Carmarthenshire Planning Problems and more

Budget

The council’s latest budget consultation is currently circulating in cyberspace with the response deadline for next Tuesday. This time it’s all been a bit rushed, the fault of the Welsh Labour government, or the UK government, or pandemics and brexit, anything other than Carmarthenshire Council of course.

They did have time, however, to put a couple of patronising videos together, including one explaining the difference between the revenue and the capital budget, though not one to explain why they were in £432m in debt, costing £20m a year in interest, due to rise exponentially as Emlyn Dole ploughs on relentlessly with the Wellness Fantasy.

Filling in the survey requires extensive deciphering of the proposals, sifting through the mystifying assortment of rationalisations, remodelling, right-sizing and reviewing, collectively known as 'cuts'. Then you are asked to give your view, on all of it....or none of it, because you’ve probably given up by now.

Budgets are always an opportunity to score a few points, from both sides of the divide. Previously, keen observers and bloggers could spot the few, obviously unpopular red herrings popped into the ‘proposals’ which would be miraculously, and loudly dropped by the Exec Board in a press release a week before the Council approved the budget.

Pretending they were going to close the respite centres for profoundly disabled children came up a few years running, a particularly cruel game. They could then claim to have ‘listened’, despite the obvious fact that it was all staged.

This year’s syrupy nonsense was the 'massive' reduction in the council tax rise of slightly less than half a percent, from 4.9 to 4.48. This magnanimous proposal was stage managed for Emlyn who then proceeded to say, in the inevitable press release, "The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked personal and financial havoc on our county, and the good people of Carmarthenshire have paid a huge price...I propose reducing the proposed Council Tax increase to 4.48 per cent to give the people of Carmarthenshire the support that they so rightly deserve"

Big help Emlyn.

In Rhondda Cynon Taf the increase is 2.65%, Bridgend 3.9% and Neath Port Talbot 3.75%.

As for Covid related costs, the Welsh Government has reimbursed this council £18m, around 96%, so far.

Meanwhile, Carmarthenshire's council/social housing rents will increase by 1.5%.

Of course Emlyn 'two barns' Dole has experienced less in the way of financial havoc, boosting his monthly £4120.83 with penny pinching claims for fuel, and hosting punters from across a Covid riddled UK to bathe in his luxury hot tub. Ewww.
Emlyn’s involvement in the Mark James Wellness scandal has yet to be determined. And the roles of James' seconds in command, Wendy Walters and Linda Rees Jones come to that.

Such a tangled web.

Incidentally, calls from the Llanelli Chamber of Commerce for local firms to be given the chance to operate the site, rather than one big company have been deflected by Dole who said the tender process is about to start (he means 'start again' given that the last tender process is still being investigated by the organised crime squad) and commercial confidentiality must be observed. In other words, sod off.

Despite £12.5m of proposed cuts on the horizon for the next couple of years, over a million quid is being spent sprucing up County Hall, including new carpets, (they did get very lumpy during the James regime) and a new ‘head of regeneration’ is being appointed at £96k per annum. This unnecessary example of a non-job for the boys/girls is just about covered by slashing a proposed £100k from the children and educational psychology service.

The Labour opposition are busy needling Emlyn and co over the million quid to be ‘saved’, vaguely, from schools. Many of which are struggling with finances. As I mentioned back in November, two are up for closure, including Mynyddygarreg near Kidwelly, a proposal which is drawing considerable opposition, and calls to extend the consultation period. It's seen as little unfair to consult when people are somewhat distracted by a global pandemic. More cash is set to be ‘saved’, and jobs lost, by, for instance, centralising school kitchens.

One problem is the language of smoke and mirrors adopted so seamlessly by Plaid, and officers alike. It was sad and pathetic to see Plaid Executive Member Dai Jenkins tell Labour Leader Rob James, unconvincingly, that no they weren’t closing schools, they were, erm, ‘rationalising’ them. What nonsense.
The Director of Education, Gareth Morgans, took the award for ridiculous corporate crapspeak though by admitting they were looking at the ‘primary school footprint’ and ‘investing in a system that’s probably more sustainable in the future’. Cuts and closures are fine as long as you can shoe horn in the word ‘sustainable’. And ‘footprint’. At £130,000 a year, he should be an expert at that.

Anyway the annual budget saga will run its course over the next few weeks.

Unlawful libel indemnities

One huge potential price for the good people of Carmarthenshire which bothers neither Emlyn nor the Director of Corporate Services, Chris Moore is preserving the ability to sue the public if they say something out of turn. As I mentioned here, last October the unlawful clause was merely shifted from one part of the constitution to another.

As I have also mentioned Mark James, Legal Linda, and Emlyn Dole have insisted that this power was not only lawful but quite necessary. Desperate to defend the indefensible. Ms Rees Jones had told me this repeatedly and pleaded with the Auditor General to give his blessing to reinstatement. Emlyn even wanted the provision to be extended to cover himself. The Auditor General was having none of it. Neither was I.

The Executive now has the power to use public money to sue on behalf of a senior officer. Interestingly the ‘new clause’ mentions the libel indemnity provision without specifying if it is for making a claim or defending one. The latter is allowed under certain circumstances, the former is not. Anyone can sue, of course, but with their own money, not the tax payers.

I wrote to the Audit Office back in November about this shifting, sinister clause, and had a reply earlier this week, reproduced in full below (with my emphasis).

Despite the very careful wording it is clear that the AG has not changed his view. Far from it. If the council interpret the clause as a green light to sue (which is the intention), there will be trouble.

Whether any of them would be daft enough to sue, Mark James style, again, is doubtful and it’s remarkable that head of legal Linda Rees Jones, who has been spouting deliberately misleading and illegal ‘advice’, to councillors and courts for years, is still in post. Mark James left her to it, of course, and ran off with the loot.

Dear Mrs Thompson,

The Auditor General, Adrian Crompton, has asked me to thank you for your email of 10 November 2020 concerning Carmarthenshire Council’s inclusion of provision in its constitution in respect of indemnities for libel actions. We appreciate you drawing this to our attention.

We have given this situation careful consideration and note that the new provision in 3.1 of the constitution does not explicitly concern indemnities for officers making claims or counterclaims for libel. While, in isolation, the provision could be read as enabling the indemnification of an officer making such a claim or counterclaim (as opposed to indemnification for defence of libel claims), such an interpretation would, in our view, not be correct. We consider that the Local Authorities (Indemnities for Members and Officers) (Wales) Order 2006 still renders providing indemnity for making a claim or counterclaim for libel unlawful.

Please note that it is not within our functions to provide you with legal advice. The views above do not constitute legal advice, and you should not seek to rely on them as such advice.

The Auditor General has already written to the Council requesting that it informs him of any intention to indemnify an officer making a claim or counterclaim for libel. He has reminded the Council of his power to apply for judicial review in respect of a decision which could reasonably be believed to have an effect on the accounts of the Council. I and other members of the audit team are also keeping the situation under review.

Yours sincerely,

Ann-Marie Harkin

Cyfarwyddwr || Director

Audit Wales

Pantomime

I was amused to see that the council are asking for views over a name change for The Miners Theatre in Ammanford. With little else, clearly, to occupy their minds they want it to be one word, like the other two theatres, the Lyric, or Ffwrnes so are suggesting 'Glowyr', which means miners.

My amusement was not with that, but because it reminded me of a public vote some years back to pick a name (out of a shortlist) for Ffwrnes. It emerged, after the new name was announced, that it was not the actual vote winner but, in fact, the one preferred by county hall.

As a diligent blogger I recounted this silly farce, suggesting that the Council top brass should put on a pantomime at the said theatre. I politely suggested that Meryl Gravell would make an ideal Widow Twanky, and Mark James would be perfect as Pinocchio, and hoped, as Returning Officer he would take the results of a vote a little more seriously.

Moving forward a year or so and Mark James was suddenly offended, and dear old Pinocchio appeared in his libel counterclaim.

His lawyers claimed that my remark had the innuendo meaning that he was untrustworthy in his role as election Retuning Officer and couldn’t be trusted to give out the correct result.

Unfortunately that blogpost had to be consigned to legally enforced oblivion.

Although I can’t comment, legally, on his integrity as returning officer, I can vouch for the fact he’s a dishonest crook and a born liar.

Update 9th March

Statement issued today from Swansea University on the internal investigation and police inquiry.

Here's an extract, with my emphasis. And as we know, the "number of others" includes Mark James.

"Marc Clement was dismissed for having a serious conflict of interest which he failed to declare to the university. Along with a number of others, Marc Clement personally stood to receive significant amounts of money through a substantial equity share in the Sterling Health company, which would have part-owned the Wellness Village venture, as well as employment in the company. The share Marc Clement expected to receive was substantially larger than the university – his employer - was due to receive as a partner in the venture. Marc Clement admitted to expecting to receive this substantial equity share during the investigation.

The university was satisfied at the time that the correct course of action was to dismiss Marc Clement for this significant undeclared financial interest, which he had admitted to, and is still entirely satisfied this was the correct course of action. Whilst the CPS may have decided it is not in the public interest to prosecute this case, the evidence compiled by the university will obviously come out during the employment tribunal, which will take place in the public domain, should the individuals still wish to proceed."

Link to press release here

Good article on Herald Wales; Swansea University hits back in Llanelli Wellness Village row

Update 8th March

The police have issued a revised statement this afternoon;

“There was evidence of potential criminal offending identified and secured against individuals and companies subject to this enquiry and this was submitted as part of the file of evidence to the CPS who subsequently made their decision that it was not in the public interest to proceed with any prosecutions"

That's a big change in tone, it's very significant, and as I said below, I believe the police had plenty of evidence. We know exactly who the 'individuals' are, and we know the 'companies' were Sterling Health and it's assorted sister outfits.

In light of the revised police statement the BBC have asked the CPS if their decision not to proceed was because of a lack of sufficient evidence or on different grounds.

Whatever happens now, it'll all come out, eventually.

*****

The fraud and bribery investigation into the Wellness Village seems to be over.

The CPS have reviewed the file submitted by Tarian, the organised crime squad, and have said that there was insufficient evidence of criminal conduct and concluded that it was not in the public interest to proceed with the case. A case, it has to be said, which would have taken several years.

They found that the "correct procurement guidelines were followed and overseen by specialist law firms".

More on one of those specialist law firms further on.

I have of course written numerous blogpost about all this, and followed every development since 2016.

I have also come to a very different conclusion to the CPS.

I also understand that the police did too.

For all the details, please take a look at some recent blog posts including Wellness Scandal - How did it happen?, Tangled webs, Wellness scandal - Swansea Uni sticking to its guns.

The investigation centred around the council’s tender for the Wellness Village development in Llanelli, which became a City Deal project. The suspects in the case were in line to gain millions from the deal.

You’ll recall that former CEO Mark James was particularly insistent that Kent based company Sterling Health were signed up to develop the £200m project. This was despite the company having no proven track record, £137k in debt and a previous development which required a £30m bail out.

He was so keen he signed them up twice, once in their earlier incarnation as Kent Neurosciences.

By 2017 he was telling them what to put in their tender submission.

As the whole shady deal began to fall apart, Swansea University pulled out as partners, eventually sacking Professor Marc Clement and vice-chancellor Richard Davies, amongst others, for gross misconduct over their involvement in the Wellness Village. It was at the point when the Uni staff were suspended that James made his move to 'retire' from the council.

Details and allegations began to emerge that Frank Dickmann, the Director of Sterling Health, had been offering jobs, homes and shares to various individuals.

As I said, Mr James was, inexplicably, very determined to appoint Mr Dickmann.

It also emerged, late in 2019, that James, Clement, Davies and Dickmann were planning to develop a private medical school in Kuwait. This arrangement was also referred to the police. James was a trustee, and never declared it to the council.

With the police investigation underway, Sterling now ditched, and the shit heading for the fan, Mark James brought in a law firm to ‘review’ the council’s (his) role in the Wellness tender, in other words, to provide himself with some sort of defence, paid for by the council, should things take a nasty turn. This is the law firm I mentioned earlier in this post.

To ensure he got the result he needed he brought in Acuity Law who, remarkably, just happened to be his very own personal solicitors. It was staggering that no one at the council dared to even try stopping him.

Meanwhile, the arrogant and dishonest manner in which Mark James was running the Swansea Bay City Deal was giving grave cause for concern, in fact, he nearly collapsed the whole £1.3bn deal. Two damning reports were published, Mark James’ role was 'deleted' (he’d hastily announced his retirement by then), Carmarthenshire Council was stripped of key roles and Linda Rees Jones was removed as City Deal Monitoring Officer.

James left the council in June 2019, pocketing his cash from his previous rap sheet of illegal legal costs and a pension tax avoidance scam, for which he’d also been investigated by the police in 2014.

Then, like now, he got away with being caught with his hand in the till.

Mark James

A few weeks later, in July 2019 the news broke that eight addresses had been raided by the police and computers seized. The addresses included the home of Mark James, former leader Meryl Gravell, and deleted data was seized from County Hall. An address in Kent was also raided.

