When the Pembrokeshire Herald asked Cllr Jamie Adams for an explanation for his claim that I had succeeded in “putting the kibosh” on the grants scheme in Pembroke Dock he sent them a statement which neither confirmed nor denied our brief conversation.
It did however contain the following passage (the numbers in square brackets refer to my comments below):
“When Cllr Michael Stoddart began his campaign in relation to aspects of the scheme he raised concerns about the probity of the grant allocations to a small number of properties [1].
I consistently encouraged Cllr Stoddart to refer his concerns to the police, reminding him on more than one occasion that it was his duty to do so under the Members Code of Conduct [2]. Cllr Stoddart stated on two occasions, at meetings which were open to the public, that he had “no faith in the police”. I found his stance on this matter most disturbing [3].
As far as I am aware he has still not made a referral to the police [4].
As a result of intensive scrutiny by the council’s audit committee [5] which was asked to examine the grants scheme by the council [6], a referral was made to Dyfed Powys Police by council officers [7]. This course of action was entirely appropriate.”
So, according to Adams, I was running a “campaign” over a “small number of properties” while breaching the Code of Conduct and showing a “disturbing” lack of faith in the police.
Meanwhile, the council was on the case and had asked the audit committee to conduct an “intensive scrutiny” of the grants system with the result that matters had come to light which had led to an “entirely appropriate” referral to the police.
It takes raw talent and long hours of practice to cram so many half-truths and untruths into less than 150 words.
[1] My first post on this matter was on April 25 2013 when I published a table detailing the 17 grants awarded prior to that date.
There were five (30%) about which I raised concerns. While 30% is “a small number” if it involves your marks in a maths test, it is not insignificant in respect of an issue like this. Indeed, I would argue that, when the “probity” of these council administered grants is in question, one would be too many.
[2] If he thought I was breaching the Code he should have reported me to the Ombudsman.
Perhaps he was deterred by the experience of his Cabinet colleague Cllr David Pugh who submitted a complaint to the Ombudsman about my “unjustified and unsubstantiated” claims about these grants and found himself kicked firmly into touch.
My recollection, in which I have great confidence, is that the only person who made any reference to the police during the Cabinet meeting on December 2 was Cllr Simon Hancock, and he made no mention of the Code of Conduct. The matter was also discussed at meetings of full council on December 12 and March 6 and having reviewed the webcast I can confirm that, while Cllr Adams did mention what he considered to be my obligations under the Code of Conduct at the 12 December meeting, but not on March 6.
So once has become “more than one occasion” in IPPG Newspeak.
Perhaps, Adams and Cllr Rev Huw George had the same maths teacher.
[3] Cllr Adams neglected to tell the Pembrokeshire Herald that I explained the reason for my lack of faith in the police on both occasions when it was raised. Just to remind him, it was because of their co-operation with the council in the cover-up that occurred when I complained to the police about Cllr Brian Hall’s unorthodox expense-claiming practices.
And, of course, my faith in the police, or lack of it, is entirely my business, so whether Cllr Adams is “disturbed” about it is neither here nor there.
[4] One of the reasons (but by no means the only one see [3] above) why I didn’t refer the matter to the police was that I didn’t have all the facts at my disposal.
That was largely because my requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act were met by stonewalling tactics by the authority. My appeal on this subject is currently being considered by the Information Commissioner to whom I provided evidence that the council wasn’t telling the truth about the existence of certain documents. I will have more to say about this in due course.
Eventually, I put down a Notice of Motion (NoM) to the October meeting of council calling for all members to have access to these documents.
This was remitted to Cabinet which “debated” the issue at its meeting on 2 December 2013.
At this meeting, Cllr Adams claimed that he knew something about my career in the building industry which undermined my claim to expertise in the field. Unfortunately, when challenged, he was unwilling to substantiate this slur.
His Cabinet colleague, Cllr David Pugh, accused me of not understanding how the grants system worked, though subsequent events would seem to suggest that it was he who was deficient in this respect.
Cabinet was also provided with a slide show by the internal audit service which purported to demonstrate that my allegations were unfounded.
