, especially agency staff, travel from near and afar to residential homes. A member of my own family has regularly worked long-shifts dispersed from Llanwrtyd Wells to Bridgend to Whitland in order to supplement his meagre bursary, pay bills and keep the car on the road).

Goody boxes for under-appreciated care workers are a really good thing.

Stopping for a photo to push to the media, having dolled-up in the chains and finery of office, whilst not maintaining a 2m distance from those outside a Councillor's household? They are bad things. Sadly they are also the tip of the iceberg from the ruling cabal.

Children returning to school have seen physical 2m banners at the school gates (in-situ since July) and no doubt were admonished to keep 2m from one another. Will they remember this glaring example from their local community "leaders"?

Plaid Cymru are (still) campaigning for the Welsh Government to yield to the overwhelming body of science and legislate to promote wearing face coverings. Perhaps the Party should prioritise getting their own politicians and community representatives to put adherence to existing laws (and science) ahead of publicity.

Smart Parking's nationwide pitstop

Formula 1 is finally getting the season underway at the Austrian Grand Prix today and I'm giddy with excitement. Notso- Smart Parking  might be very envious of the speed with which the F1 teams are able to make tyre changes in the pits after this instruction from the Advertising Standards Authority to fix all their breaches of the 2015 Ofcom regulations on non-geographic numbers:

"We have contacted Smart Parking to instruct them to amend the Parking Terms and Conditions on their website and the car park signs to make it sufficiently clear wherever the telephone number is stated, that a service charge of 10p applies, and there is also an access charge that applies. Further to this, we have said to them that, whilst personal correspondence is not within our remit, we would suggest they also include this information in letters. We will get their assurance for these changes."

This means every sign, in every car park, across the whole of the UK has to be updated, again. Could this be the most expensive spurious charge Smart Parking have tried to scam? We may find out in the coming months.

To provide a little of the back-story, I received my first UK parking ticket last summer, on land adjacent to Shopper's World in Ammanford. I did not take it well. I'd been recorded by ANPR visiting the site in good faith for 14 minutes. I found a shopping list of issues at the site and tried to resolve the matter amicably. After that Smart Parking rejected my appeal, which set the wheels in motion to look more closely into their dodgy operations. POPLA upheld my appeal shortly after (costing Smart Parking in the process). A world championship is built from more than one chequered flag.

Scores of residents and visitors to Ammanford have been similarly cheated by notso Smart Parking. This company has gouged a chunk of cash out of the local Welsh economy, siphoned out to their operations centre in Birmingham, England, HQ in Perth, Scotland and divvied out millions in dividends. They have demeaned and terrorised a number of my older friends. Pensioners have paid hundreds of pounds in spurious charges, out of fear or an inability to navigate the unfair appeals procedures. Carmarthenshire County Councillors have been uninterested in victims' plights.

One widower (let's call him Mr K) wrote back to Smart Parking taking up their offer to have the matter listed in court, to which they've pursued him with "debt-collectors", onerous legal threats and payment plans. Mr K's experience of debt-counselling (and helping others do the right thing in court) has meant he's challenged the so-called debt, which should have put a hold the harassment. And yet Smart Parking continued to pursue him. If a heart bypass hasn't stopped Mr K helping the lonely & isolated every week, nor from serving the needy with compassion at FoodBank throughout the corona-virus pandemic (he should be shielding!), then I won't be deflected from my path of seeing justice prevail.

To be clear, I have no issue with paying for parking, but charges have to be fair and the operation lawful. Smart Parking's greed has led me to uncover that they have not been operating fairly or lawfully.

I've regularly been described as persistent, professionally at performance appraisals, and in my personal life. I've always welcomed the term as a compliment. It may have taken the ASA 10 months to reach this point, but I'm ready for a long season.

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.

Liar, Liar, Townhall on fire (pt4)

Watching Dominic Cummings squirm in his own lies, bolstered by Bozo Johnson, reminded me that there's always evidence. It also jogged my brain that I've a number of mostly-complete-but-need-editing pieces from my own time strictly observing Lockdown, that I should schedule to publish.

