A meeting of Pembrokeshire Council was be held yesterday so I thought I'd have a quick look at the agenda, given the current spotlight on the 'pension arrangements' and joined-up legal approach to defending it by the two neighbouring chief executives.
What amazed me (so much so that I had to write this blogpost about it) was the marked difference in the contents of the agenda to anything I have ever seen in Carmarthenshire. It has questions! Questions from councillors to the Leader, which, I presume he is supposed to answer! Questions which, even if he doesn't answer to anyone's satisfaction, bring up controversial subjects in the public arena! Fancy that!
Here's a small selection;
Could the Leader provide Members with a brief summary of the Audit Office concerns in relation to the accounts signed off by the Corporate Governance Committee on Monday, 30 September 2013?
Could the Leader confirm if Council has had any further contact with the Wales Audit Office or their legal representatives since Corporate Governance on 30 September 2013 and if so, could he provide Members with a summary of any discussions or correspondence?
Could the Leader let us know whose idea it was for the Council to introduce the “pension arrangements” scheme which enables the highest paid Officers to receive their pension contributions as a cash sum, thereby avoiding tax liabilities?
Could the Leader tell us why no independent advice or legal opinion was sought back in 2011, prior to the tax-avoiding “pension arrangements” scheme being brought in?
During the Corporate Governance Committee on 30 September 2013, in response to a question about the propriety of holding public Council meetings in the Chief Executive’s Office, the Leader stated that “a number of Senior Staff Committee meetings have been held there over the years.” Could he provide a list of all previous meetings that have been held at this venue
Could the Leader confirm to Council who has been engaged to act on the Council’s behalf in relation to the Wales Audit Office report (specifically their concern in relations to changes to pension arrangements)?
Could he confirm the current bill (either invoiced or the anticipated amount based on time committed) for both Officers of the Authority and external agencies. This should include all legal counsel?
The actual outcome of the meeting is covered here by Cllr Jacob Williams.
The question remains though as to why we never see such a raft of councillor questions in Carmarthenshire on a published agenda?
Both councils appear to have similar rules, in Pembrokeshire the question must be received by the Head of Legal, in Carmarthenshire it's the Chief Executive. I can't imagine there's any less interest in posing questions here than in Pembrokeshire next door. Is is a cultural difference? Do Carms councillors feel there's no point? Or are their questions rejected before they ever see the light of day? (answers on a postcard please)
As Cneifwr points out the democratic state of play in our own County Hall could become markedly worse (if that's possible) with the Chief Executive considering abandoning the current format and replacing it with a series of guest speaker seminars and powerpoint presentations. Apparently he is fed up with Chairing full council meetings where he has to deal with 'on camera' comments from discontented councillors and their attempts at bringing up embarrassing 'audit' issues and the like.
As Rhodri Glyn Thomas said recently he understands that, for starters, the Chief Executive has proposed changes which will prevent councillors from scrutinizing Executive Board decisions during meetings of full council.
As I have long predicted, the masterplan to do away with elected councillors altogether could be on the cards. To be honest, unless the Welsh Government step in with some urgency, Members will rapidly become superfluous to requirements anyway.
On the subject of questions, the First Minister Carwyn Jones was a guest on BBC Radio Wales Jason Mohammed show yesterday. He was taking calls from the public so I duly phoned up in the morning and lodged my question with the BBC. Much to my surprise I was phoned during the show to ask my question live on air. It was, as you may have guessed, to ask what the Welsh Government was doing to restore public faith and accountability in local authorities following the recent auditor's reports into Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Caerphilly.
I don't suppose you become First Minister of anything by actually answering questions or by providing a relevant comment but I was surprised by the complete non-response, I even thought he was answering a different question from another caller. But he wasn't.
Firstly he said something about it being 'only three' and there were lots of local authorities. After he'd dropped that bombshell I found it difficult to concentrate on the rest of his response.
He continued by mentioning that there was a forthcoming commission looking at reducing the number of Welsh Councils. Well that's all very well but it had nothing to do with what I'd said.
However, my attempt to come back at Mr Jones was cut short as they had lots of people waiting to ask things. Like myself, they were clearly wasting their time.
