Plaid claim credit at Ammanford Town Council

There are tall-tales, and there are real whoppers. 'Plaid Cymru | Party of Blame' are really pushing out the boat with their electioneering for Ammanford Town Council, in the upcoming Myddynfych ward By-Election. 

If 'Plaid Cymru | Party of Blame' have to ask, then you probably don't know

"What has Plaid done?" candidate Rhodri Jones's pamphlet has the bare-faced cheek to ask. Before laying claim to some fabulous projects, way beyond the scope (and competence) of Ammanford Town Council:

• Roundabout - "complete"?! Diggers on the pavement this week, started in October 2017, overground works had their own 1st anniversary celebrations and dedicated prose; a Carmarthenshire County Council and Welsh Government project
• Ammanford AFC - Carmarthenshire County Council cash of £125K with no planning scrutiny for the new stand and no reference to ATC contribution
• Council Hwb - Carmarthenshire County Council toxic de-branding project
• Margaret St Junction - ATC have no recorded information about it (CCC again)
• Foundry Rd - someone else's money again
• Bandstand - another CCC endeavour that's dragged on, is blocking Asset Transfer with previous funds withdrawn
• Coaltown Coffee - promoted in the Senedd, not paying business rates in Foundry Rd (Datasets Empty Property Rates 020119.xls A62:G62)
• Dyffryn Rd - another County project, located over-the-border in Saron Ward (well-run Llandybie Community Councillors campaigning since before 2011)
• Lloyds Bank - the murky commercial County grant, with domestic units

Pictured (on the pamphlet) we have the great and the good of "County Councillor" (ATC replacement Mayor) Deian Harries and "Member of Parliament" Jonathan Edwards - remembering to give the County Councillor his full title, as bickered over in the more recent Minutes to be liberated from the recesses of the Town Hall.

Whilst claiming credit for things well outside their remit, let's give due
credit to the post-"Iscennen Plaid Slide" period.

Ammanford Town Council have recently been fined a further £250 by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales. This is the second fine imposed in a year, along with the declaration of maladministration, for the same complaint! The Ombudsman's report is highly critical, even in its final watered-down form. You can read it in full here - it should be displayed in the Notice Board along with the candidate notices (now they've changed the lock, after ex-office holders left with the keys & Mayoral chains).

To be clear about the fines, the Town's council-tax paying electorate carries the cost, not the fifteen elected councillors (or co-opted cronies, as applicable). Any Councillor with a clue would not have accepted the way things have been run. Those with a shred of integrity should have resigned.

The two-year battle to liberate legally required Minutes has resulted in  two Decision Notices finally being issued in recent weeks. FS50711667[1] & FS50755792 uphold ten complaints, documenting mayhem. The Information Commissioner noted taking the exceptional step of issuing an Information Notice (see FS50711667 S.28), compelling the Council to  respond last summer - which they continued to ignore.

Being stonewalled on the Minutes by ATC, curiosity led to revealing the
financial irregularities, missing VAT returns, lack of proper financial
controls, un-audited/not-published accounts and unearthed the Wales Audit
Office investigations.

£4,350 is the potential fine for a public body failing to register as a Data Controller (as any small business owner will attest). The ICO confirmed that it began enforcement action in July 2018 against Ammanford Town Council. Does the Council now hold sufficient reserves? Or will the precept that's just been doubled be doubled or trebled again?

Ammanford Town Council isn't even sure which set of Standing Orders is in
force, some Councillors think 2012, others 2013. The 2013 version just disclosed (again under the compulsion of the Freedom of Information Act) are England-specific, failing to take account of devolution nor the toothless legislation passed by the Notional Assembly in 2013 (in force since 2015). Empirical evidence, two fines by the PSOW, drives a coach and horses through Part 1: section 42 and the head-buried-in-the-sand maladministration orchestrated from the Mayor's Parlour. ATC even pay for membership of One Voice Wales; but take their Orders from the English National Association of Local Councils (Duh! There are clues in the names)!