A treasure trove of evidence was seized.

Early in 2020 eight suspects were interviewed by the police, including Mark James who was arrested, but not charged.

Which, in this long sorry saga brings us up to today’s announcement by the CPS.

As I have said, and exposed throughout this blog, Mark James is a thoroughly arrogant and dishonest individual and capable of anything to further his own interests, including criminal behaviour.

The case might have been dropped, but he knows he's guilty, which is something.

Previous post; Mark James - off the hook again?...Updated

After having had some time to digest the CPS response to the investigation I am finding it more an more incredulous that no charges were brought. And, for that matter, why our politicians aren't raising a stink.

The revised police statement was crucial. There was evidence that these people were due to pocket millions of pounds in bribes from a development funded by public money. What is there not to understand. If a benefit claimant pockets an extra £60 in housing benefit that they know they shouldn't have, they're hauled before the magistrates or at least named and shamed on a council website, who are, apparently, 'protecting the public purse'.

There's been precious little of that at County Hall.

For a serious crime such as large scale fraud, which this was, it should make no difference if one of them is unfit to stand trial, as long as the evidence is there to implicate the rest of them. Which it was.

Including the former CEO of the council, Mark James.

However, I'm clearly in no position to influence the CPS, but senior politicians are, or are able, at the very least, to call for a public inquiry.

Mark James, whilst CEO, spent roughly three years arranging a personal deal to receive millions of pounds in bribes from a company he was appointing, directly, through an obviously rigged tender.

As I said, this crooked, criminal arrangement went on from 2016 and influenced every aspect of the development, and the City Deal until it broke down, and until James hurriedly left the council in June 2019. It was signed, sealed and just about to be delivered, and maybe some of it already had.

So, do we sweep all this under the carpet? Do we wait until Clement and co decide to go to employment tribunals and for the evidence to trickle out? Given that they're all doing very well thank you elsewhere, I don't think they'll bother, it would be damaging. We'll see.

Of course, Mark James, who is currently conning the residents of Century Wharf, appears to have got off scot free. Again.

If we choose to believe that no one else in the council was aware of what was going on, and James certainly had a knack of silencing anyone who got a little curious, then now is the time to act. It's time he's finally exposed as the crook he is.

He has form. From Boston, to the curious case of the £5000 in the envelope, to his bung to a private company, to tax avoidance, pilfering the public purse, to silencing whistleblowers, to lying to the council and the courts, using council staff and resources for his own private use, failing to declare his interests etc etc. And that is just what we know about.

All this went on for seventeen years, but pales into insignificance to the con he had planned for the Wellness village and the City Deal. We also know what many of the other key City Deal figures thought about him.

Going back seventeen years is clearly impractical, but for the three or for years before he left the authority it would be a relatively simple matter.

As has been set out on this blog, and from this criminal investigation the truth has again been revealed, James is a liar and a crook. But, without support from politicians and Welsh Government, those he has wronged, or conned, including the taxpayer, will be left with a very grim legacy.

I have emailed the councillors of Carmarthenshire to make sure they know exactly what went on.

I have also emailed the current police commissioner, Plaid Cymru's Dafydd Llywelyn, as reproduced in full below;

To; Police and Crime Commissioner, Dyfed Powys Police

Dear Mr Llywelyn

I am sure you are aware of the recent decision by the CPS not to charge several suspects following the Wellness village bribery investigation by Tarian, the regional organised crime unit.

You may also be aware that the police revised their own statement shortly afterwards which said that there had been evidence of potential criminal acts.

I am sure that it is in your remit, as the current PCC, to ask the CPS to review their decision and indeed charge the suspects, one of which is the former chief executive of Carmarthenshire Council, Mark James.

Whatever the reasoning behind the CPS decision it cannot be right that the individuals involved had accepted, and stood to personally gain bribes of millions of pounds in public cash and equity from the developers of the project. This was fraud, and had been years in the planning.

The tender for the project, the central issue in the investigation, was, to put it bluntly, rigged by Mark James. Not only did he stand to gain a substantial amount himself, he jeopardised the integrity of the council and the entire City Deal.

The fact that this is a Plaid run council and you are a Plaid Cymru PCC should, I trust, not be an issue.

I look forward to you early reply to this email, and details of how this matter can be taken forward with urgency by either yourself or your successor.

Your sincerely

Jacqui Thompson

It's perhaps worth remembering what the previous Police Commissioner, Christopher Salmon said about the County Hall regime in 2016. He didn't name names, but everyone knew who he was talking about.

"Carmarthenshire County Council. Wales’ answer to a Sicilian cartel. It’s everywhere you look (thankfully only in Carmarthenshire – so far as I can tell). It extracts vast amounts of money from residents which it showers on favourites, hoards property, bullies opponents, co-opts friends and answers to no one, least of all local councillors."

The old Grillo zinc oxide site in Burry Port came up again at Monday's Executive Board meeting. It was not, as you may think, to clear away the heavy metals and toxic chemicals which pervade the ground but to sell the plot to a developer to build around 320 homes. Being the current owners of the site, and the body which passed planning permission for itself, one may think they had a duty to clear it up.

The main purpose of the sale is not to create a vision of the French Riviera in Burry Port but to recoup the £1.5m they've blown on the toxic site.

Plaid Cllr Dai Jenkins, trotting out the officer's report in the usual parrot fashion, made no mention of the dangers lurking beneath the land, nor the cost of remediation, estimated between £5m and £10m, nor, for that matter, the predicted rising sea levels, and the surrounding protected waters.

One can only hope that all this pertinent information is somewhere in the small print.

The Grillo site has an interesting and rather controversial history since it's industrial days, and, in recent years featured a shell company, a lot of taxpayers' money, backroom deals a dodgy lord and, naturally, former CEO Mark James....see previous blog post from August 2020, Grillo site - the toxic saga

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Also in the news this week is the extensive fire at the council's recycling plant at Nant y Caws, Carmarthen. Fortunately no one was hurt and an investigation as to the cause is underway. I say council, but as readers will recall it is managed by Cwm Environmental Ltd, an arms-length company wholly owned by the council.

Cwm run all three main recycling plants in the county. One, in Llangadog, was privately owned and was closed a couple of years ago. Much to the distress of locals but, as it wasn't run by Cwm, it was of no interest to the council whatsoever.

Cwm Environmental has something of a chequered past itself. A search of this blog will show a reluctance to answer FOI requests, despite being 100% council owned, some massive loans to buy extra little bits of land (the most recent being £800k in February 2020), mismanagement and a propensity to employ people on less than favourable terms, exploiting labourers from eastern Europe.

The council changed the structure in 2018 to a Teckal company which means, basically that they are supposed to have more control over the management and indeed, several senior officers are on the board.

For those with longer memories former deputy chief executive Dave 'for f***'s sake don't go to the police' Gilbert OBE is also a director, and a director of Cartrefi Croeso, the council's 'wholly owned' housing company. How cosy.

Incidentally, Delta Wellbeing, the council's call centre company are running eight weeks late submitting their accounts to Companies House.

However, another strange phenomenon has been Cwm Environmental's reluctance, ie the council's reluctance, to agree a Trade Union Recognition Agreement, for Unison, Unite and GMB at the plant.

The Carmarthen branch of Unison has concluded that it is the council blocking the agreement, preferring to keep the status quo of poorer pay and conditions, significantly poorer pay and conditions than for those directly employed by the local authority.

*****************************

Meanwhile, the great and good of Plaid Cymru and Labour are busying themselves, ahead of next week's election of course, attacking Westminster sleaze, dishonesty, corruption etc, and quite right too. Sadly they're choosing to ignore the dishonesty and corruption on their own doorstep.

Putting the Wellness scandal aside for one moment, it's particularly galling, given that Plaid Cymru had the chance to put things right when they acquired a semblance of power in County Hall in 2015, then chose to jump into bed with Meryl and Mark instead. They even preserved Mark James' slush fund.

Plaid MP Liz Savile-Roberts was questioning Boris Johnson's integrity in the Commons yesterday, quoting the Nolan Principles and asking what happens when a Prime Minister goes rogue, good questions but ones that should have been asked by her Plaid colleagues about the former chief executive of Carmarthenshire. The only one who did try was the former Chair of the Swansea Bay Health Board over James' dishonest and catastrophic 'leadership' of the City Deal.

What 'happened' in Carmarthenshire was that the taxpayers were robbed, democracy was trashed and peoples lives destroyed. Who is going to put that right? I'm still waiting. One can understand why, sometimes, people take the law into their own hands.

As for the Wellness scandal, if an inquiry can be called to investigate the Prime Minister and his refurbishments, let alone the 'dodgy contracts', then surely a council chief executive who accepted £mms in bribes from a developer, lying to his employers and the taxpayer in the process, (and not for the first time), warrants a very public inquiry.

It would also be very interesting to know when exactly Emlyn Dole, Linda Rees Jones and Wendy Walters realise there was something seriously wrong? They're either idiots, liars or crooks. Or all three.

The truth will out.

Last week I finally received copies of the minutes from two of the meetings held in private last year to discuss the fate of the unlawful libel indemnity clause.

Readers of this blog will recall that back in July 2018 at a meeting of the held-behind-closed-doors cross-party Constitutional Review Working Group (CRWG) it was decided, by Plaid Cymru to try and reinstate the then suspended and unlawful Libel Indemnity Clause (the Mark James slush fund) back into the Constitution. An unbelievable decision.

The slush fund clause, unique to Carmarthenshire Council, was to fund officers' libel claims, or counterclaims, with taxpayers' money, all of which is clearly prohibited under 2006 legislation. Mark James was still in post in July 2018 so in full control, although he was probably getting sidetracked with his fraudulent arrangement with Clement, Dickmann and co by then....

The unlawful clause had been suspended since 2014 when the Wales Audit Office found that the funding of Mr James legal fees by the taxpayer was unlawful.

As James knew full well at the time he was bankrolled, in 2012, that it was unlawful, he hedged his bets by getting the then Executive Board to rubber stamp his slush fund. He remained in the meeting to ensure the deed was done, which was also unlawful. He also sweetened the Executive Board by promising, in writing, that he'd pay it back if he won any damages. He never did.

Despite this, Mark James and his personal legal minder, head of legal Linda Rees Jones, who also doubles-up as Monitoring Officer (personally appointed by James) continued to claim it was lawful. They should, in fact, have both been sacked for gross misconduct.

Emlyn 'two barns' Dole, once deeply opposed to the clause and the specific funding of Mr James, when in opposition, fulfilled his end of the power deal with Mr James by doing a U-turn, and was now fully supporting his paymaster.

Moving to the July 2018 meeting, Labour leader Rob James had suggested the clause be removed completely. However, as I said, the Plaid majority (ie Mark James and Linda Rees Jones...) had other ideas and wanted it reinstated - to remove it exposed that thorny problem of finally admitting they'd acted illegally.

Plaid Cymru leader Emlyn Dole even wanted it extended so senior councillors, like himself, could dip into this slush fund if they so desired.

At the July 2018 meeting it was eventually decided to write to the Auditor General for Wales for his blessing, with fingers crossed that he'd now changed his mind.

Two and a half years then passed during which time Linda, on behalf of Mark's reputation and her career, wrote two lengthy, detailed pleading letters to the Auditor General. Both of which received sound rejections. He also warned them of potential legal challenges should they try it again.

Eventually, in August 2020 CRWG met again. Ms Rees Jones had no choice other than to relay the grim news from the Auditor General to the assembled CRWG.

She was clearly starting to panic over the prospect of her dishonest, misleading advice to the High Court, and councillors, being very publicly exposed.

If they decided to remove the clause she insisted that it be made VERY CLEAR "that it was being done as part of the process of tidying up the constitution and not because it was unlawful in any way".

No, not unlawful in any way AT ALL. What a joke.

Emlyn was worried that if it was removed, they wouldn't be able to sue anyone with taxpayers' money. Linda had come up with a plan though and assured him that it made no difference, if the unlawful delegated power WAS removed....they could just switch it to a power of the Executive Board! No worries Emlyn! We'll continue to ignore the fact it's illegal!

Anyway, as if this hadn't gone on long enough, they then went away to their political groups to discuss the options. Remove it, reinstate it, or the Rees-Jones option to move it quietly to a power of the Executive Board.

The next meeting was held in September 2020.

Linda was by now in meltdown, with the spirit of Mark James, if not the person himself, breathing over her shoulder.

If it was to be removed completely, A JOINT STATEMENT must be issued making sure her, and his back was covered.

"If a decision is made to remove the clause then that should be done with two provisos (1) it should be made perfectly clear that members will wholeheartedly support officers in any case of defamation and (2) it should be made absolutely clear that it in no way undermines members’ support of the Head of Administration and Law and that members’ support for her remains steadfast"

Remarkably, they were all sent away to discuss it yet again with their political groups.