So, as an update to Liar, Liar, Townhall on fire (pt3), let me remind my one dear reader of where we were in the tumultuous turn of events of the first and second weeks of March [what feels like half a lifetime ago]. Jonathan Edwards (Plaid Cymru) had paid a gravely worrying visit to my office, which forced forward my business's orderly contingency plan into a scrabble to "get out of Dodge". Amidst that:

1. On 9 March 2020 Ammanford Town Clerk (Duncan S Morgan) told the whole of the Council (including Members of the Public present - myself included) that all the "not so nice letters" from the ICO had been dealt with in February. 
2. On 13 March 2020 the Lead Case Officer at the ICO confirmed that she'd spoken with the Clerk on 9 March 2020 as they'd received information from the Council. She firmly explained that the information must be provided to the Requester and should have been provided via WhatDoTheyKnow - as it was an electronic request and Public Bodies must adhere to the "form & format" guidance.
3. On 14 March 2020 I blogged about doubling down on the lies (pt3) and scheduled to publish on the 15 March 2020, outraged by the lies.

Monday 16th March 2020 was a bit of blur, trying to balance/close off the books for the year, accelerating the miserable task of stripping out the office, triple-checking every process could be carried out by at least four of us (in case one of us were incapacitated or didn't survive the sweeping pandemic) not to mention follow-up with new business opportunities from our (expensive) investment at a recent shadow-of-itself world-leading international tradeshow. So busy that I didn't hear the letter flap spring shut sometime that afternoon; I'd checked the mail at lunchtime (due to Royal Mail cutbacks/changes our delivery is invariably in the afternoon). But lo and behold I had a letter! Here's the envelope:

Note the franked stamp from the Sorting Office says "13/03/2020 20:04:35", confirming it wasn't posted until Friday - and clearly not in February.

Let's move on and take a poke at the letter:

Firstly we observe that it is dated "9th March 2020"

• but that wasn't in February!
• conflicts with the report given the same-day at Council some hours before/after
• conflicts with the Draft Minutes (6.3 ICO letter of 18 Feb 2020)

Next, note that the reference says "Public Services Ombudsman for Wales Complaint" when this complaint was lodged with the Information Commissioner's Office - who'd already issued a Decision Notice against the Council, demanding a rapid resolution.

Might 'Compliant [sic] Reference FS50954938' be correct? Nope, it was/is FS50904938.

And then we turn to the guts of the letter, with good news and bad. Firstly the good news, the Council was able to find the dates of correspondence for Agenda points 6.5-6.8. Hurrah! In a well functioning Council it would seem that they'd be on-top of correspondence requiring a response that was sent in the two weeks immediately before summonsing Councillors to attend.

The bad news is quite sad. 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 & 6.4 were all missing, and the extensive search appears to have consumed a very non-PC "three man day hours per person" between the Clerk and Mayor. So was that six person days? Six person hours? Three man days and three woman hours or even some combination thereof? What's even more perplexing is: how was the new Clerk able to prepare the Agenda for 9 December 2019 without sight of the very same letters he (assisted by a she) has been unable to find since 19 December 2019?

Had the Council published the (redacted) letters, as required by Welsh law with the Agenda, then there'd have been no hunting; and no FOI request to begin with, then no escalation, no ICO resources consumed, and certainly no Decision Notice ordering it to comply within 35 calendar days.

Sadly there's really, really bad news to follow, as if the new Clerk had just asked I'd have been happy to help furnish him with copies of the letter referenced in 6.1, which was written and hand-delivered on 28 August 2019, 6.2 on 16 August 2019 and 6.3 also on 16 August 2019. Agenda point 6.4 was the persistent issue of  the never-worked-properly £17K CCTV system. That stemmed from an FOI request of 11 March 2019 with the correspondence likely directly from the Information Commissioner's Office about 14 October 2019 (all in electronic form, with possible physical chasers).

It is apparent that the Clerk & Mayor of the Council have intentionally tried to keep their response from public view by posting a letter which was not delivered until 16 March 2020, in the hope that their tardiness, and direct disregard of the ICO's instructions, would not face scrutiny.

The quality of the response is shocking. Amateurish, inaccurate, confusing and self-conflicting. I'd be too ashamed to sign my name at the bottom of such a letter.