In Ammanford 'Plaid Cymru | Party of Blame' has lauded holding the trifecta of political control of Town Council, AM and MP; clustered within 300m. What chance is there of reasonable scrutiny, or even dissent, with a Party whip? The mind boggles further when we give AM Adam Price full credit as new Leader of Plaid and remember that Plaid control the basket-case of Local Government that is Carmarthenshire County Council. Has poor Ammanford found the five magics?

Give me Town Councilry
Give me County Councilry
Give me Notional Assembly

Westmonstery, Party Leadery

Magic, if you please







However, let's give the 'English Labour Party in Wales' Amman Valley branch office fair recognition for running in cosy cahoots. The appalling malpractice of not preparing, ratifying nor publishing Minutes (in a timely manner) began under County Councillor Colin Evans (Lab) stint as Mayor. Fifteen elected councillors (or co-opted cronies, as applicable) facilitated this, overseeing a part-time Clerk who's hours amounted to little more than what many youngsters put in on a weekend shift. Joio.

I'm not eligible to vote in the Myddynfych ward by-election (nor sadly the Wernddu ward), despite my livelihood depending on the Town's provisions. If I could ask a few questions to candidates then these would lead the conversation:

1. How many Ammanford Town Council meetings have you attended in the last 3, 12 & 24 months?
2. Do you believe in transparent and accountable (community) governance?
3. Have you read the Standing Orders?
4. Have you heard of the 1972 Local Government Act, Local Government (Democracy)(Wales) Act 2013 or the Welsh Government's 2015 Statutory Guidance?
5. Do you think that party politics has any place in serving at a town and community council?

County Councillor Colin Evans objected to this democratic election (24 Jan 2019), on the grounds of cost. Ammanford Town Council's "political elite" (that has to be an oxymoron) wanting to divvy up the two wards one each for 'Plaid Cymru | Party of Blame' and the 'English Labour Party in Wales', to retain the balance through co-opting. 

Ammanford deserves better. If eligible to vote on Thursday then please vote to make sure it gets better.


[1] The Information Commissioner stated the wrong year in numerous places in the DN, and is legally unable to the correct her mistakes unless an Appeal is lodged and won through the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). They also classified the complaints as "Not Upheld" in the "Action we've taken" section of their website. Seeding the idea of a "How useless is..." future mini-series.

[Picture brought to you courtesy of Plaid Cymru, Edward J. Repka, Combat Records/Capitol Records, Section 30A and Schedule 2 (2A) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the GIMP & Vic. Sources here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Megadeth-RustInPeace.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plaid_Cymru_logo.svg]

Qua..!

Mayor's Announcements 

The Mayor informed members of  an event he had attended in Llandovery last month which was quite good; it featured a 50 duck race (plastic ducks) on the river - 99% got trapped and did not finish the course.

Ammanford Town Council: Half inept. Half hiding something. Half not good at integer maths!

As the hotly contested Ammanford Town Council by-election for the Iscennen Ward closes, the hollow political promises are binned, and finally the votes are counted, this little numerical gem is worth savouring. It is from one of the few incomplete Minutes released (under compulsion of the Freedom Of Information Act) by the Council. One has to wonder how free and fair today's election has been. How could the Iscennen electorate know what has gone on when the Council has obstinately and repeatedly failed to publish Minutes of meetings and accounts of expenditure. If this election was held in a far-flung developing nation then the enlightened western media would be decrying it from the tree-tops and their satellite phones.

FAOD, these words were copied verbatim, and can be read in between Min.522/16 Oct Police Matters and Min. Oct. / 523/16 To confirm as being a correct record the minutes..... The account also relates to the former mayor, not the current incumbent.

Sadly, Ammanford Town Council also seem to have forgotten to renew their domain registration, and their sparsely populated and stale website has been replaced with adverts to sell or renew the domain since Tuesday. In the short-term content can still be scraped from Google's cache.