By now though there was the Rees-Jones option, to slip the clause into the Exec Board's power instead and save face and reputations. Unfortunately this was still illegal. Not that this bothered Ms Rees Jones.

Prior to the full council meeting held on October 10th, CRWG had a 10 minute meeting on the 1st October and decided to move the offending item to the Executive Board powers. The Plaid and Independent contingent of CRWG had a majority anyway. No objections were going to get a look in. Job done.

The whole idea of a statement fizzled out. For two reasons; a) they hadn't removed the clause, just moved it and, b) Why attract any more publicity to this notorious business than was absolutely necessary.

"All four political Groups confirmed in turn that they supported relieving officers of the delegated authority of determining applications for such indemnities, with a view to the function being exercised by the Executive Board, as indeed had happened on the one occasion to date when such an indemnity had been granted.

Members expressed their support for officers and the unacceptability of some of the treatment that they have to endure and asked that it be explained how officers and members could be supported should any issue arise in the future, as it has in the past."

What should have been glaringly obvious was that the 'one occasion' the Executive Board rubber stamped an indemnity, it had been found to be unlawful.

The whole idea that they were circumventing the Derbyshire Rule, let alone risking millions of pounds of taxpayers money was quietly ignored by Plaid and the Independents, under the dishonest advice of Linda Rees Jones, and the influence of the now departed Mark James.

Still, why worry about trifles of legality or squandering taxpayers money.

You will note the second paragraph from the minutes. There appears to be confusion between unwarranted abuse, and valid and robust criticism. It's so much easier just to attack critics, or turn a blind eye, or sit there twiddling your thumbs when, to give just one example, your chief officer is accepting £mms in bribes from a developer.

Not only were Mark and Linda's professional reputations on the line over this clause but Mark James was awarded £25k+ damages, via his illegally funded counterclaim because I labelled it a slush fund. Which is exactly what it is.

Hence the reason why they will never admit that they'd acted illegally, or god forbid, agree with the Wales Audit Office.

The amount has since doubled due to interest and enforcement.

To say that Plaid Cymru have been a disappointment is an understatement. As I said in my previous post, the expectation that they would right the wrongs of the old Labour/Independent lot fizzled out as soon as it became clear that Dole was simply a weak puppet of Mark James and his poisonous, criminal legacy.

One hoped that senior figures in politics, who knew the score, knew what was right, and had their own run ins with the former CEO, may have intervened. Any previous attempts, however mild, were blocked by Mark James' legal threats, from defamation to contempt of court or by abusing his power and interfering with the democratic process. He can't do that now though, so there is now no excuse.

This post, from December 2019 still rings true; Plaid Cymru - and the rotten legacy of Mark James

Events over the bridge, at Bristol City Council, have caught Caebrwyn’s attention. It seems that two of the city’s councillors are being sued for libel by two senior council officers. I am not familiar, nor particularly interested in the parties involved, nor the allegations made. The details were published here by the Bristol Post, which has also seen the full video of the heated meeting, which has now disappeared from the council website.

City Hall, Bristol

Caebrwyn’s first thought, given what has happened in Carmarthenshire, was whether Bristol City Council, ie the taxpayers, were funding the claims. I emailed the press office who soon confirmed, categorically, that no, they weren’t.

"We can confirm that the Council is not funding these claims."

This means, obviously, that the officers were funding it themselves, or maybe using a Conditional Fee Agreement (no win, no fee).

Very interesting.

One wonders whether the officers had considered the possibility of council funding. Or that the council had taken a look at that possibility and decided that no, they couldn't, it would have simply been unlawful.

The words they’re complaining about were allegedly made during, and relate to, the course of their employment. Had they been senior officials of Carmarthenshire Council, Leader Emlyn Dole, head of legal Linda Rees Jones and the cabal would have been tripping over each other to offer blank cheques, regardless of the truth, or the consequences to the taxpayer.

Bristol City Council seemed to have taken a different view to our own villains in County Hall. They have taken the correct legal view.

County Hall, Carmarthen

It is, as I have said, prohibited under legislation for public authorities to indemnify officers’ libel claims. A view reinforced by the Wales Audit Office in 2014 who deemed the indemnity given to former council CEO Mark James CBE to fund a counterclaim for libel as unlawful.

Both Mr James and Ms Rees Jones should have been sacked for gross misconduct there and then. (readers new to this blog might be interested to know that Mr James has recently been under criminal investigation for accepting offers of £mms in bribes from a company in Kent, whilst he was CEO. And there's nothing 'allegedly' about it)

Mark James

Ms Rees Jones, and of course Mr James have tried, for many years, to find loopholes to justify their unlawful actions concerning libel indemnities. There is plenty about all this on the blog. The latest round of desperate barrel-scraping by the reckless Ms Rees Jones is to claim that the Executive Board have the power to dish out libel threats on behalf of officers under a vague ‘duty of care’ personnel function.

This is despite the threat of judicial challenge by the Auditor General for Wales.

Linda Rees Jones, Head of Law

This argument was rejected years ago, not only is there the necessity for full and robust democratic debate and scrutiny, but local authorities have other, less chilling means, such as well-stuffed press offices, to deflect allegations, unwarranted or otherwise. Using public money to sue the public is not an option.

It would be unheard of for a council to be found liable for failing to provide a duty of care by not issuing libel claims on employees’ behalf.

I would doubt if these cases will get very far, given the circumstances, but what do I know. Whether the claims would meet the higher demands of the 2013 Defamation Act remains to be seen. It is notable perhaps that the libel claims, and code of conduct complaints against the two 'troublesome' councillors appeared within a couple of hours of each other, a co-ordinated attack perhaps.

Whilst bringing a claim for libel with public money is banned, defending one with taxpayers' cash isn’t. I understand that the Bristol councillors have already instructed expert counsel. Observers might want to make enquiries, out of interest, as to who might be paying for that. So far, letters of claim have been issued, but it won’t take long for bills to reach eye-watering levels.

As it stands, the fact that these council officers are acting in a personal capacity, without the bottomless pit of taxpayers’ money must be a lesson to Carmarthenshire Council, who remain unique in their capacity, determination and enthusiasm to unlawfully sue their critics, with your money.

Whilst most of us are struggling to pay council tax, put food on the table, and local businesses are trying to keep heads above water, Carmarthenshire Council are spending nearly £350,000 on a sign. The structure, currently being constructed on the outskirts of Carmarthen has caused considerable controversy, and anger.

It's not just the cost, which also, apparently, includes a few benches and sculptures on the nearby Morfa Wetlands, it's a dangerous distraction to drivers along the busy and accident prone A40.

Also, by any stretch of the imagination, it looks bloody awful. The result of some brainstorming session that went horribly wrong. That's just my personal opinion, and I'm not averse to public art, but as 'gateway signage' goes (the terminology is used to justify the enormous expense), I've seen better.

And if nothing else, the timing is not great.

Sensing something of a backlash over the cost, Emlyn Dole and the press office have been hurriedly spinning the yarn that it's part of a wider scheme and part-funded from EU community grants, Rural Development funds and section 106 money, as if it all just fell out of the sky, hoping no one realises that it's all public cash. This does nothing to enhance or help the local community, by any EU standards, and using Section 106 money? From where?

Playgrounds, school facilities please, not a vanity project and a photo opportunity for Emlyn Dole.

They're currently being shy with the actual cost breakdown.

It has, naturally, been several years in the making, involving consultants, designers, artists, manufacturers etc, none of which, I notice, come from anywhere near Carmarthenshire. The designers are from north Wales and the company making the letters resides in Yorkshire. It is, apparently, a sculpture, not just a sign.

Under construction

Artist's impressions of finished sign

Pics from Carmarthen Journal

All views welcome.

A brief post just to mention that Lleisant Delta Wellbeing Ltd, one of the arms-length companies wholly owned by Carmarthenshire Council has narrowly avoided being struck-off from the Companies House register.

Delta Wellbeing Ltd was set up in 2018 as the council's social care call centre and employs around 60 people.

Their latest accounts are over two months late, hence the compulsory strike-off action published on Tuesday 1st June.

The action has now been discontinued, presumably the council woke up and responded with some sort of excuse.

This is a shambles by any standard. Questions need to be asked about what has been going on here...where are the accounts? Why did the council came so close to losing the company, and, more to the point, the jobs of sixty staff.

Part one; The leaked £190,000 costs report - redacted, five years on

After several months, and some pressure from the ICO the council finally changed its mind, and sent me a (mainly) unredacted copy of the March 2016 report to the Executive Board. The report had in fact been leaked by the council, to the press at the time.

This was the report which recommended that I be pursued for £190,390. These being their defence costs following the trial which I became liable for when my insurance was withdrawn following Tugendhat's judgement. My own solicitors were so disgusted and astonished by the judgement that they waived their own costs, and took my case right through the Court of Appeal pro bono.

Have no doubt that this whole situation arose from my attempts, in 2011, to film a public meeting and try to bring greater transparency to the council. Nothing more than that.

Back to the report. One paragraph remained redacted under Data Protection because "its content is different to those other paragraphs referring to Mr James in that it does not also refer to yourself and is information not contained elsewhere in the report"

The mind boggles, maybe it was referring to the colour of his pyjamas.

Actually the next paragraph gave a hint as clearly he was asking them to pursue me for the unlawful counterclaim costs. In the event they deferred that one, Ms Rees Jones, clearly worried, stated that it "may resurrect the issue of lawfulness with the Wales Audit Office...the Wales Audit Office may see the enforcement of the Costs Order as an integral part of the counterclaim process".

Quite.

As the council paid for his 'private' counterclaim, the council, it seems, were lumbered with trying to get it back, This would have also provided further confirmation that the council were in breach of the Derbyshire Rule.

Linda Rees Jones, head of legal

Readers will recall that when James was bankrolled in 2012 he confirmed an undertaking to pay any damages back to the council. It transpired later that he had been lying about that bit.

We were also on the brink of an early settlement, until James decided to dip into his slush fund, your money, and bring his counterclaim.

Mark James

Anyway, back to the council's enforcement of the £190,000.

Mark James was already well underway enforcing his damages, and the motive, for both his action, and that of the council, with him firmly in the driving seat, was to punish. I'd had the temerity to continue to criticise the council, when necessary, despite his best attempts to shut me up. This pursuit of money definitely wasn't out of any concern for the taxpayer.

Had that been the case they wouldn't have unlawfully bankrolled James' counterclaim in the first place. And neither did they pursue him to get it back. Didn't even ask him. Or for his tax-dodge cash.

Neither would they have allowed him to bung his friends at Scarlets Regional Ltd £200,000 to settle a third party debt.

I could go on.

Nor would they have erected a road sign costing £136,000 for that matter.

Adam Price wrote to Emlyn Dole last year asking him, on our behalf, to reconsider the council's £190k charge on our home. Dole, a devoted disciple of Mark James, flatly refused. "I do not intend to consult the Authority’s Corporate Services Director or the Section 151 Officer regarding your request, or ask the Executive Board to consider withdrawing the Charging Order on Mrs Thompson’s home" .

Emlyn Dole

His letter states that this debt was no different to any other which the council enforces each year.

Mr Dole is wrong.

The 2016 Executive Board meeting (which was, incidentally Chaired by Rev Emlyn Dole, and featured former suspect Meryl Gravell) heard that;

"Because of the high profile nature of this case, and the publicity that will inevitably follow if the Order/s is/are to be enforced, she [Linda Rees Jones] considers that it is a matter for the Executive Board to decide."

That makes it a political decision. Its a decision which must be revisited. This was far from a normal decision. Aside from anything else this was far from an objective report, it was persuasively loaded.

This pursuit of this money was politically charged and unreasonable, a vindictive step given our financial circumstances, which were fully known at the time. Mark James controlled every aspect of the Executive Board either directly or through his personal legal aide Linda Rees Jones, Cllr Gravell and Emlyn Dole. How ironic was it that it was James and Gravell whose homes were raided by the organised crime squad, and not mine.

Mark and Meryl

To add to the punishment it was decided to pursue me for the whole lot, not just the excess. Not that that made a blind bit of difference to me.

The mental strain of the presence of this charge, and the likelihood, confirmed by Emlyn Dole that the council could enforce it at any time is, to be honest, unbearable. We are already struggling to pay James every month to stop him actioning his suspended Order for Sale.

This cannot go on indefinitely. The judge in Carmarthen who imposed this huge Charging Order did so, and I quote, "reluctantly". His hands, he said, were tied by a higher court and his demeanour exposed his disgust over the council's actions. He warned them to go no further. This was the same judge who expressed similar disgust over Mark James' enforcement tactics.

Something has got to change. I will continue to contact anyone I can think of to bring pressure to bear over this total miscarriage of justice and hope, before much longer, someone has the bottle to take it on.

If not, somehow I'll take matters into my own hands...

*****************************************

Email from Police Commissioner

Previous posts; CPS decision - open email to Police Commissioner

and Mark James - off the hook again?