Circling-back, why did it take nearly four months for the Council to look at correspondence clearly marked as requiring a response? In extremis, the Council's own complaints policy requires it to formally acknowledge issues within five working days, resolving most in twenty working days and promising regular updates if protracted. Fifteen Councillors should have had their finger on the pulse of operations, stepped up to support interim/part-time efforts and latterly ensured their handsomely rewarded wonderboy could spell, count and discern between Regulator and Ombudsman. The reality was most Councillors were too busy playing party politics and ego-jousting.

Here's the Hopeful conclusion to that Ratified complaints policy:

If the Council really wants to learn then the elected and appointed Councillors need to step-up, require the Council's Clerk to put together a coherent Agenda with precision, publish necessary documents and follow-up meetings swiftly by promulgating Draft Minutes. Act transparently and keep short accounts! None of this is rocket science, just basic statutory duties.

Liar, Liar, Townhall on fire (pt3)

Eccles famously said "Everybody's got to be somewhere". Last Monday night I, and probably Ammanford Town Council's eight Councillors and Town Clerk, wished I were somewhere else.

By means of an update to "Liar, Liar, Townhall on fire (pt2)", I'm just going to focus just on the doubling-down on one set of lies. Absorbing the whole of 'Fawlty Towers'-cum-'Vicar of Dibley'-cross-'Dad's Army' car crash of the Full Council Meeting of 9th March 2020 in one go would just be too much. Trust me, I did the time!

Jumping into mystery item "6) Correspondence - Requiring a Response", I was intrigued from the Agenda as to what would be presented. Good practice would dictate that each matter would be titled, along with the date it was received.  Councillors ought to be keeping an eye on things that require a response, and publishing the date is essential to avoid the multiple run-away calamities that the Council has orchestrated since 2016. Sadly, those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

This portion of the meeting looked like a raid of an in-tray from a random desk, made on a low budget for the inebriated watching late night telly. Charity letters were described in general terms, as if they had never been read after opening, and then ditched on the grounds of "out of ward".

I have some empathy with the dilemma of how a Community or Town Council can handle chugging by email/letter. Some residents are struggling to pay their Council Tax, it is collected by statute and arrears is a serious, criminal, thing. Is it right that Councillors have the discretion to give away public money on a whim? No resident can opt out. Each of the charities that "we got a letter from..." seemed very worthy, helping stroke victims, supporting the bereaved and a children's hospital charity. I expect some of them operated within Ammanford's geographical limits, but having a Garnant, Cardiff or Haverfordwest letter-head was enough to ditch.

Not-so nice

And then we moved on to what the Clerk said were "not so nice letters from the ICO". He rattled and floundered over four case numbers, blurting 6th & 13th February dates for two, mumbling February dates for the other two and summarising that "all requests have been dealt with in February". Due to the frenzied nature of this part, and the seriousness of doubling-down on the lies, my notes have been cross-checked with two other members of the public. Each independently recorded the same.

I recognise FS50837144. The ICO passed this case to its solicitors on 24 January 2020 for High Court action, after running out of patience and the Council refusing to respond to an extension to a second Information Notice. It relates to the dodgy £17,000 (+/-20%) CCTV system over the splashpads, that didn't work in the summer/when the leaves were on the trees and is now defunct. Here's the sorry trail on WhatDoTheyKnow, now over a year old. The ICO confirmed, when contacted on 13 March 2020, that no correspondence has been received from the Council relating to FS50837144.

I also recognised FS50904938. The ICO published a Decision Notice on 26 February, upholding a complaint that the Council has breached the FOIA and ordering it to provide the information within 35 calendar days. The ICO confirmed, when contacted on 13 March, that they had received a response from the Clerk on 9 March. They told the Clerk (also on 9 March) that he must provide the information requested to the complainant, not themselves, saying that replying on the WhatDoTheyKnow platrform would fulfil this. I estimate it would take less than 15 minutes to dredge out the dates from previous correspondence received and publish them. The entirety of this request has fallen within the tenure of the new Town Clerk.

In Pt1 I showed the former Plaid Mayor (forced to resign) had lied directly to the Council and its AGM, with a runaway process enabled by Councillors over many years.

As a update to Pt2, the partly fulfilled FOI request confirmed that the new full-time Town Clerk/RFO was the one to make the deluded claim that the Council "always ensure that policies and procedures are adhered to". And yet here we have an absolute case of the Council not complying with a policy, nor the law!