[Kudos to the The Sneeze for fractional inspiration]

Cultural Learnings for to make Ammanford great again

Colin's Got It Covered(Up) in Mayoral Mankini of Office

Ammanford's year as "Town of Culture 2018" is now well underway. I wondered what was meant when the "initiative" was announced. So far efforts have been mostly focused on celebrating the entertainment side of things. For some light relief I'd like to take a look at local governance, how Ammanford Town Council's culture of ineptitude and secrecy feeds into the pitiful state of local so-called democracy with a blatant disregard for accountability.

Ammanford Town Council was recently fined by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, upholding a complaint of maladministration. The anonymised Decision Letter is linked here. Mr X's complaint was hand delivered to the Town Hall, Iscennen Road on 21 December 2017, as follows:

"I write to make a formal complaint regarding the absence of published Minutes for Ammanford Town Council’s meetings, since August 2016.
 It has long been a requirement (Local Government Act 1972) for the Council to properly record and make Minutes available for inspection.  Since 1 May 2015 section 55 of the Local Government (Democracy) (Wales) Act 2013 has also required community and town councils to provide these in electronic format, along with the proceedings and (in so far as reasonably practical) any documents referenced in the Minutes (you may find guidance and press releases publicising this on the Welsh Government’s website).
 Please acknowledge receipt of this complaint and in the first instance provide a copy of your complaint resolution process (which should also be on your website). The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has asked that I exhaust the Council’s formal complaints process before they will continue with their investigation into Ammanford Town Council’s performance."

The PSOW originally buffeted the issue when first reported in December 2017, claiming that Mr X hadn't followed Ammanford Town Council's complaint resolution process - a cyclic argument as Ammanford Town Council doesn't publish it's process. Following delivery of the written letter, the matter was put back to the PSOW for proper consideration. The PSOW failed to respond; further prompting led to a formal review and the PSOW ruled (without a right of appeal) that the complainant had to give 13 weeks for Ammanford Town Council to respond - the clock ticking from the letter through the door, rather than the matter first being raised with the Council (electronically) on 18 October 2017. A plucky case officer also took the initiative to call the Town Clerk, provide an electronic copy of the letter and inform Mr X of this positive action. Payment, details of the complaints process, and some highlights of the new Town Clerk's first year in post were provided, in a brown envelope, on 27 April 2018.

The PSOW action compounds that of the Information Commissioner's Office, who have ruled that Ammanford Town Council was/is in wilful breach of the Freedom Of Information Act (2000). The ICO has repeatedly spoken with the Town Clerk and directed the Council to release copies of the Minutes. Four ICO Decision Notices are pending release from the work-waiting queue. Enforcement action is imminent - once the file is allocated back to a case officer (96 days and counting, since confirmation on 8 February 2018). Some Minutes were published, but they are incomplete and "prove" the existence of other Minutes which have been missed in the relevant quarterly period. The full discourse is available publicly on the WhatDoTheyKnow platform at the following URLs:

   Request submitted 18/10/2017
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/aug_dec_2016_minutes_for_town_co
   Request submitted 01/11/2017
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/jan_mar_2017_minutes_for_town_co
   Request submitted 16/11/2017
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/apr_jun_2017_minutes_for_town_co
   Request submitted 30/11/2017 (and botched delivery in notes)
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/jul_oct_minutes_for_town_council

Seven months on, and Ammanford Town Council still has not complied with its FOI obligations, citing a revamp of their website and upcoming GDPR changes as just two of the things on the jobs list. The Council may wish to take heed of the ICO's view that "Businesses must understand they can't break one law to get ready for another", in the £13,000 fine issued to Honda - commentary and links to the Ruling here at The Register. 

For the Reader wondering what interest our glorious and illustrious Welsh Government has in the matter (might they want to uphold the Law we paid them to write?), don't get too excited. After a bit of war-dialling last week, an officer tasked with Town and Community Councils lamented that they have "such limited powers of enforcement". Her best suggestion was to try and publicise the matter. Another option floated was to speak to a Scrutiny officer at Carmarthenshire County Council - that was drowned by laughter in milliseconds. 

Here is the Welsh Government's Statutory Guidance "Access to Information on Community And Town Councils".