In what was possibly the least surprising email of the week, I had a reply from Dafydd Llywelyn, the Plaid Cymru Police Commissioner for Dyfed Powys to this message I sent at the beginning of April;

Dear Mr Llywelyn

I am sure you are aware of the recent decision by the CPS not to charge several suspects following the Wellness village bribery investigation by Tarian, the regional organised crime unit.

You may also be aware that the police revised their own statement shortly afterwards which said that there had been evidence of potential criminal acts.

I am sure that it is in your remit, as the current PCC, to ask the CPS to review their decision and indeed charge the suspects, one of which is the former chief executive of Carmarthenshire Council, Mark James.

Whatever the reasoning behind the CPS decision it cannot be right that the individuals involved had accepted, and stood to personally gain bribes of millions of pounds in public cash and equity from the developers of the project. This was fraud, and had been years in the planning.

The tender for the project, the central issue in the investigation, was, to put it bluntly, rigged by Mark James. Not only did he stand to gain a substantial amount himself, he jeopardised the integrity of the council and the entire City Deal.

The fact that this is a Plaid run council and you are a Plaid Cymru PCC should, I trust, not be an issue.
I look forward to you early reply to this email, and details of how this matter can be taken forward with urgency by either yourself or your successor.

Your sincerely

Jacqui Thompson

This was the reply;

SWYDDOGOL OFFICIAL

Dear Ms Thompson,

Further to your query below and having made enquiries with the Force, I would advise that this was not a Dyfed Powys matter and that it was managed by the Regional Organised Crime Unit which was then reviewed and decided by the CPS.

As previously advised, the CPS have their own appeal route which can be found on the following link Reconsidering a Prosecution Decision | The Crown Prosecution Service (cps.gov.uk)

I apologise that the Commissioner can’t assist you further on this matter however it is important that all correspondence is dealt with in accordance with the relevant procedures, policies and legislation. The reason that we comply with the correct procedures, policies and legislation is to ensure that all individuals are treated in a fair and consistent manner and subsequently have any relevant right of appeal available to them.

Yours Sincerely,

Business Support Officer
Office of the Police and crime Commissioner

So that was that. I wasn't exactly surprised. It's clearly beyond his remit, with the added complication that it was Regional Organised Crime Unit that made the case to the CPS.

I was already aware of the CPS appeal route but given the fact that the 'victim' in this case was the local authority, the taxpayers of Carmarthenshire and the City Deal region, a comment from the Commissioner would have been appropriate and welcome. It appears that Police Commissioners also lack personal initiative.

PCC Dafydd Llewelyn

I have no issue with the police themselves over all this, given their revised statement in March, and as far as I am aware, they were clearly as frustrated with the CPS as I am. Nearly two years of a complex bribery and corruption investigation, which included search warrants, the seizure of evidence, interviews, and even the arrest of Mark James, pretty much came to nothing. Not because of insufficient evidence, but because one of the key witnesses was to frail to stand trial.

Appealing against a decision such as this would have to be made by a more senior and influential figure than a blogger from Llanwrda, also someone with an extensive legal background in criminal matters.

Any takers?

There is no news yet on whether the sacked Swansea University academics, including Marc Clement, will continue with their Employment Tribunals. As Swansea Uni warned in March "Whilst the CPS may have decided it is not in the public interest to prosecute this case, the evidence compiled by the university will obviously come out during the employment tribunal, which will take place in the public domain, should the individuals still wish to proceed."

It seems, so far, that the former suspects would rather avoid that scenario, and carry on forming their tangled webs. The evidence which would come out would also involve and implicate Mark James, currently lording it over Century Wharf.

As for the council, there has been no comment. Surprising really given that their former chief executive is a shyster and a conman. Still, as one door closes, another will eventually open...I'll make sure it does.

*************************************

And finally...

On a completely different note the Ombudsman's Code of Conduct casebook has recently been published. One anonymised summary concerns a Carmarthenshire Councillor and relates to the appointment process for the new chief executive, Wendy Walters in 2019. The report was actually issued in March 2020.

It seems that the councillor inadvertently told the unsuccessful candidate that they had been unsuccessful, and he or she also made the appointment public without waiting for the required 30 minutes.

The Ombudsman dismissed the first incident as a genuine error, frowned on the second incident, but decided, quite rightly, that no further action was necessary.

Well, there we are.

I could have told them exactly who was going to be the new chief executive about 5 seconds after Mark James announced his hurried 'retirement'. I'd have also told any other budding candidates not to bother applying. It was, all of course, a done deal.

News is beginning to filter out of County Hall that a less than complimentary Audit Wales report about the Council's Planning department is imminent. Details are sketchy as the report is still, it seems, in draft form.

This 'review', across 2019/20, was to determine, in the usual wordy fashion, if the planning service "is meeting its own objectives, and supporting the Council in the delivery of its overall objectives"

It appears that it's not.

The report found that the Planning service is in serious difficulties, it is 'lacking in leadership', which has led to a 'number of failings within the Division that is supported by data indicating continuing poor performance' and it also appears, coincidentally, that the Head of Planning has recently left the Authority, 'for personal reasons'.

More details will emerge from this currently elusive report, no doubt, in due course.

On the agenda for Friday's Audit Committee is a worrying internal audit report relating to the council's tree services. Not something you may consider of great importance at the moment but provides a troubling snapshot of serious failings which will undoubtedly be reflected across other services.

The report, which audited the 2018 -2020 Arboriculture Framework found that invoices were being paid before the orders for the work had even been raised; some orders were verbal so there was no paper trail; there was little or no monitoring or checks that the works had been carried out, either effectively or at all, and invoices were not checked, just signed off as a 'matter of course'.

A sample of fifteen invoices tested found that fourteen of them exceeded the given estimate for the price quoted and included added items such as plant and machinery which, via the framework contract, should have already been included in the cost.

Another example was an overpayment to a contractor of £11,850 which was only recovered when the Internal Audit asked whether it had ever turned up.

As for the Framework itself, contract monitoring was 'undefined and not formalised'. ie a shambles. Initial advice from Health and Safety not to put contractors who 100% sub-contracted the (often dangerous) work out, onto the framework, were ignored. The Council's Evaluation Panel awarded the supplier who would be 100% sub-contracting with a place on the framework as the highest ranked supplier.

All in all, a sh*tshow from beginning to end.

The latest set of the council's 2020 - 2021 draft Statement of Accounts also makes an appearance at the Audit Committee on Friday.

The accounts show that the number of employees whose remuneration was £60,000 or more has leaped from 120 in 2019/20 to 177 this year. This figure has always included several headteachers etc but despite that, the jump appears remarkable.

The £95,000 - £99,999 bracket has gone from three to twelve in one year.

Not included in the figures above are the Directors' pay. A big fuss and PR puffery was made when the chief executive's salary was reduced after the departure of the overpaid Mark James in 2019, from around £200k to £145k. Still, Wendy Walters hasn't done so badly, with Returning Officer fees and pension contributions added on, we're talking £180k this year. Director of Communities comes in at second place (with pension contributions) at around £170k this year.

No blog post is complete these days without the obligatory reminder about certain unfinished business.

Former chief executive Mark James left the council two years ago, pocketing his illegal payments and leaving his seventeen year path of corruption without a backwards glance. The most recent addition to his rap sheet was accepting millions of pounds in bribes from a developer whilst in post. With head of legal Linda Rees Jones and Plaid leader Emlyn Dole turning their usual blind eye.

Unsurprisingly Mark James has maintained a low profile since then, preferring to transfer his experience in bullying, criminality and sharp practice to 'consultancy', and the management of Century Wharf in Cardiff. One does keep an eye on things and my post from last November, 'Tangled Webs' continues to be updated as the former bribery suspects, including Marc Clement continue to treat Companies House like chess board.

I recently asked Plaid councillor Cefin Campbell, in his position as a newly elected Senedd Regional member to push for a review of my whole case. He confirmed in correspondence that he, "along with other Plaid Councillors have made the case time and again that we felt that the counter-claim action against you by the former Chief Executive simply should not have been funded by the Council."

Damn right it shouldn't have been, but despite Plaid having been in 'power' since 2015, they've done sod all about it.

As for everything else, he couldn't possibly do anything, not in his remit to question decisions, nor in the remit of the Welsh Government. Nothing seems to be in anyone's remit.

The position remains that this dishonest and crooked individual, Mark James, has a £46k charge on my home and I'm only stopping him from actioning his order for sale by scratching together his monthly payments. I guess this is now in my remit to sort out, one way or another...and that's not a threat, it's a promise.

As anticipated on my previous post, the Audit Wales report into the council's planning services has now been published, there is a link to it at the end of this post.

It is a damning report and it is clear that the planning department is in total meltdown; "Significant and long-standing performance issues in the planning service need to be urgently addressed"

As usual, these reports are, well, politely written, but it doesn't take much to read between the lines.

The external consultants report, as also mentioned in the previous post, was commissioned by the council themselves and completed in December 2019.

It has never been mentioned in any committee, let alone ever made publicly available, despite making no less than FIFTY recommendations for improvement - this current Audit Wales report notes that the council, apart from dithering about with a customary 'Action Plan', has failed to improve on any of them.

What a waste of money that was.

What is also clear is that the blame lies with the corporate management and executive councillors.

Whilst we understand, although it hasn't been confirmed, that the head of planning has left 'for personal reasons', the chief executives (present and former) and the Director of Environment, Ruth Mullen are ultimately responsible.

Plaid Council leader Emlyn Dole, and his Executive Board, have failed miserably to keep an eye on the planning service and ignored the systematic failings. They've continually let senior management off the hook, causing catastrophic damage to the department and public confidence. What a shambles.

For years the council has been seeking empty headlines with their various and vacuous 'ambitious regeneration programmes' whilst not even having a properly functioning planning department to actually deliver it.

This systematic failure was all under Mark James' watch. Sadly and as we all know, he was more concerned with his own wallet, his ego, and, it turns out, accepting bribes, than a functioning, decent council.

It's also clear from the report that the massive backlog (847 planning applications and 761 enforcement cases as of March 2021) is impacting on the regeneration visions, and vice versa, the time spent on 'strategic visions' is making the backlog pile up to an unmanageable scale.

The report notes that the council has no plan to deal with the backlog, some of which go back over five years.

The council is also misrepresenting it's data for the time taken to determine applications, Audit Wales points out that "performance may potentially be worse than currently recorded and reported".

It also notes the significant overspend every year, in 2019/20 it was £512,000.

The planning department is also unable to manage the growing backlog and increasing number of enforcement cases. This is leading to more retrospective planning applications, a failure to follow planning policy and a loss of confidence from the public in the service altogether. Nothing new there mind you.

Remarkably, "Delivering effective planning enforcement" was quietly removed from the Council's Risk Register in September 2020.

I suppose if you delete the problem it no longer exists...

The report notes a total lack of transparency on any attempts by the council to act on recommendations or improve the service, possibly because it hasn't. It certainly hasn't been transparent over the external consultants report, nor this one.

It is also noted that the planning division has not been transparent, nor shared information, about complaints. Significantly it has also failed to respond to complaints; the public have had to resort to contacting their local councillors.

And who knew they were passing on swathes of planning applications to a private sector company to deal with? No one.

All this indicates a failure of a critical system, a system which is fundamental to economic recovery, addressing climate change, and of course to the public. It also leaves a system open to abuse. Failure to 'perform' is a failure to function.

Let's hope that this report doesn't find itself in the County Hall long grass, out to pasture for a couple of years in a dreaded 'Task and finish group'. It must be debated at full council without delay.

As the title of this blog suggests,(it expanded its interests a long time ago but the title stuck) there have been historic problems with Carmarthenshire's Planning Department for many years, and not necessarily related to 'performance' per se....there have been countless questionable decisions, some very curious behaviour from the planning committee and senseless council planning decisions pushed through regardless of public opinion or the environment, let alone actual policy.

As with the rest of the Mark James hangers-on still in the top brass, Rees-Jones, Wendy Walters, Chris Moore etc, it's about time there was a clean sweep of the upper echelons in this department too.

Sack 'em all.

It might just get somewhere then.

Audit Wales report here.

Following the damning Audit Wales report on Carmarthenshire's Planning Services, the Ombudsman has also found the council lacking.

A brief report, from June 2021, shows that the council's approach to planning, enforcement and complaints is still dire.

The Ombudsman upheld a complaint, by 'Mr A', concerning planning enforcement on a neighbouring property. The council investigation had been 'inappropriate' and biased, and the council's initial investigation contained 'omissions and discrepancies'.

The council now have to pay Mr A £250, and appoint an independent consultant to investigate all aspects of Mr A's complaint and review the council's handling of the matters complained about.

Oh dear.

Which reminds me of an enforcement complaint I made early last year on behalf of several residents. They were concerned that Plaid council leader Emlyn Dole and family had ignored several planning conditions on the notorious 'two barns' development leading to issues with highway safety.

I've still heard nothing. It's either been ignored, like the planning conditions, or is the 761st in the backlog list, and will likely stay there.

