There was an interesting little spat at today's meeting of
the planning committee when Cllr Ken Edwards (Lab) recalled being
accosted in County Hall's corridors of power by Cllr Brian Hall.
According to Cllr Edwards, he was making his way to a committee
meeting, accompanied by an unnamed Cabinet member, when he was
confronted by Cllr Hall who accused him of putting it about that
he (Cllr Hall) had failed to declare an interest in the controversial
planning application to site 34 caravans in Waterston for the
use of LNG workers.
Cllr Edwards was at pains to stress that he had never made any
such allegation and, to clarify matters, Cllr Hall told the committee:
"I can assure members that I have never visited that site.
I have been on another site relating to housing."
Old Grumpy has been taking a keen interest in events in Waterston
since receiving a telephone call from a local resident who claimed
to have seen Cllr Hall and a director of the applicant company,
Mr D Thomas, together on the site.
My own researches have also turned up two expense claims submitted
by Cllr Hall which I thought might have a bearing on the matter.
On 11 January this year Cllr Hall visited County Hall where he
met "A Colley planning (D Thomas hostel LNG)" and immediately
under that entry is recorded a trip to Waterston to "site
for above".
The entry for 21 January records a visit to County Hall where
he met "C[ounty] Caravans. T[aylor] Woodrow. Hostel LNG"
followed by a trip to Waterston "Re: siting of hostel - planning
consents".
County Caravans is the company owned by Mr D Thomas.
So is there another plan to house LNG workers elsewhere in Waterston
that we haven't yet been told about?
As an avid Kremlin watcher, Old Grumpy takes a keen interest
in the nomenklatura's special car park situated at the left hand
end (viewed from Freemans Way) of County Hall.
For several years these five spaces, close by the building, have
been the exclusive preserve of a select few: Chief Executive,
Leader, Deputy Leader, Chairman and Cllr Brian Hall.
It always puzzled me why Cllr Hall had preference over his Cabinet
colleagues but I put it down to his position as the Independent
Political (sic) Group's unofficial Chief Whip.
So, when I went to County Hall, yesterday, I was rather surprised
to see Cllr David Simpson's dark blue Jag parked in one of the
hallowed spaces.
On making further inquiries I was told by one of my moles that
Cllr Rob Lewis' people carrier had also been spotted in the same
place.
Does this herald the first signs of a breakdown in the IPG's iron
party discipline, or are these two manoeuvering for position in
anticipation of an upcoming vacancy?
As predicted, Cllr Bill Roberts, the member with responsibility
for housing, has been evicted from the Cabinet which now has nine
members where once there were ten.
In addition, the number of deputy Cabinet members has been reduced
from four to three with Cllr Jim Codd drawing the short straw.
It would be nice to think that these changes were motivated by
the desire to provide better governance for the people of Pembrokeshire,
but, alas, that isn't the case.
As I pointed out previously you don't need a Nostradamus to work
out that a situation where some Cabinet members are given deputies
because of their inexperience contains its own built-in sunset
clause because, with the passage of time, inexperience inevitably
ceases to be a consideration.
Nor do you need a crystal ball to predict that a two tier system,
with first and second class Cabinet members, is bound to give
rise to petty jealousies.
The problem arises because, as a condition for consenting to the
creation of these assistants' posts, the Welsh Assembly insisted
that the whole system be funded out of the same pot of money.
To achieve this, the four Cabinet members with assistants were
paid two-thirds of the normal special responsibility allowance
with the other third going to their sidekicks.
Once the euphoria of achieving high office had worn off, it dawned
on these four second division Cabinet members that they were,
in effect, paying these assistants out of their own pockets.
Naturally, it wasn't long before they started wondering what they
were getting for their money.
The answer: not very much.
So, in order to bring things into line some scheme had to be devised
to free up sufficient cash to put all the Cabinet members on full
pay.
Getting rid of Bill Roberts and Jim Codd - and their positions
- releases one full allowance (two-thirds + one-third) which can
then be split three ways between the surviving second-tier members
(Cllrs Sian James, David Simpson and Robert Lewis) to bring them
up to speed.
No doubt, when he announces these changes to full council on October
20, the Leader will try to convince us that they are part of some
grand plan to improve the way the council is run.