And how about these (2015) words of inspiration from then Public Services Minister Leighton Andrews?

“Some of the best Community and Town Councils are already meeting high standards of openness and transparency, and from now we will require all councils to meet the same standards.” 

The legislation itself is quite readable and unambiguous. A pity the legislation doesn't seem to have any teeth.

A Council must operate on the basis of collective responsibility and has to be accountable. Duties have to be discharged irrespective of personal circumstances. Ammanford Town Council has met and discussed important issues, such as asset transfer and Planning proposals - but who knows the outcomes or the interests involved? It has statutory duties and stewards considerable sums of public money. Minutes have been distributed electronically to Councillors, by both the interim Town Clerk and the current Town Clerk. Serving Councillors have considerable experience in public life, including the current Town Mayor who was a former leader of Dinefwr Borough Council, and was a member of the infamous indemnifying Labour/Independent Executive Board at Carmarthenshire County Council. Not so long ago he had the cheek to claim that pan-Wales local government reorganisation would reduce representation and accountability. According to the recently liberated complaints procedure, the buck stops with the Town Mayor, but the incumbent has been silent (until now?). The complaints protocol is linked here.

This sorry adventure down the rabbit hole begs the question: how inept is Ammanford Town Council? Or worse still, what are they hiding? And most worryingly, is this culture directly or overtly transferred into representation at Carmarthenshire County Council?

I do hope that the distasteful image of Town and County Councillor Colin "Got It Covered(Up)" Evans in his Mayoral Mankini of Office will be all the publicity needed to nudge things along. The Reader really doesn't want to see more.

[Picture brought to you courtesy of Doug Peters/EMPICS Entertainment, South Wales Guardian, Section 30A and Schedule 2 (2A) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the GIMP & the number 6. Sources here:
https://cdn.images.dailystar.co.uk/dynamic/33/photos/778000/620x/547b3bfade4f1_BORAT.jpg
http://www.southwalesguardian.co.uk/resources/images/7788223/?type=responsive-gallery-fullscreen
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2014/9780111116029
https://www.gimp.org]

the Democratic Deficit in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (pt1)

I think voting is essential. It is part of our responsibility in a democratic society. Sadly we so often seem to get the government that we deserve. Our voting system really doesn't help.

Yesterday my younger sproggling asked me about the general election, as she'd been doing some research in preparation for Hustings and school's mock election. As we started to discuss some of the issues grabbing attention, I started to reflect on the dearth of involvement that I feel with the process this time around, and my voting quandary tomorrow.

At the last General Election I took some tests, to see if I had my own "implicit bias" playing a factor in how I would usually vote. It was interesting to see how my perceived values scored against party policies. For almost all of my life (going back to post-Falklands hustings in Junior school!) I've felt my vote has been, numerically, irrelevant. Under first-past-the-post it is pretty much a two party state in much of the UK. Locally we might not even get the two. I once tactically lent my vote to Plaid Cymru to ensure we didn't sponsor yet another Labour donkey in Westminster, a Conservative was at least a remote possibility.

I've written to my current MP, Jonathan Edwards, twice. In 2015 I invited him to attend the debate on Epilepsy in Parliament. Epilepsy directly affects around 600,000 people in UK, without considering their carers and wider family. I appreciate that the invite was quite short notice and he had prior electioneering duties in the constituency, but Mr Edwards also said in his reply that Healthcare is a devolved issue in Wales. So it came as quite a surprise to find "local needs...health services" feature on the front page of his militiaristic Tarian Cymru/Defending Wales pamphlet. In the centre he talks of "expanding health services" and in the closing passage has a hook of "a vote for...our NHS".

As the current post-holder, Mr Edwards has the advantage that the electorate can base their choice on his prior performance. This contradiction jars with me, as he's currently electioneering on issues that he previously said were devolved. Have we paid him to undertake work he wasn't obliged to? Or, if we take the broader view that Parliamentarians serve their constituents and the whole of the UK, have we paid him not to do the work which he should have done? This nuance of the West Lothian question needs to be resolved swiftly in the coming years. Developing effective drugs to treat and control epilepsy is too big a job to fragment into walled gardens and isolated silos.

