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.