Furthermore, we have a full Council meeting being told that all matters were dealt with in February, but a simple fact check showed at least one hasn't been attended to, and another was handled that day, in March! March is not February, and February is not March. Lies are not the truth.

One has to wonder what else is being lied about? How about the lies of omission, with the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales having re-opened its investigation into maladministration and unresolved complaints. Action was ordered in January, not done in February and extended into March. An absolute deadline of Thursday 5th March 2020 was given to put the PSOW report onto the website (with some other missing Minutes). The frenzy of Wednesday 4th March (1543hrs) botched even those basic instructions.

Dear Reader, Ammanford Town Councillors and Ammanford Town Clerk:

 ICO != PSOW

Finally, after 14 months of subterfuge and deception, the good people of Ammanford (and beyond) can read the PSOW's investigation report from ATC's website, if they know where to look for it, mis-described as ICO Report. At least the Council isn't serving up 517 references to crypto-miners and iffy baby-sitting services, at the moment (we'll save that nugget for "Web of deceipt", to come in a future blogpost).

I'm perplexed by the behaviour of the new full-time Clerk/RFO. I'm not one to call a person names behind another's back, and these colours don't run. The new Clerk/RFO has shown he is inept and ill-prepared. He may have won 162 points at interview, but blatantly lying to Council and members of the public is indefensible, constituting gross misconduct. A member of the public even asked the Council to attend to these FOI matters, as Minuted from 3 February 2020 meeting of full Council. There is no excuse.

Wrong trousers/I'm on probation

The Meeting had been told a little earlier (in the ratifying Minutes debacle) to disregard the Minutes of the Personnel meeting, which they claimed had been published in error. The source of this confusion is One Voice Wales, who have briefed their membership in direct conflict with the FOIA.

At a recent One Voice Wales training session to Ammanford Town Council they responded to a Councillor's question stating that the Minutes of Personnel sub-committee should be withheld from disclosure. This was *previously* clarified by the Interim Town Clerk (about February-April of 2019) with direct advice from the ICO (summary: public records must be disclosed but some information may need to be redacted to comply with DPA2018/GDPR). This advice was sought as the previous Interim Clerk tried to clear up the mess at the Council for not complying to the law in response to ten FOI requests, namely to publish Minutes (since August 2016) - culminating in the issuing of an "exceptional" Information Notice, rolled into Decision Notices FS50755792 & FS50711667.

It was Minuted from the Personnel meeting of 13 February, when discussing the contract of current clerk:

The first employee review was to be undertaken in February 2020.
The Probationary review was to be undertaken in June 2020.

(bizarrely the Clerk was signing his own incomplete contract three months after taking up the post, and it took ~45mins to agree the drop from 21% -> 3% pension)

It is always difficult to accept that a bad hiring decision has been made. People are involved. Perhaps now it is inevitable that the Council must reflect on their skewed scoring methodology and question how candidates made it through to interview when their claimed skill-set didn't meet the minimum job specification. I understand there's still an open FOI request regarding the process, and the (only) advert for the job that appeared in the South Wales Guardian weeks after the closing date.

Liar, Liar, Townhall on fire (pt2)

Adam Price recently sought attention for his idea to make lying by politicians a criminal offence. Less than 100m from his office, Plaid Cymru controlled and dominated Ammanford Town Council must be doing him proud.

Last week's South Wales Guardian front page (3 ex mayors quit in Ammanford Town Council walkout) had this astonishing quote:

A spokesman for the town council said: “Ammanford Town Council endeavours to uphold standards.
“We always ensure that policies and procedures are adhered to.”

Always? Always??

Almost fifty years ago, the Local Government Act 1972 laid out some pretty basic requirements, including when and how to call Meetings, to record business transacted and to make records available for public inspection. Ammanford Town Council haven't been complying with the Act for years (since 2016), acknowledged through the course of eleven complaints when the Council stated that it did not hold minutes of some meetings  - "if they were ever in existence".

Twenty years ago, the Freedom Of Information Act 2000 came into force, giving a legal right of access for citizens to see records held by public bodies, within a defined timescale. Solicitors acting for the Information Commissioner began preparing an application under section 54 to "deal with the authority as if it had committed a contempt of court" on 24 January 2020. The Council has ignored a second Information Notice - and multiple extensions that compelled it to respond - to conduct a simple Internal Review, accounting for some ~£20K of public money (the dodgy splashpad/park CCTV that didn't work when the leaves were on the trees). And then there's a separate case officer who compelled them to respond within 10 working days, on 8 Feburary, to provide simple dates from complaints/correspondence they are trying to cover up.