The internal audit report concluded: “The concerns expressed have been taken seriously leading to a review of the operation of the CPGS by the Council’s Internal Audit Service. This review, which was reported to the meeting of the Council’s Audit Committee on 23 September 2013 found no cause for concern.”
However, when I later asked to see the photographic record (required by the council’s procedure manual) for other projects in which I was interested, I was told that this was no longer available because of a broken hard drive on the project co-ordinator’s computer.
This is unfortunate because it would have helped to resolve some of the issues as to whether work for which grants have been paid was actually carried out.
Unsurprisingly, the Cabinet voted unanimously to recommend to full council that my NoM be rejected.
Labour leader, Cllr Paul Miller, also had an NoM on the same subject before the Cabinet and the leader’s tactic in his case was to claim that he was acting as my puppet.
At full council on 12 December Cllr Adams again used the Grumpy-as-string-puller line with regard to Cllr Miller’s NoM but it was left to Pugh to take the starring role with a ten-minute personal attack on me during which he invited members to decide whether I was guilty of telling “deliberate untruths” or demonstrating “sheer incompetence” by not checking my facts, before concluding “the truth isn’t on his agenda”.
The reason for this confidence was that Pugh and Adams had made a visit to Pembroke Dock accompanied by the officer who had supervised these projects.
And the officer had provided them with ‘facts’ that completely undermined my case.
Of course, caution might have led them to wonder whether the officer might have a a dog in this fight, but as he was telling them things that they wanted to hear they swallowed it whole.
Within a few days Pugh was forced to issue an “unreserved apology” when I produced evidence that the “third side elevation” at 25 Dimond Street that was supposed to destroy my claim that the rendering had been two-and-a-half times overmeasured, simply didn’t exist.
He still hasn’t got round to apologising for all the other untruths he uttered that day.
Inevitably, the IPPG’s block vote ensured that both NoMs were defeated.
So the matter remained in the hands of the audit committee which met to discuss the matters I had raised on 20 January.
That was when my understanding of the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 came in handy.
What the act says is that, when a matter concerning commercially confidential information comes before any committee of the council, all members of the council shall have the right to inspect any relevant document in the council’s possession.
So, after a lengthy exchange of emails with the council’s Monitoring Officer, who initially refused to accept my interpretation, I was able to see all those documents that the council had laboured long and hard to keep under wraps.
[5] There has been no “intensive scrutiny” by the audit committee, though I believe the chairman and some individual members have taken quite a keen interest.
Most of the really intensive scrutiny has been carried out by me with the result that I have acquired copies of a large number of extremely interesting documents.
As things stand at the moment, I hold these documents on a confidential basis, but, if I detect any hint of a cover-up, I will feel justified in putting them into the public domain.
That will likely cause problems with the Code of Conduct, but if that leads to an adverse Ombudsman’s report I am quite prepared to go all the way to the High Court (c.f. Malcolm Calver) to argue that I have a public interest defence.
[6] It was not the council that asked the audit committee to examine the grant scheme.
That honour falls to Cllr Michael Williams, who, after reading my website, raised the matter at the committee’s meeting in June 2013 and asked for it to be included on the agenda for its next meeting.
That meeting took place on September 23 when the committee was presented with a report by the council’s internal audit service.
The full report can be found on the council’s website, but, in essence, it said that the everything was hunky-dory with the administration of the grants.
The minutes record: “It had been concluded that there were adequate and effective compliance arrangements in place for both grant schemes, which had been complied with. This view had also been expressed by the Council’s Monitoring Officer who was in attendance at the meeting.”
Suspecting one of the council’s trademark cover-ups, I put down a NoM for the meeting of full council in October (see [4] above).
[7] Council officers referred the matter to the police only after Cllr Jacob Williams and I presented the director of finance and head of internal audit with the clearest possible evidence that there had been irregularities in the tender process for the contract at 10 Meyrick Street Pembroke Dock.
Given my previous experience with the police, this was the situation I had been trying to engineer all along.
After all, now that the council has made the complaint, it can hardly turn round and say “nothing to see here officer”.
Because, judging from the reports that went before the audit committee in September and Cabinet in December, both of which gave the grants scheme a completely clean bill of health, that is exactly what would have happened if I had complained to the police before I had accumulated some really compelling evidence.