In other news, the council's 'wholly owned' housing company, Cartrefi Croeso, set up in 2018 is now being mothballed and made 'dormant'. Apparently there is now no need for it as council borrowing rules have changed. I doubt that that is the full story and I suspect smoke and mirrors are in full use.

You'll recall that Delta Wellbeing Ltd the council owned call centre was nearly struck off Companies House earlier this year. The council waste company, Cwm Environmental is currently in dispute with the unions as, seemingly, it prefers to retain poorer pay and conditions for its staff than those employed by the council, despite the fact that the council owns it.

Anyway, I noticed that one of Cartrefi Croeso projects, which has planning consent for 16 mixed tenure homes 'does not make the best use of the site' and 'a value engineering and design review' is required. A review of the planning consent is now required...which the Council granted for themselves in the first place...

It's clearly a shambles.

Incidentally another reason given for mothballing the company right now is that the Managing Director of the company, Robin Staines, who was also the Council's Head of Housing, has recently resigned from the council.

Fortunately he has just set up his own consultancy company, should they happen to need any advice.....for a small fee.

Mark James' consultancy company Ffynnon Consultancy is still turning a modest profit, one wonders who is consulting him, and why. Maybe it's for expert advice on tax avoidance, or scamming the taxpayer, or setting up offshore trusts to squirrel away a few bribes...who knows.

Incidentally, Caebrwyn has been making FOI requests for documents and files relating to the criminal investigation into the Wellness bribery scandal involving the aforementioned Mr James, and others. Requests have gone to the CPS, four police forces and the council. So far only the CPS have responded, and that was a refusal. We'll wait and see what the others come up with.

As I've said before, I'll make sure Mr James is held to account, one way or another. That's a promise.

Finally Burry Port's asbestos-strewn beach is back in the news. Earlier this year photos appeared of children's sandcastles decorated with bits of asbestos. The toxic substance comes from the old Carmarthen power station. Unfortunately, when it was demolished twenty years ago the debris was just buried where it lay and coastal erosion has unearthed the crumbling, flaking asbestos.

What is remarkable is the council's response. A warning sign was eventually put up but the beach was not closed. The council have continued to play down the problem as 'low-risk', as if asbestos isn't really that bad. They have reluctantly agreed to remove any visible bits, perhaps it's those bits decorating the sandcastles.

A local campaign group resorted to paying for its own tests, which all came back positive, and alarming. They are pushing for a proper clean up before the asbestos spreads even further afield.

The reason why the council are playing down the problem is their desire to flog parts of nearby land to developers, including 360 homes on the nearby Grillo site, another highly toxic legacy of the industrial past.

Interestingly, one wonders why the council is so determined to build so many new homes as figures published today reveal that Carmarthenshire is top of the list for empty homes, with nearly 3000 in the county. So much for the council's Empty Homes Policy, which, we are told, has been a roaring success!

Just a brief heads up about next week's (15th September) full council meeting. The damning Audit Wales report into Carmarthenshire's Planning Services hasn't gone away, or found the long grass just yet.

The Labour opposition group have tabled the following motion;

We propose that Carmarthenshire Council agrees:

In order to prevent the serious backlog of both planning applications and planning enforcements accruing in the future and to make the Planning Service fit for purpose and to prevent the acknowledged risk to our Regeneration plans that we:

1. Strengthen our Scrutiny and Risk Management Processes, Procedures and Reporting by fully implementing the recommendations from the reports from the Welsh Audit Office “Review of Risk Management Arrangements – Carmarthenshire County Council – July 2019” and “Review of Planning Services – Carmarthenshire County Council – July 2021”.

2. That the Internal report into the Planning Department, ‘Strategic Review of the Planning Service’ be made available for scrutiny by all Councillors and prior to the Audit Committee meeting of the 24th of September.

3. That a Plan to resolve the current backlog of the many hundreds of applications and even more hundreds of enforcements as well as making the Planning Department Service fit for purpose to allow us to meet our Regeneration targets in a timely manner, is presented to this Chamber at our next County Council meeting by the Interim Head of Planning.

4. That the practice of using private companies to clear the backlog of planning applications ceases and is brought in house.

5. That an adequate budget is set to provide for any change required to provide for an effective and sustainable service provision of the Planning Department.

6. Calls on the Chair of the Planning Committee to publish a monthly report indicating the current state of awaiting applications and enforcements.

All seems very reasonable but no doubt the Plaid majority ruling group will present some sort of nit-picking amendment, we'll wait and see. Let's hope the Labour group doesn't allow Plaid to get away with the usual whitewash response.

Just to hedge their bets, Plaid have planted their own question later in the agenda with Plaid stalwart Cllr Dai Thomas asking his mate Emlyn Dole to outline how wonderful everything now is in the Planning division.

You note that the Motion also calls for the earlier council commissioned report to be shared with all councillors before it appears on the Audit Committee agenda later this month. This report made no less than fifty recommendations, and has been kept in a locked drawer ever since.

Historically, Carmarthenshire's planning department, and the planning committee has had notoriety for much more than systematic failure....

As for point 4, a response to my Freedom of Information request (below) is now overdue;

"Audit Wales published it's Review of the council's Planning Services yesterday. The report refers to a private sector company which has been handling planning applications, apparently to reduce the backlog.

Could you please tell me the name of the private sector company, and the cost of this so far.

Could you also provide the name of the external company/consultants which carried out the council commissioned review of Planning Services completed in December 2019, and the cost."

I'll let you know if I get a response.

This long-term failure in the planning service is the fault of the corporate management, primarily under the rule of Mark James. However, politically, it was all under the watch of Emlyn Dole and his Plaid and Independent buddies, and they will go out of their way to avoid all accountability.

Sadly this is common practice, in many areas, in both corporate and political circles. As I know full well.

Incidentally my FOI request to the council for correspondence and documents held by the council relating to the Llanelli Wellness Village bribery investigation is now two weeks late.

More on all that, and the former CEO, the bribe-taking liar, thief, and all-round crook Mark James CBE, and friends, in due course.

The council-owned waste company Cwm Environmental Ltd (mentioned above) also pops up on next week's agenda and it seems they are nowhere near settling the insurance claim for the massive fire six months ago. You may recall that the large shed and it's contents of blue recycling bags was razed to the ground.

In fact, searching questions are currently being asked by the insurers, so Cwm are not even in a position to make the claim yet.

The council are now providing Cwm, their own company, with the convenience of a million pound, 12 month short-term loan to tide them over until the insurance cash comes in, unless of course they are found to have been negligent...

The council must be awash with cash.

Finally, I have noticed that the 'Executive Board' is no more...well actually it's still there, it's just been renamed as the 'Cabinet', sounds more stately perhaps, pity they're such a dim-witted, twisted bunch.

There is growing anger amongst the council taxpayers' of Croydon that their hard-earned cash has been spent unlawfully. After obstruction and delay and the involvement of the ICO, Inside Croydon, a news site based in the borough, obtained information that around £25,000 had been spent on top lawyers to issue libel threats against them.

The threats came after two articles on Inside Croydon got up the nose of the then chief executive and council leader. The Monitoring Officer appears to have given the rubber stamp to the illegal expenditure, but it all came to nothing as Inside Croydon, quite rightly, stood their ground, and demanded to know who was funding the threats. Finally, they have their answer.

"Which appears to mean that Negrini [the then CEO] was acting in contravention of that Local Authorities (Indemnities for Members and Officers) Order from 2004 which states, “No indemnity may be provided under this Order in relation to the making by the member or officer indemnified of any claim in relation to an alleged defamation of that member or officer…”.

Whoops.

Some might regard such actions by someone in public office as being an abuse of their position."

Furthermore, the Derbyshire County Council v Times Newspapers Ltd [1993] ruling, held that local authorities may not sue given that they are government bodies and should therefore be open to “uninhibited public criticism”, the House of Lords determined that allowing a council to sue, or to use an officer as proxy, would be incompatible with the Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

All of which should sound very familiar to those who have followed this blog.

Individual council officers, or Members can of course sue as individuals, like anyone else, with their own money.

You will recall that the former chief executive, Mark James illegally used public money, or the 'slush fund' to fund a tactical counterclaim for libel against myself. The Wales Audit Office subsequently confirmed, in their Public Interest Report that this was unlawful.

He was never brought to book over the illegal legal expenditure, and neither was the crooked Monitoring Officer Linda Rees Jones who aided and abetted him. I hope Inside Croydon have more success.

Mark James was determined to shut this blog down, and despite the outcome of the libel case, he failed. More to the point, the words he sued over, 'slush fund' and 'Pinocchio' were spot-on accurate; it was a slush fund and he was, and is, a liar. Worse still was his seventeen year reign of bullying, greed and, let's face it, downright corruption, culminating in the acceptance of bribes shortly before his hurried departure.

I remain resolute that he will not get away with it.

I also remain resolute that I will get rid of his suspended order for sale from the £46,000 charge on my home, and that the monthly payments I struggle to make to this nasty piece of work will stop - I will use any damn means possible....

It simply cannot go on.

The article from @InsideCroydon, can be read here, an interesting read.

As from 1st December all Planning Authorities must adhere to new flood maps and the revised advice in TAN 15. The revised maps and guidance have now, finally, incorporated the effect of climate change on future flooding events and coastal erosion across Wales, and not simply the current risk.

New developments of homes, the emergency services, schools and hospitals, must not be located in areas of high flood risk without strong flood defences.

One big chunk of Llanelli now comes under these new rules. See the crosshatch in the picture below. And one would assume that The Mark James Luxury Spa, the Wellness Village (now called Pentre Awel, for shame's sake) will, as objectors predicted, be under water in the next ten to fifteen years.

Pentre Awel will surround Delta Lake (the elongated lake in the picture) and further plans for housing and the 'Wellness Hotel' encroach further into the prohibited area.

All that's between the sea and Delta Lake at the moment is a faulty sluice gate. Flood defences are insufficient. Putting a few feet of topsoil to raise the area isn't going to help, this is the Carmarthenshire Canute Approach to building on flood plains.

Click to enlarge

Of course the plans for the Wellness Village were driven through by Mark James, and concerns about flooding, which were repeatedly raised, were rubbished. Other concerns, that the development was currently under criminal investigation and riddled with corruption, were also ignored.

And we also know that Mr James had a rather different agenda to everyone else.

As an objector I was present at the Planning Committee meeting in January 2019 when the decision was made, and Sian Caiach, a County Councillor at the time voiced her objection. I wrote an account of the event here, plus some background... Our presence in County Hall coincided with the announcement of Mr James' hurried retirement, which also enabled Sian to publicly wish the "arrogant control freak" her warmest wishes.

By July Mr James was having his door kicked in by the organised crime squad.

The Wellness Village, or Pentre Awel, was approved under the old maps, but with the current lack of any serious private investment, a history of corruption, a planning department not fit for purpose, the council already in debt by nearly half a billion, and the prospect of major flooding, perhaps it's time to take another look at the sauna-on-the-swamp...

Revised maps and guidance

Back in July 2020 I wrote a post about an interesting connection between former Council CEO Mark James, his 'management' of Century Wharf, Cardiff and his old friend from Llangennech, Nigel Lovering. More specifically the fact that invoices from Lovering's telecoms company, ETS Ltd happened to appear in Century Wharf's accounts.

The post is worth a read for the extensive background between the two men. Alarm bells first rang over ten years ago when James quietly arranged for the council to buy land at the old MOD site in Llangennech and immediately sold it to Lovering and business partner David Pickering, avoiding the impending auction where the land had been valued at a much higher price.

Councillors were told that the council were at no risk over the deal as the (then unnamed) individuals were "known to officers". You bet they were.

If that wasn't dodgy enough, a £281k council grant was arranged by James to further develop the site.

Moving forward a few years and the path became paved with City Deal gold. James, and Wendy Walters had several cosy meetings in the Llangennech HQ immediately prior to welcoming another of Lovering's companies, Hydro Industries, to Marc Clement and the 'opportunities' of the Swansea Bay City Deal.

By then or course we now know that James and Clement were knee deep in their fraudulent deals with Dickmann and co and the Wellness Village scandal.

Both Lovering, and James, are directors of several companies, they've chopped and changed over the years, rather like Marc Clement. My post 'Tangled webs' from November 2020 attempts to explain the movements of the disgraced key players from the City Deal scandal.

It can be a very small world....

James, in something of a complete take-over of Century Wharf is not only Chair of the Right To Manage company (RTM) but also a director of CW Estates Ltd set up to manage the site. Mr James has never been concerned about conflicts of interest, nor declaring them when employed by the council.

One of Lovering's companies, Lancehawk Ltd (which sounds like it makes missiles or something but is listed on companies house as yet another telecom firm) has sprouted another company, Lancehawk EOT Trustee Ltd and the two directors are none other than Mark James and his old friend Mr Lovering.