Seven years ago, the Local Government (Democracy) (Wales) Act 2013 was enacted, requiring Town & Community Councils to have websites, issue notices electronically, publish Minutes and documents referenced within them on their website. Statutory Guidance was issued in May 2015. The obligations aren't particularly onerous. It barely applies 1990's technology/practices to the 1972 record keeping. The Council's failings in this area led to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales investigating, fining (twice) and declaring the Council to be in serious maladministration. The Report was suppressed, the actions ordered haven't been followed, the follow-up complaint ignored. The Ombudsman gave them an ultimatum to comply by 19 January 2020 and has yet again given them a further extension to comply with the requirements to publish Minutes and referenced documents by the end of this week.


It is notable that the front page story of "3 ex Mayors quit" is over two months old - it happened in December 2019, the resignations were accepted and ratified on 14 January 2020 in a seven minute Extraordinary Meeting Council. Aside from the four observers present, the general public (and press) were none the wiser. Publishing Draft Minutes electronically is a trivial task. Scanning and uploading the ratified/signed copy should take less than ten minutes. So why are Minutes still being withheld for 3-4 months?

And even more curiously, why has the Agenda for 2020-01-14 EGM vanished from the website? The Guidance states that documents need to be be available and archived for a reasonable length of time.


Over a year ago the PSOW ordered the Council to adopt and publish a Complaints procedure, by April 2019. This was half-adopted by the deadline, with Councillors bickering about some of the grammar months later. The procedure requires complaints to be formally acknowledged within 5 days. Only after thirteen weeks of deadlock can one ask the PSOW to consider investigating (the form now requires that a complainant discloses what legal action they have pursued or considered, before the Ombudsman will think of getting involved).  The PSOW has two open investigations, with another just resolved. How could three complaints reach the PSOW if Ammanford Town Council "always" adheres to their policies?

On 13 February the Council wanted to increase the precept by a further 43%. The Council was unsure of how much Reserves it held (?!). Basic financial controls and reporting would mean that any competent body should *always* know how much money it has. The Council now employs a full-time Clerk and Responsible Financial Officer. As the Americans say "You do the math"!

I've joked previously whether we should drain the swamp from the bottom or the top. Are festering Ministers, or Prime Ministers, to blame? B-Team politicians in the Senedd? Or do we accept brazen lies, dishonesty and incompetence at the heart of our Communities; and then "always" expect them to develop integrity on way up the greasy pole?

Perhaps the Councillors needs to reflect more on their illustrious party leader Adam's words “Honesty is the most important currency in politics. We have to protect it, before it reaches moral bankruptcy.” Always.

Half-job Jo skips the ICO

Carmarthenshire County Council managed to land a puff piece in the South Wales Guardian, suggesting complaints were down in 2018-19 compared to a year earlier. Drill down a little and it seems complaints to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales had more than doubled (23->48) for the same period.

Complaints going "up a level" are quite exceptional. It takes a robust mindset to "exhaust" the Council's own complaint and review procedures before the PSOW will consider even accepting a case, let alone investigate. A Council officer is quoted as saying:

"The positive is that none of them were upheld."

Curiously, none of the five Decision Notices issued by the Information Commissioner's Office in the same period were referenced in the report. Four of which were upheld (in part or whole). How odd.

ICO Decision Notices tend to be only issued when a complainant specifically requests one - as the Information Commissioner is very busy and the backlog within her Office is typically 2-4 months to get a case first assigned. Investigations can easily stretch to well over a year, by which point many complainants have given up. However, the ICO is very clear that a Complaint should register long before they rule:

Links here for the "Compliments & Complaints Annual Report 2018/19", the ICO's "Action we've taken" in relation to Carmarthenshire County Council and the ICO's "Section 45 - Code Of Practice - request handling".

Image credits:
Business photo created by kjpargeter - www.freepik.com
Carmarthenshire County Hall cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Nigel Davies - geograph.org.uk/p/23208
Lovingly munged with the GIMP