It is difficult to think of anything less important than the vice-chairmanship of the county council’s audit committee.
So you might wonder why Monday’s meeting of the committee spent more than half an hour debating the question.
This committee was established by the Local Government Measure (Wales) 2011 under a section headed “Strengthening local democracy”.
In order that the committee should not fall under the control of the leadership, it has to have an independent lay member and the rules stipulated that it can’t be chaired by a member of an executive group (IPPG) and the maximum number of Cabinet members should be restricted to one.
The committee got off to an uncertain start because the appointment of the original lay member was never endorsed by full council as it should have been.
Instead the appointment was made by a panel made up of two members nominated by Cllr Jamie Adams and chaired by a lay person who had originally been appointed to the standards committee appointments panel by Maurice Hughes way back in 2001.
This panel meets in secret and produces no minutes – not what most people would think of as “strengthening local democracy”.
I was aware of the flaw in the process that led to Mr Evans’ appointment, but it didn’t seem worth making a fuss about it.
However, when Mr Evans resigned following a tiff with Mr Parry-Jones, I wrote to the monitoring officer pointing out that the appointment of his replacement would require the approval of full council.
The initial response was that I was wrong, but it seems that second thoughts were the order of the day because the appointment of the new man (Swansea solicitor Mr Peter Jones) was approved by a hastily convened meeting of the urgency committee which has the same powers as full council.
The recruitment process was not without its controversy because the director of finance Jon Haswell unilaterally extended the deadline for applications by ten days and the only application received in that period was that of Mr Jones.
This gave rise to suspicion that Mr Jones, who was known to the council and at least one of its members, had been hand-picked for the post.
The audit committee duly appointed Mr Jones as its chairman with Cllr Mike James (IPPG) as vice chairman.
Mr Jones tendered his apologies for the meeting on 1 December 2014 and Mike James automatically assumed the chair, and that was when the fun started because Cllr Jacob Williams had been studying the Local Government Measure and had noticed that it forbade the chairing of the committee by a member of the ruling group.
The council sought counsel’s opinion which came back with the remarkable conclusion that there was a distinction to be drawn between the person appointed to chair the committee (Peter Jones) and the person who actually chaired meetings of the committee (Cllr Mike James).
This always seemed like one of those arguments about how many camels can dance on the head of a pin and so it proved when Jacob took up the matter with the Wales Audit Office (WAO) which came down on his side.
A full account of these exchanges can be read at that other website.
So, when the audit committee met on Monday for its first meeting of the new municipal year, a new vice chairman had to be appointed.
Under the rules as interpreted by the WAO only the two non-IPPG members on the committee Cllrs Guy Woodham (Lab) and Jacob Williams (unaffiliated) were qualified to take up the post.
Right on cue, Cllr Mike James bobbed up to nominate Cllr Woodham, who had tendered his apologies.
Cllr Williams queried whether a member who was not present could be appointed and was told by director of finance Jon Haswell that he had been aware that Cllr Woodham was going to be absent and he had previously asked Cllr Woodham if he was willing for his name to go forward for election as vice chair.
Clearly annoyed, Mr Haswell added that Cllr Williams was making “a habit” of raising these fine legal points.
Cllr Williams asked if there was any written evidence that Cllr Woodham had consented to be appointed whereupon chairman Jones told him rather crossly that he was implying that “Jon is not telling the truth”.
Mr Haswell said he had also spoken to the Leader of the [Labour] party about the matter but Cllr Williams insisted that he couldn’t accept that a member could be appointed in his absence without evidence that he had given his consent.
It was then agreed that the head of legal services should be called in to give an opinion.
During the interlude, Mr Peter Jones expressed the view that, despite the WAO ruling on the matter, the council had always been in compliance with the regulations.
“My view is that Cllr Mike James was perfectly entitled to chair the meeting because the regulations allowed it.”
And he told the committee that he had seen correspondence from another local authority which “had gone to town” in its dispute with the the WAO over its interpretation of the law on this issue and he that he would be writing to the WAO to add his tuppence-worth.
Of course, you have to wonder why, if everything was hunky dory, the committee didn’t just reappoint Cllr Mike James.
This is typical county council tactics when in a tight spot.
“We haven’t done anything wrong, but we promise we won’t do it ever again.”
An interesting little spat then blew up between Cllrs Williams and Rob Summons.
According to Cllr Williams he had had a conversation with Cllr Summons prior to the meeting concerning the WAO’s ruling that an opposition member ought to be appointed as vice-chair and Cllr Summons had agreed that, as Cllr Williams was the only qualified candidate present, it had to be him.
But Cllr Summons said that Cllr Williams had made up this story which he described as “fiction”.
Strangely, the chairman didn’t intervene to tell Cllr Summons that he was implying that Jacob wasn’t telling the truth.
Who is right about this I cannot say, but, given Cllr Summons’ previous, if I was a betting man I would be tempted to put my money on Jacob.
All this Rule of Law stuff was clearly getting a bit heavy for Cllr Johnny Allen-Mirehouse who said he was going to go and have a cup of coffee while they sorted it out.
This was met with the approval of the chairman who told his former client: “I sympathise with your feeling; we’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”
The council solicitor – not the head of legal services – duly came down and advised that there was nothing to prevent the election of an absent member if had given his consent.
But, as what constituted consent was the question at issue, this didn’t move things on much.
Nevertheless the committee appointed Cllr Woodham and the chairman said that if he wasn’t willing to serve he could always resign at the next meeting.
The chairman told Cllr Williams: “I don’t feel there is any support for your point of view.”
As Old Grumpy has said before, the majority decides what gets done, but that doesn’t mean the majority is necessarily right.
Whenever I have any doubts about this proposition, I click on this link.
However, their collective efforts to browbeat the member for East Williamston were a signal failure because he then asked why he hadn’t been approached by Mr Haswell about the soon-to-be-vacant vice chairmanship.
After all, Jacob was just as entitled to be considered for the post as Cllr Woodham.
Indeed, as things stood, Cllr Williams having shaken the tree was about to see Cllr Woodham make off with the apple.
Mr Haswell denied “approaching” Cllr Woodham.
He said he had raised the matter during a conversation with the member about something else.
I can’t really see there is much of a distinction here.
Surely the point is that, as an officer, Mr Haswell had no interest whatsoever in who became vice-chairman of the audit committee.
Indeed, as one of the committee’s main functions is to scrutinise the activities of his department, it was a subject which he should have given a very wide berth.
There is much talk of a change in culture in county hall.
These sort of machinations only serve to show how far there is to go.