Now Caebrwyn's understanding of such business arrangements are sketchy to say the least but google tells me that an EOT is an Employee Ownership Trust and is non-trading. This is an arrangement whereby shares from a company, in this case Lancehawk Ltd, can be sold to the EOT, and then held by them, and payments for Capital Gains Tax can be, legally, avoided.

Obviously great care needs to be taken when forming such companies.

The key word being 'trust'.

As the EOT then wields considerable control over the parent company it is essential that the trustees are, well, trustworthy. I have no opinion on the trustworthiness of Mr Lovering and no reason to doubt his integrity.

I do, however, have reason to doubt Mr James' trustworthiness and honesty in anything, let alone as an actual trustee.

The first thing that springs to mind was the second of the two Wales Audit Office public interest reports from 2014 (the first being the illegal pocketing of legal fees by Mr James) which found that cash payments trousered by James in lieu of employer pension contributions were unlawful and deliberately designed to avoid paying tax.

So James has form in tax avoidance.

As this blog has detailed over the years, James also has form for dishonesty, lying to his employers, theft of public cash, tampering with official documents, failing to declare conflicting interests, helping out his friends with public cash and destroying anyone who opposed his various cosy deals.

His crowning glory was being made the Rotten Boroughs Shit of the Year 2016 by Private Eye.

It all began to fall apart when he tried the same nonsense with the bigger fish in the City Deal.

As I have said in previous posts, before his hurried 'retirement' in 2019 he had rigged the council tender for the Wellness Village, accepting the promise of bribes worth several million quid. His home was raided and he was later arrested. Despite the police filing sufficient evidence, the CPS discontinued the case as one of the key figures was deemed too unwell to testify.

So, business associates, and Century Wharf folk be warned, Mark James is a crook, and cannot be trusted with a piggy bank.

Back in July I made several separate FOI requests for documents relating to the Wellness Village bribery investigation. Due to the scandal the project was later renamed Pentre Awel.

This criminal investigation was undertaken by Tarian, the regional organised crime squad and was given the name Operation Koel.

The CPS decided not to pursue this highly complex case as one of the key witnesses was deemed unfit to be questioned further, or to testify. The police issued a revised statement to make it crystal clear that there was, indeed, sufficient evidence.

“There was evidence of potential criminal offending identified and secured against individuals and companies subject to this enquiry and this was submitted as part of the file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service, who made their decision that it was not in the public interest to proceed with any prosecutions.”

The whole squalid episode has been covered on this blog many times but, for new readers, here’s the gist: Mark James, when CEO of Carmarthenshire Council, rigged a council tender to ensure that Kent based company Sterling Health won the job to develop the Wellness Village, Llanelli, which was also to be funded by the Swansea Bay City Deal.

Both he, and others, including former Swansea University academic Marc Clement had accepted the promise of bribes worth millions from the director of Sterling, Franz Dickmann. The plan was to squirrel away the cash into offshore trusts.

Clement, and others, were sacked by the Uni for gross misconduct but James managed to ‘retire’ without the council daring, as per usual, to raise an eyebrow. In effect, of course, he was the council.

Marc Clement and Mark James

There is a significant amount of further background and detail on this blog, if you wish to search.

Anyway, back to my FOI requests which were made to the CPS, four police forces, Kent, Gwent, South Wales and Dyfed Powys, Swansea University and Carmarthenshire Council, for documents, correspondence, reports, evidence, CPS decision etc etc, and all were refused. Out of the police forces only South Wales held information, which was also refused.

To be honest there’s enough in the public domain, and information I have had from cast iron sources to know exactly what went on, as I described above and on this blog.

However, FOIs can be interesting, not just for any information released but equally for what is withheld.

The main thrust of the refusals were under Section 30 and Section 40, with the balance of whether to release information based on the usual public interest tests.

The CPS and the police were able to use Section 30 which basically means that they have a right to withhold operational details which could compromise their ability to investigate future crimes. It also covers information held which refers to whether a person should be charged with an offence or whether the person charged is guilty of the offence.

Section 40, data protection exemptions were also deployed

Swansea University were able to use similar exemptions as they had carried out internal investigations and, interestingly, confirmed that Employment Tribunals are still ongoing. We don’t know whether Mark James’ partner in crime Marc Clement is continuing with his, or whether it is one or more of the others who had previously threatened such action.

Whatever the case, as Swansea University said in their statement back in March “the evidence compiled by the university will obviously come out during the employment tribunal, which will take place in the public domain, should the individuals still wish to proceed.”

In other words, the evidence will be made public, one way or another.

Which bring us to Carmarthenshire Council, the last to respond, just before Christmas. The delay, I was told, was due in part to the volume of information. Once the relevant documents had been unearthed, the council had to then ask the police whether it could be disclosed, as it was the latter who had carried out the investigation. A rather useful get out clause.

There were I am told, a ‘variety’ of records including:

Emails between council officers

Emails between council officers and the police

Court and other legal documents provided to the council by the police

Email and other correspondence between council officers and third parties

Unlike the other public bodies the council couldn’t use Section 30 as it hadn’t investigated anything. The council relied on the general data protection exemption, and also "some of the personal data falling within the scope of your request relates to the alleged commission of offences by some of the data subjects and therefore constitutes criminal offence data by virtue of section 11(2) of the Data Protection Act 2018"...

Mr Edgecombe, the council solicitor told me in his response that if I appealed against this refusal to the Information Commissioner, he had other exemptions ready to deploy, but wouldn’t say what they were.

Anyone would think this was an elaborate game.

As for the public interest test, Edgecombe said

“I do not believe that the council has any legitimate interests which make it necessary for it to process the personal data of these data subjects in this way

"I do not believe that you have a legitimate interest in respect of which it is necessary for this disclosure to be made. In particular you were not a victim of any alleged criminal conduct which was being investigated as part of Operation Koel”.

It's worth remembering at this point that not only were the homes of the former CEO Mark James, and former Leader Meryl Gravell raided by the police but so was County Hall. Documents and electronic equipment were seized from all three. At one point Mark James was arrested for failing to cooperate with a police investigation.

I’d argue that the residents and taxpayers of Carmarthenshire, including me, were all victims. A CEO of a council is a position of trust, he really shouldn’t be rigging tenders or accepting bribes from a developer. Of course, even prior to all this, James career was built on corruption and a contempt for the law.

I will argue, when I appeal to the information Commissioner that the public, and indeed the councillors, have a very legitimate interest, a right in fact, to see this withheld information.

Further to that is the involvement or knowledge of this fraud from those close to, and in the pocket of Mark James; leader Emlyn Dole, Wendy Walters, head of legal Linda Rees Jones, finance chief Chris Moore, and others.

I also, undoubtedly, have a personal interest in this matter. I am paying James every month, as he has a suspended order for sale on my home from his illegal publicly funded counterclaim. He is as much a dishonest crook today, as when I said it back then. I will have justice.

All the FOI requests and responses can be read here, (the first seven in the list).

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2022

I'm posting this brief mission statement (below in bold), of a new pressure/campaign group, the Carmarthenshire Residents Alliance, to gauge the level of interest.

To those who have followed this blog the scenario of an officer-led council is all too familiar. Let alone the waste of precious resources on vanity projects, the numerous personal injustices, and of course, the gross mismanagement.

Profligate spending still continues unchallenged. For example, the amount paid to Arup Plc alone, consultants for Pentre Awel (the Wellness Village), would be enough to construct, staff, and maintain an average sized primary school, or a much needed care home or two. And let's not forget the £136,000 spent on a sign, mid-pandemic.

I could go on and on, but regular readers will be well aware of the mind-boggling waste.

Residents of this county were ruled, for seventeen years, by a tyrant, a bully and a criminal - former chief executive Mark James. He made a career out of destroying any remnants of democracy, wasting and pocketing public money, accepting bribes and helping out his friends.

Even though he retired in June 2019, the toxic legacy continues with his loyal followers of his Sicilian cartel still in post. These are both the elected; including the sycophantic idiot Emlyn Dole, and the unelected; which includes the current CEO, the S151 officer and the dishonest and unprincipled Monitoring Officer. They've even preserved James' very own illegal slush fund for their own use.

Anyway, above all else, it's time for a clean sweep of County Hall.

Please have a read of the mission statement below and use the comments section, or contact form, to let me know what you think.

Carmarthenshire Residents Alliance

It is the intention of this group to be independent of both politics, and political parties, its remit, and philosophy, to be free from political influences, to be for the benefit of the voters, and residents of the community, and their welfare.

The County of Carmarthenshire was formed in April of 1996, under the provisions of the Local Government Act of 1994, taking control of local government functions previously provided by Carmarthen District, Dinefwr Borough, Llanelli Borough Councils, and the Carmarthenshire area of what was Dyfed County Council.

The County of Carmarthenshire is one of the larger counties, with a low population density being largely rural to the north, and, west of the county, with the south east being previously intensely industrialised. This demographic split has led to control of the governance of Carmarthenshire being in the hands of elected Councillors from three groups, two of which have political leanings and one with no allegiance to any political party of a UK standing.

This has led, from the formation of Carmarthenshire, to a Council governance of no overall control, with a necessity of formation of an alliance of two groups to govern, the independent councillors being the controlling factor.

The consequences of this have been evident for as long as Carmarthenshire County Council has been in place, and remains so in spite of the departure of the Chief Executive Officer Mark James in control since 2002.

It has been self evident for many years, that the elected county councillors have never really been in control of the management of the affairs of the County, due to the differences of opinions of the Councillors, religious adherence to party political doctrines ruling, instead of practising common sense in their duties to the welfare of the residents.

Too many vanity projects have been allowed to proceed at the behest of Chief Executives, past and present, as a result of the incompetence and lack of knowledge of elected Councillors.

This has resulted in the gross misuse of scarce public funds leading to the County holding a huge financial deficit.

The solution to this persistent gross injustice, and mismanagement, lies in the hands of the electorate at the ballot box.

The Caebrywn blog, Carmarthenshire Planning Problems of January 1st 2022, 'Operation Koel' featured two comments postings on the 6th January echoing similar reflections on the suitability and inability of County Councillors to be able and willing to hold the Senior Officers to account.

The Carmarthenshire Residents Alliance

I have decided to stand for County Councillor in the forthcoming election to be held on the 5th May.

My nomination papers have been validated so my name - Jacqui Thompson - will be on the ballot paper as an independent candidate for the ward of Cilycwm, Carmarthenshire.

The Cilycwm ward covers several communities in north west Carmarthenshire; Llanwrda, Llansadwrn, Cilycwm, Ffarmers, and everywhere in between, and borders Llandovery, Lampeter and Llangadog.

The full list of candidates for the whole county will be published on the council's website on Wednesday 6th April after 4pm.

With local election fever beginning to break into a mild sweat WalesOnline has picked out the Carmarthenshire Councillors who are not seeking re-election; Amanda Fox, Bill Thomas, John Prosser, Shirley Matthews, Penny Edwards and Ken Lloyd (Labour); Irfon Jones, Jim Jones, Joseph Davies, Alan Speake and Ieuan Davies (Independent); and Dorian Williams, Cefin Campbell, Carl Harris and Eirwyn Williams (Plaid Cymru).

Only one sitting councillor in Carmarthenshire has been returned unopposed, Cabinet member Jane Tremlett (Laugharne) a remnant of Meryl Gravell's old gang. The total number of councillors will be seventy five, one extra this time round, now covering fifty one wards.

In Pembrokeshire however there are nineteen councillors being returned unopposed, but Gwynedd tops the charts with twenty eight. Across Wales seventy four councillors are unopposed which means around 107,000 voters won't have a say. (more analysis on WalesOnline).

It doesn't appear that efforts to boost numbers, such as a whopping pay increase this year of 17%, are being particularly effective.

The latest edition of Private Eye gives this generous rise a mention in its Rotten Boroughs column (a column which Carmarthenshire Council is very familiar with...)

WALES
Councillors across Wales can look forward to a pay rise of nearly 17 percent in May, while local government employees are receiving just 1.75 percent.

The good news is that for the first time, 16 and 17 year olds will be able to vote. Maybe this earlier democratic engagement will encourage more to stand in years to come.

Incidentally out of the 72 Town and Community Councils (with 134 community wards) 95 councils/wards were returned uncontested. Numbers look low, and on my own Community Council only three out of the required eight of us stood. Town and Community Councils, as long as they're quorate, can co-opt members after the election. If they can find willing volunteers.

Anyway, for those who haven't already done so, the last day to register to vote is Thursday 14th April.

For local voters (and anyone else) here's the latest message on my Facebook page;

Vote for Jacqui Thompson;

"As I said in my previous post, I intend to be a powerful voice, for you, in County Hall.

To have that voice, some wider knowledge and observation of council affairs is perhaps a good idea...

Did you know, for example, that the council are planning to blow £200m of public and private cash on a vanity project in Llanelli - an upmarket 'Wellness Village' - and whilst this was progressing, (and, incidentally, was under investigation by the organised crime squad), our corner of Carmarthenshire was stripped of it's local recycling centre...
So, what about fly-tipping?