In truth, they are nothing more than a device for keeping order
inside the Independent Political (sic) Group.
After all, the IPG exists for no other purpose than to monopolise
power, and the special responsibility allowances that come in
its train, so this opportunistic piece of political deck chair
rearrangement should come as no surprise to anyone.
Monday's meeting of the county council Cabinet had to swallow
some nasty medicine in the form of a less than complimentary report
on children's services from the Social Services Inspectorate for
Wales (SSIW).
Anyone who has read last January's Ombudsman's report on his investigation
into the Stephanie Lawrence debacle (see Ombudsman's
report) can be excused a sense of deja vu.
Those with longer memories will recall the Joint Review of Social
Services carried out by the District Auditor and the National
Assembly in 2002.
That, too, took the council to task for serious shortcomings in
its social work practices.
At that time we had the ritual assurances that lessons had been
learned and remedial action was in hand.
It is interesting to read what this latest report has to say on
that subject.
"Despite the willingness of the authority to acknowledge
deficits in practice [identified in the 2002 review] there had
been little progress during the past two years."
The two years referred to are those prior to December 2004 and
for most of that period the Cabinet member in charge of children's
services was the current Leader Cllr John Davies.
Cllr Davies was again spouting soothing words about journeys of
improvement at Monday's meeting, but can he walk the walk?
And what confidence can the public have in a system that has installed
the Leader's place man Cllr Alwyn Luke as chairman of the committee
charged with scrutinising this area of activity?
Naturally, members of the ruling group were keen to seize on
whatever positives they could find in the SSIW report.
One I spoke to wanted to put the blame on the chronic understaffing
referred to in the report.
This simply will not do.
Making sure there is sufficient staff to carry out the department's
functions is one of management's main tasks.
Would one of the council's licensing officers be satisfied if
a nightclub owner tried to use the difficulty in recruiting and
retaining staff as an explanation for the number of registered
doormen (bouncers) falling below the required level?
My view is that the council should police itself with the same
rigour that it polices other people.
The obvious way to recruit more staff is to pay them more.
It is not as if the council is unaware of the market forces governing
supply demand and price.
A recent meeting of the Senior Staff committee was told that,
over the past five years, due to the relative scarcity of "high
quality, experienced staff", salaries of senior officers
had "continued to increase in excess of general wage inflation."
And that the council was subject to this "marketplace".
"It is therefore necessary", the report concludes, "that
salary levels in this organisation are not kept at a point which
encourages existing staff to seek posts elsewhere and which reduce
the field of applicants (particularly external) from considering
posts here."
Adam Smith couldn't have put it better!
But old Adam would also have pointed out that these market principles
apply equally to senior staff, social workers, oil, potatoes,
bread and any other freely traded commodity.
And that brings us to the nub of the problem: money.
As the report points out: "The authority's expenditure on
social services is below the Welsh average per head of population
and as a proportion of total Council expenditure." and "Expenditure
on personal social services for children had seen year on year
growth but remained relatively low in comparison to other Welsh
authorities . . . ".
Which means that, despite all the Leader's fine words at yesterday's
Cabinet meeting, spending on child protection is a low priority.
So, while the Independent Political (sic) Group bangs on constantly
about the lowest council tax in Wales, a vital public service
goes short.
But surely, I hear you say, members wouldn't skimp on looking
after vulnerable children for the sake of a tenner on the council
tax?
Well, not if they knew about it.
But the fact is that the council's budget setting process is an
undemocratic farce by which members wave through large sums of
cash under vague headings without any real idea how it will be
spent.
And the Independent Political (sic) Group seems to prefer it that
way because whenever we members of the opposition try to ask searching
questions we are met with cries of "nitpicking", and
a marked reluctance by the IPG's tame Chairman to allow extensive
debate.
The result is that the task of setting of spending priorities,
which should be one of the most important functions of your democratically
elected representatives, passes to the officers by default.
And the way budgets are set causes a problem because as the SSIW
report points out up to now they have been resource led rather
than needs led.
For those who are unfamiliar with the jargon, this means that,
rather than work out what is required by way of staff etc before
budgeting to cover the cost, the method used has been to allocate
an amount of cash and leave the department to do its best with
the means available.
Unbelievable!
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