[A bonus point to the reader for spotting that we've also paid yet another tier in Tiger Bay at the same time - I'll save that for my very own league table in pt2].

Mr Edwards's remark in the flyer that "Scotland is looking after its own interests" seems somewhat harsh too. I will give him credit for declaring ahead-of-time that "the Conservatives will form the next Government". That's pretty a bold prediction, unless he's trying to kill voter turnout. Plaid Cymru were also pretty efficient getting their leaflet delivered a week ahead of the other parties. I was also pleased to be acknowledged as lead voter as his personalised mailshot landed many days ahead of the same to other voters in our household. "Mysognists of the world unite" might not be the most PC campaign slogan, have I stumbled on implicit bias in Wind Street? 

I wasn't impressed with the Conservative glossy when it finally arrived along with the Labour, UKIP & Liberal Democrat ones. To be fair, I probably wouldn't have been impressed even if it had come with a free iced doughnut from my favourite doughnuttery. But seriously, who chops "logs"? I've always chopped wood! And that axe, it was medieval! Anyone who's banged through more than twenty or thirty tonnes in their formative years will have a decent splitting axe with pre-sprung wedges to hand. Would I really vote for such a dinosaur who can't even use 20th century technology? He'll be looking for people who "understand the necessary hashtags" to hold his hand next.

UKIP's grip on geography continued to amuse. Historically they've struggled to orientate which side Hamilton Hall in Hullavington (Wiltshire) is of the Severn. They gave a Llanelli postcode for Llandybie in the one piece of literature they could muster for the household. Schoolboy errors in the legal imprint were icing on the proverbial missing doughnut in this case.

Labour's Darkin was damaged through guilt-by-association even before his flyer arrived. Its not just Labour's track record of orchestrating the financial crisis on the world stage - the recent sale of Lloyds bank was a timely reminder of just how badly Brown/Blair steered the ship, raiding our gold reserves too and getting so little for them. I was in China as news of the Lehman Brothers collapse broke, and the ripple effect has been profound. At a county level we have paid through the nose with the Labour initiated PFI programme for the unaffordable police station in Ammanford, and saw a spineless Labour led coalition in County Hall go on to unlawfully indemnify legal action in an attempt to silence a critic (who's performed a vital public service of trying to bring some transparency to dubious workings in Carmarthenshire County Council).  However, it was the shared service address that really leapt out. Anthony Jones was the Chair of the planning committee who told me that in order to remain impartial he was unable to represent the views of his electorate, who were overwhelmingly against an inappropriately located development. 

I was pleased to see a familiar face in Lesley Prosser's flyer, having enjoyed a very nice Sunday lunch with her (and her late husband) some twenty years ago. I understand she's come from a standing start, and was even more impressed when I looked up the recent local election figures and saw she'd come an admirable second, ahead of the well financed Plaid candidate and their well oiled party machinery. I do hope liberal principles at HQ give more support to freshers in future years - Facebook as primary campaign platform doesn't gel with my impression of open, transparent and accountable liberal values. Given the weak and wobbly opportunism of Mrs May's snap election, I'll cut them some slack this time around. I fear the duopoly bias in the voting system will compound the democratic deficit and hit Lesley particularly hard.

I'd hoped to hear from all the candidates on an even platform at the Hustings in Ammanford. Whilst I sympathised with those mourning Rhodri Morgan's sudden death, "postponing" an event geared to involve people and draw them into the political process seemed more disrepectful to a man who was known for engaging people in politics. Y Cneifiwr's Llandeilo Hustings report gave a glimpse of a free exchange of thoughts. Ammanford's event might have been equally as revealing - I wasn't the only one to arrive in the car park that evening who'd prepared some questions to size up the candidates.

As I  muse over my postal voting slip, with barely 20 hours left to deliver it safely to a ballot box, I've narrowed down the field but I still feel short changed.