A scathing report last year noted that fly-tipping incidents in Carmarthenshire have risen 400% from 2015 to 2020. In 2021 there were an astonishing 4500 incidents.

The report noted that the council currently has "no clear plan to fundamentally address the root causes of the county’s fly-tipping problem"

You may be forgiven for thinking that re-opening a recycling centre or two might help...!

More cash is being splashed on the Tywi Valley footpath between Carmarthen and Llandeilo.
The cost was supposed to be around £5m. It's gone so over-budget that the £16.7m it will now have from the 'levelling up' fund will only contribute *towards* the final sum.

More 'Levelling up' cash is being blown on the now defunct Debenhams store in Carmarthen, essentially to turn it into more council offices.

Where is the 'levelling up' and investment for Cilycwm, Llanwrda and all our village communities? It doesn't exist.

At a time when the cost of living is pretty much out of control, when families are really struggling and a record number (9,199) of Carmarthenshire's children are living below the breadline, Plaid's priority is to spend millions on consultants, PR companies and vanity projects.

Where is the investment in rural housing for the next generation of farmers, plumbers, carers, electricians etc?
If covid showed us nothing else it proved the value of family and community.

Plaid Cymru, meanwhile, chose to spend an eye-watering £136,000 on a sign saying 'Carmarthen'. What a mindless waste, and worst still, half of it blew away in the last storm.

Another damning report issued last year, (not mentioned in Plaid Cymru's glossy leaflets), concluded that the planning service was in meltdown, and had been for several years.

Plaid Council leader Emlyn Dole, and his Executive councillors, failed miserably to keep an eye on the service and ignored the systematic failings. They continually let senior management off the hook, causing catastrophic damage to the department and public confidence
The planning backlog of was so big that from 2020 to 2021 they quietly spent £114,000 to a private company to process planning applications...

I have campaigned for many years to raise interest in local government, improve the openness of the council and its decision making, regardless of who was in power, and kept an eye on the finances.
Incidentally, the council's debt is fast approaching half a billion quid, this costs the taxpayer around £18m a year in interest.

As I said, I will be an independent and strong voice for you, not tied to party politics. If I'm elected you'll hear me loud and clear, and I guarantee that whoever is running the council will hear me too."

Please #votejacqui on your postal ballot or in person on the 5th May

Facebook page; Vote for Jacqui Thompson

As the former Council leader Emlyn Dole has featured many time on this blog it would be remiss of me not to say a few words after he lost his seat last week. The vote was close but went to a fellow Plaid candidate rather than poor Mr Dole.

Congratulating the winner through gritted teeth, he was clearly humbled by the experience, and more so, the loss of fifty grand a year plus perks.

When Caebrwyn started following the goings on at Carmarthenshire Council Mr Dole was in opposition. He and his Plaid colleagues were very vocal, and at times quite rude, about the terrible way that the then Labour and their Independent colleagues were running the show. The things they said about the former chief executive would have made a judge blush...

Aside from their criticism over secrecy, bad governance etc etc and the way the administration (Meryl was in charge in those days) bowed to senior officers, Plaid's big moment in opposition was the unlawful payments scandal.

One by one they said how terrible it all was, they called for votes of no confidence and senior Plaid politicians even called plod to investigate the "dictator" chief executive. Shocking!! Using public money to bring libel cases against members of the public was not only unlawful, they agreed, but the sign of a morally bankrupt ruler, a slush fund.

Emlyn Dole, however, appeared to be a little wary of Mr James. He had obviously realised that if ever he managed to climb the greasy County Hall pole, his position in power would be entirely dependent on the whim of the chief executive. He didn't want to become the subject of one of James' infamous 'dossiers' looming on the shelf of the presidential suite...

A fine balance had to be struck. By 2015 Mark James, and Meryl, had grown weary of Labour leader Kevin Madge and felt like a change. As did a faction of the Labour group led by Jeff Edmunds who sent poor hapless Kevin packing. Meryl and Mark, however, were not so keen on Edmunds.

He'd rattled James a year or two before by spilling the beans over one of his dodgy Scarlet's deals.

And also, there was no better way to silence a critical opposition than to offer them the pretence of power

So, with James' approval (the Rev Emlyn was, like Mark James, a religious man, apparently), Meryl decided she wanted Emlyn.

Emlyn, meanwhile, had a little planning issue developing. The conversion of a four hundred year barn into a tanning salon and holiday let (the application was in his wife's name) had become less of a conversion and more of a full scale demolition.

To cut a long story short Mark James smoothed his path out of trouble, the planning committee duly obliged and nothing more was said.

Mark James, naturally, wanted something in return for all this. And for giving him the job of leader. The price Dole paid was to u-turn completely on his condemnation of the slush fund. Suddenly there was nothing wrong with it. Nor the chief executive, who, according to Emlyn had rays of sunshine shining from all sorts of places.

Emlyn went further. Even as recently as last year he, along with the head of legal Linda Rees Jones, was trying to get the slush fund clause back in the constitution, and to extend it to senior councillors like himself. The external auditors were having none of it. However, it still exists and now languishes as a power of the Cabinet. I dare them ever to use it again though. Well, Emlyn certainly won't be.

Also rumbling along shortly after Dole became leader was the now infamous Wellness Village and the City Deal. In 2016 Mark James, (along with Marc Clement) ensured that Emlyn's Cabinet gave an exclusivity deal to Kent based Messrs Dickmann and co to develop the project. The deal evaporated and the company dissolved. Only to reappear a year later under a different name.

We all thought it was a little strange back then how a company with no track record and in £137k debt was going to cope with a £200m project. And why Mr James was so determined they should have the contract. We now know why. Just a little matter of bribery.

Didn't Emlyn wonder what was going on? Who knows...

By late 2018 the whole sorry mess was exposed, via Swansea University, and the police had been called. Mark James had no choice other than to plan his escape, so announced his 'retirement'.

Emlyn still couldn't say a bad word about Mark. Plus, of course, he had become Mark's 'Meryl', the democratic rubber stamp for his dodgy deals and, well, criminal behaviour.

Emlyn was also, thanks to the regular appearances of Mark James, starting to get a mention in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs column, not a good sign.

In June 2019, with City Deal nearing collapse, thanks to Mark James, and the organised crime squad beating a path to County Hall and James' front door, Emlyn outshone himself, using James' retirement to wax lyrical of the great man. Even elements of the Plaid group were squirming in their seats, it was deeply uncomfortable even for them. James of course waxed equally lyrically about himself. Both of them took a swipe at bloggers.

A couple of weeks later County Hall and James' home were raided.

Then, in mid-pandemic, there was the sorry business over THAT sign. Emlyn decided that motorists required an expensive arty 'gateway' sign alerting them to the fact they were entering Carmarthen, it turned out to be a shoddy, ill-sited collection of tin plates costing an eye-watering £136,000.

The last time I saw it half had blown away in a storm, and the rest of it had white paint daubed all over it. Emlyn's folly it certainly was.

Let's not even mention that 'Tywi Valley' footpath which has gone around £12m over budget....or the millions Dole has ensured pours into the pockets of consultants planning the Wellness Thing, now called Pentre Awel.

Plaid, with 38 seats have a narrow majority of one. Labour have 23 seats and the independents 14.

Caebrwyn, by the way, came third, even behind the Tory, so I can't say much about election success...:-)

Plaid have picked Darren Price to replace Emlyn Dole. I understand that there are some sighs of relief amongst the Plaid ranks that Dole has been finally kicked into touch. I am of the view that he should have gone at the same time as Mark James.

As Plaid have a majority Price's appointment as leader of the council is likely to be ratified at the council's AGM later this month. He was re-elected as the member for Gorslas and works as a researcher at Welsh Parliament. He can, I have noticed, at least string a sentence together.

We'll see how it all pans out. Expect some spiky exchanges between Price and Labour leader Rob James.

Caebrwyn will be dropping Mr Price a line in due course, over several issues...

Meanwhile, it's farewell Emlyn...enjoy your hot tub, call it a perk of the job.

The moment that former CEO of Carmarthenshire Council Mark James CBE has been dreading for over two years finally arrived yesterday.

An email he had sent to Marc Clement, from his personal account, dated October 2018, surfaced in evidence at the Employment Tribunal brought by Marc Clement and Steven Poole against their dismissal from Swansea University for gross misconduct.

Regular readers will be aware that all this centres around the £200m City Deal Wellness Village development, the Kuwait escapade, and allegations of bribery.

In essence, Clement and James were offered bribes in the form of shares and jobs by Franz Dickmann of Sterling Health. Mark James then had to rig the tender for the Wellness Village to go make sure it went Dickmann's way.

Clement and James accepted.

Mark James, as CEO of the Council, made absolutely certain that Sterling Health got the tender.

Mark James

The whole deal with Sterling was fraudulent.

The problem, of course, was not only to make sure Dickmann lived up to his promise, but where to hide the million of pounds they would be pocketing from the bribe.

Mark James, in his email, planned to set up a secret trust (I understand it was to be offshore).

Here's the email, and it was this email which prompted the police investigation, and provides proof that James had accepted the bribe of shares and jobs and was setting up a secret trust to squirrel it away for himself.

"Appreciate you are in China, but I thought I would share a few thoughts on this. Under the discretionary trust there is no absolute guarantee that you or I would actually ever get the shares, as the trustees have complete discretion who they give them to. So I suspect it would not provide an assurance for the future. This might be resolved by a separate document from the trustees Franz and Phyllis [of Sterling Health] creating in essence a secret trust in favour of us. Or a self declared trust, eg that they hold in favour of us and all we have to do is take up the positions of chair/CEO within a set period.

"This is what one might term a second best legal option. Alternatively we can go back to the solicitor for further advice on how to ensure legally that the intended shares do come to us as soon as we crystalise a particular requirement, eg taking up posts. I would appreciate your views before we respond to Franz."

(Mark James to Mark Clement Oct 2018, my underline)

Absolutely shocking.

I have been deliberately brief with the background details in this post. It is all on this blog, and various news reports over the past few years by some excellent journalists.

The police made clear that they had evidence of criminal behaviour.

Mark James was always a suspect, his home (and County Hall) were raided, and, after failing to turn up for interview he was arrested and hauled in front of the tape recorder.

When Clement, Poole etc were suspended from the University, and James realised that this email was being held as evidence he had to arrange his 'retirement' from the council. He must have been sweating ever since, wondering when it would finally emerge.

It finally has.

Due to the failing health of Franz Dickmann, the CPS decided not to continue with the case. This does not seem to me, and perhaps the police, to be a particularly good reason.

This was a bribery investigation for a reason. And there was proof.

And what about the Welsh Government, could they have pushed to take it further? I'm sure they could.

So what happens now? There is now cast iron factual proof that Mark James is a crook. I always said he was, and this proves it.

I am paying him damages every month for suggesting he was dishonest and that he had a slush fund.

Not only does this prove dishonesty, and we know the slush fund was illegal, but is reveals the stark fact that he is a crook. Apart from the numerous scandals recounted on this blog, goodness knows what else he got up to during seventeen years at the Council. He is corrupt to the core.

I am certain that this is not the first time he accepted a bribe.

The least that must happen now, in light of these facts, is that I am relieved of paying Mark James his damages and costs. His legal charge and suspended order for sale should be revoked.

As a penniless resident I would welcome any help from a lawyer prepared to take up the challenge.

I hope his management colleagues at Century Wharf Cardiff are also aware of all this. I will let them know.

The best that can happen is that he is re-investigated and eventually put behind bars, where he belongs.

For the full account of yesterday's tribunal hearing read Wales Online; Sacked Swansea university academic received secret trust email from then Carmarthenshire council boss Mark James

At the end of June this year former County Councillor Sian Caiach emailed the new Plaid Cymru leader of Carmarthenshire County Council, Darren Price with a few questions relating to the Wellness scandal and particularly the email between Mark James and Marc Clement. The questions, you would think, were reasonable enough.

Did any council legal personnel offer advice on the project, including the 'discretionary trust' mentioned in the email; Can he confirm that, as the project is still ongoing, no one else is coining it in in a likely manner? (in so many words) and when exactly did the Plaid administration know the contents of this email and that their chief executive officer was lining his own pockets? (again, in so many words)

To date, Darren Price appears to be unable or unwilling, to answer these questions.

We will try again. Maybe it needs to be expressed in simpler terms.

So here's an open email which one hopes might get a response:

To: Cllr Darren Price - Leader

Dear Cllr Price

I write partly in reference to an email sent to you on 29th June 2022 from Dr Sian Caiach. After resending the email she eventually received an acknowledgement from your office, but no reply to her questions. We presume therefore that you actually read Dr Caiach's email.

I must also presume that you, even as a backbench Plaid Councillor at the time thought something was seriously amiss with the Llanelli Wellness Village. In fact, this whole sorry business happened under Plaid Cymru's watch.

In light of this could you clarify exactly when and how the Plaid Cymru administration realised that the chief executive officer at the time, Mark James, was corrupt and accepting bribes from the then developer of the project?

Did the Plaid leadership ever challenge Mark James when the suspensions at the University were announced, and the criminal activities involving himself were exposed?

Was the council's legal department giving him advice? If so, what was it?

What is your reaction to the judgement from the recent employment tribunal Marc Clement & Mr S Poole v Swansea University and the email correspondence arranging to set up a secret trust to funnel off funds for their own benefit, between Mark James and Marc Clement?

For ease of reference, I repeat that email here, and the relevant extracts from the judgment.

"This is what one might term a second best legal option. Alternatively we can go back to the solicitor for further advice on how to ensure legally that the intended shares do come to us as soon as we crystallise a particular requirement, eg taking up posts. I would appreciate your views before we respond to Franz."

(Mark James to Mark Clement Oct 2018)

Para 121

"One specific email which Ms Sen Gupta had originally intended to include amongst the documentation, and to raise with the First Claimant, was the email from Mr James to the First Claimant on 24 October 2018, referred to at paragraph 99 above. That was on the direction of the police, who were planning to arrest a number of individuals, including the First Claimant and Mr James, and to seize documents from them. The police were concerned that if the Claimants were made aware that the Respondent was in possession of the particular email, then Mr James could be "tipped off" that the police were planning on taking action against him"

Para 128

"She confirmed that her view was that the email strongly suggested that the First Claimant regarded Mr Dickmann's proposals about future roles and equity as genuine, as did Mr James, and they took them seriously. She contrasted that email to the email exchange between the First Claimant and Mr James on 10 July 2018 in which they appeared to be trying to distance themselves from any arrangement which would be regarded as improper for a Carmarthenshire or University employee to enter into, and which she noted she considered to be "self-serving".

Para 215

"There was also evidence in the form of Mr James' email to the First Claimant in October 2018, when Mr James indicated that he was concerned that the trust provisions did not sufficiently protect him."

We are all aware of the outcome of the police investigation which was that evidence of criminality was found, this email being the key evidence. The CPS decision not to continue was because the director of Sterling Health, Franz Dickmann was too ill to testify.

Therefore I would like your comments on the above and why, when it was blindingly obvious that something was seriously wrong from the very beginning, the Plaid Cymru leadership continued to rubber stamp every dodgy decision.

Was it because the former leader Emlyn Dole was too deep in the pocket of Mark James?

When exactly did Ms Wendy Walters, in her previous role as deputy chief officer and Director of Regeneration, become aware of any inappropriate arrangements?

How can County Councils such as Carmarthenshire be prevented from wasting UK City Deal public money, and indeed 'levelling-up' funds, on fraudulent schemes to line the pockets of senior council officers?

How safe is the re-incarnation of the Wellness Village, Pentre Awel as it is now known, from the same corruption if Plaid Cymru allowed it to happen before?

The people of Carmarthenshire, and indeed the taxpayers' of Wales deserve some openness and honesty from Plaid Cymru over this whole affair.

It is unbelievable that no internal inquiry was carried out by the administration given the actions of the former chief executive and the police investigation, all of which almost scuppered the whole Swansea Bay City Deal.

The two Swansea University employees were sacked for gross misconduct, for failing to declare interests.

Have the council pursued Mark James, before or since his 'retirement', about his failure to declare the same interests?

You know full well that the council were being told the truth about Mark James on this very blog, long before, during, and after this particular scandal. He was, and is, a crook.

You, as leader, owe me an apology.

Now is your chance to respond.

I would be grateful for an acknowledgment of this email, which I have also published as an open email on my blog.

I look forward to your full reply.

Yours sincerely

Jacqui Thompson

cc:

Wendy Walters - chief executive

Cllr Rob James - Labour group leader

Adam Price AS

David T C Davies MP

Andrew RT Davies AS

Mark Drakeford AS

Numerous previous posts include: Mark James - caught red-handed - the email and the secret trust, Operation Koel

Previous post: Open email to Cllr Darren Price - Plaid Cymru Leader of Carmarthenshire Council

I finally had a response from Carmarthenshire's Council leader Darren Price to my queries concerning Mark James and his 'secret trust' email (see link above).

It's not clear why he didn't reply to Sian Caiach's similar questions posed earlier this year. Anyway, here's his reply in full, with my comment below:

Dear Mrs Thompson

Thank you for your email relating to this matter, which follows on from an earlier email that I have received from Sian Caiach.

As a relatively newly elected Leader, I would firstly like to say categorically that I will not tolerate any criminality within the local authority on my watch, and that if any evidence of criminality is found against a current employee, then I would look to ensure that proper procedures are enacted.

In turning to the questions that you pose - we now have the benefit of hindsight. Had the Authority known about the email stating some sort of proposal for a secret trust at the time (ie. 24th October 2018) then I presume that it would undoubtedly have made enquiries. However, as you are aware, the email was sent from Mr. James’ private email account and neither the Executive Board nor the officers involved on the project knew of it until it was disclosed in the Judgment in the Marc Clement and Stephen Poole Employment Tribunal case in June 2022.

Clearly, Mr. James had retired from the Authority in June 2019, and as you state, no prosecutions were brought, so we will never know whether any actual convictions would have been secured.

However, what we do know is that the procurement process this Authority conducted in relation to the Wellness Village Project received a clean bill of health by lawyers commissioned by the Authority, by Wales Audit Office and by the police investigation. We also know that none of the Authority’s land, assets or funds were committed or released to the Developer Parties.

The Wellness Village project was abandoned of course and should not be confused with the project which we are now progressing, which is the Pentre Awel project. I am satisfied that robust governance arrangements are in place in respect of the Pentre Awel project via the Swansea Bay City Region.

It is important to note that the only project which the Authority’s legal personnel advised on was the Wellness Village, and that was in conjunction with external lawyers. I can again confirm that no advice was given by our legal personnel on any discretionary trust.

I would also reiterate that if you, or anyone else, feel that you have any evidence of potential criminality which has not yet been brought to the attention of the police, then I would urge you to present that at the earliest opportunity so that it can be examined.

As a newly elected Leader, it is clear to me that the development of the new Pentre Awel project is vital in terms of the regeneration of Llanelli and I am committed to doing all that I can, working in conjunction with the new Chief Executive in Carmarthenshire, the Welsh Government and UK Government, to deliver the new project as planned.

In concluding, I recognise the complicated history and difficult relationship that has developed between yourself and the Authority over the past decade. I would hope that you would recognise that as a new Leader my focus has got to be on looking to the future, and trying to develop the County. There is much to do, and I am keen to work with anybody who has the County's best interests at heart as we look to tackle some of the major challenges that face us.

Yours,
Darren.

I will, of course, respond to Mr Price in due course, for what it's worth.

The response was undoubtedly meant to draw a line under this whole affair, and let it never be spoken of again. Pentre Awel is, apparently, an entirely new thing, not to be confused with the Wellness Village. This is despite it being on the same site, costing the same amount of cash and being, well, the same thing.

I don't recall Darren Price, nor any other members of Plaid Cymru expressing concerns about governance whilst key figures were planning to line their own pockets, most notably for them, the former chief executive, despite clear indications and warnings that things weren't right.

If he is now happy with the governance, then so be it. I trust no one would want this to happen again, but instead of public money being stolen, let's hope it's not simply wasted instead. I hope he's vigilant, because I will be watching.

We have no option other than to accept his word that the Authority was unaware of the email in question.

Had it been aware, one hopes they would have done a little more than 'make enquiries'. It was this email which prompted Swansea University to call the fraud squad, never mind make bloody enquiries. Mark James was caught red-handed.

I can only assume that Mr Price and the officers concerned were appalled by its contents and realised once and for all what a manipulative and persistent offender Mark James was, and is. I think many of them, including Mr Price, already knew that.

What role Wendy Walters played in all this, as Head of Regeneration (and now chief executive) is fuzzy to say the least. Let alone Head of Legal Linda Rees Jones, whose career was built on covering up for Mr James.

What is unacceptable is that all the warning signs were there, detailed on this blog and elsewhere. It appears to me that no one had the backbone to challenge Mark James, about anything it seems. He was allowed to sail off into the sunset with his pockets stuffed with taxpayers' cash.

He mentions that the procurement process was given a 'clean bill of health'. Based almost entirely on the report by Acuity Law. The law firm which also happened to be Mark James' personal lawyers. It was far from independent and was designed to save his skin.

The Acuity Law report, which I wrote about in February 2019, provided a catalogue of 'unusual' events which, apparently were absolutely fine. I doubt Mr Price will link back and refresh his memory but to give an example, by November 2017 the 'council' were advising Sterling Health what to put in their submissions...

The tender was rigged by James, and it was only the actions of Swansea University which prevented further loss to the council. Several £mmm had already been shelled out in the three years leading up to the discovery of the corruption.

Perhaps Mr Price has forgotten that the police found plenty of evidence of criminality, it was the failing health of Franz Dickmann of Sterling Health which persuaded the CPS to discontinue.

Mr Price mentions my 'complicated history and difficult relationship' with the authority. There's nothing complicated about it. I have consistently pointed out, amongst other things, that the former chief executive was arrogant, threatening and above all, dishonest and corrupt. And I was right.

He was the same in his previous post in Boston and, it now seems, carrying on in much the same way in his 'management' of Century Wharf, Cardiff. Once a crook always a crook.

I can understand that Mr Price wants to move on swiftly from this unpleasant episode, forget it ever happened and maybe put James, and his idiotic puppet Emlyn Dole into a distant if uncomfortable memory.

I don't have that luxury. I will continue to fight for justice, for an apology and for the financial burdens imposed on me by the Council, and Mark James, to be removed.

I finally had a decision from the Information Commissioner concerning my FOI request for Carmarthenshire council paperwork re Operation Koel - the police Organised Crime Unit investigation into the Wellness Village bribery scandal - and it's a refusal.

The ICO upheld the council's decision to refuse to disclose the information under Section 40, data protection.

The details and arguments can be read in the Decision Notice here, essentially the protection of the individuals concerned, (the suspects and others) outweighed the public interest in disclosure. In addition, the information was classed as Criminal Offence Data which is given added protection.

"Having considered the wording of the request, and viewed the withheld information, the Commissioner finds that the requested information includes criminal offence data. It is information provided for the purposes of a police investigation. The data also includes discussion about allegations concerning individuals in relation to this investigation." (ICO)

My public interest argument to the ICO was more or less this;

“The request asked for information relating to an investigation regarding a proposed development, the 'Wellness Village', led by the council. Public funds from the council, the Welsh Government and the Swansea Bay City Deal are being used for the development. Considerable expenditure has already been made, prior and during the police investigation. Governance, audit, oversight, and scrutiny were also led by a democratically elected body, Carmarthenshire Council, at the time.”

I updated the ICO in the summer with the evidence from the employment tribunal (Mark James being a very clearly named suspect) but as this was nine months after my original request it had no bearing on the request, or the ICO decision.

It was always going to be a long shot, and I suspect all documents, emails and correspondence held by the council are heading for the shredder as we speak.

However, following the evidence released at the Swansea University Employment Tribunal back in the summer, it doesn't really matter. The ICO were right, it is criminal offence data because the then chief executive of the council, Mark James, was caught red-handed accepting bribes from a developer and planning to squirrel them away into a secret trust.

Whatever information the council were holding in respect of the criminal investigation it was unlikely to give better direct, cast iron evidence that Mark James is a crook than the Employment Tribunal judgement.

You will recall that the only reason the CPS discontinued the case was because the developer was deemed to ill to testify. As the police confirmed, there was certainly sufficient evidence, the 'secret trust' email being key to it all...and key to Mark James doing a spell behind bars.

So, where to go from here. Clearly the current Plaid Cymru administration under Darren Price wish to forget it ever happened but as I've said before, I haven't got that luxury. Let alone forget that this conman ran the council for seventeen years. Those senior staff that protected and defended his criminal behaviour are still there.

Meanwhile Mark James continues to prosper and adds to his growing list of company directorships. He continues to expand his Century Wharf empire in Cardiff as a director of the management, and the right to manage companies, feeding his own companies and those of his friends with lucrative contracts and plenty of cash. He's got it all sewn up.

One of those companies Building and Estate Solutions Ltd, is providing claims advice, another company Ffynnon Consultancy Ltd is also providing services to CW Estates to the tune of around £45k last year. Goodness knows what services, Ffynnon Properties Ltd will be providing...the list goes on.

Mark James is a thief and a conman and the residents of CW should be asking some serious questions about where their service charges are ending up...mainly in his wallet. The 'secret trust' email alone proves he's capable of anything. The problem is that he runs the show with the same arrogance, dishonesty and secrecy as he did the council.

The police didn't raid his home without a very good reason. Neither, for that matter, did Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs make him Shit of the Year 2016 without him being a most truly deserving recipient.

Background and detail to my original FOI request, which was also sent to the police, the CPS and Swansea Uni is here - Operation Koel

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