Lastly, the minutes from a recent meeting (Oct 7th) of the Policy and Resources Scrutiny have just been published. It provided members with an update on the webcast viewing figures to date (to that date, so doesn't include the October's meeting). 5,500 had watched either live or on archive the first four meetings, which is 5,500 more than would have seen them.
Don't forget the pilot kicked off with the ridiculous ritual of the Council AGM which must have put many would-be viewers off for life. However, officers seemed pleased to note that figures were declining and only 66 had watched the September meeting live. With pilot due to end in April or May next year it's extremely important that we don't lose this small window into Carmarthenshire Council. There is nothing more that some senior officers and members of the council would like to do than to pull the plug.
The committee also wondered what had become of the promised reports on 'councillors' emails' and officer participation in formulating press releases (after Kevin Madge was found to have breached the code over the Sainsbury's fiasco). Disappeared into the long grass of course. According to the minutes the 'Senior Consultant agreed to circulate an update to the committee before the next scrutiny committee'. How informative.
What amazed me (so much so that I had to write this blogpost about it) was the marked difference in the contents of the agenda to anything I have ever seen in Carmarthenshire. It has questions! Questions from councillors to the Leader, which, I presume he is supposed to answer! Questions which, even if he doesn't answer to anyone's satisfaction, bring up controversial subjects in the public arena! Fancy that!
Here's a small selection;
Could the Leader provide Members with a brief summary of the Audit Office concerns in relation to the accounts signed off by the Corporate Governance Committee on Monday, 30 September 2013?
Could the Leader confirm if Council has had any further contact with the Wales Audit Office or their legal representatives since Corporate Governance on 30 September 2013 and if so, could he provide Members with a summary of any discussions or correspondence?
Could the Leader let us know whose idea it was for the Council to introduce the “pension arrangements” scheme which enables the highest paid Officers to receive their pension contributions as a cash sum, thereby avoiding tax liabilities?
Could the Leader tell us why no independent advice or legal opinion was sought back in 2011, prior to the tax-avoiding “pension arrangements” scheme being brought in?
During the Corporate Governance Committee on 30 September 2013, in response to a question about the propriety of holding public Council meetings in the Chief Executive’s Office, the Leader stated that “a number of Senior Staff Committee meetings have been held there over the years.” Could he provide a list of all previous meetings that have been held at this venue
Could the Leader confirm to Council who has been engaged to act on the Council’s behalf in relation to the Wales Audit Office report (specifically their concern in relations to changes to pension arrangements)?
Could he confirm the current bill (either invoiced or the anticipated amount based on time committed) for both Officers of the Authority and external agencies. This should include all legal counsel?
The actual outcome of the meeting is covered here by Cllr Jacob Williams.
The question remains though as to why we never see such a raft of councillor questions in Carmarthenshire on a published agenda?
Both councils appear to have similar rules, in Pembrokeshire the question must be received by the Head of Legal, in Carmarthenshire it's the Chief Executive. I can't imagine there's any less interest in posing questions here than in Pembrokeshire next door. Is is a cultural difference? Do Carms councillors feel there's no point? Or are their questions rejected before they ever see the light of day? (answers on a postcard please)
As Cneifwr points out the democratic state of play in our own County Hall could become markedly worse (if that's possible) with the Chief Executive considering abandoning the current format and replacing it with a series of guest speaker seminars and powerpoint presentations. Apparently he is fed up with Chairing full council meetings where he has to deal with 'on camera' comments from discontented councillors and their attempts at bringing up embarrassing 'audit' issues and the like.
As Rhodri Glyn Thomas said recently he understands that, for starters, the Chief Executive has proposed changes which will prevent councillors from scrutinizing Executive Board decisions during meetings of full council.
As I have long predicted, the masterplan to do away with elected councillors altogether could be on the cards. To be honest, unless the Welsh Government step in with some urgency, Members will rapidly become superfluous to requirements anyway.
-----------------------------------------------------
On the subject of questions, the First Minister Carwyn Jones was a guest on BBC Radio Wales Jason Mohammed show yesterday. He was taking calls from the public so I duly phoned up in the morning and lodged my question with the BBC. Much to my surprise I was phoned during the show to ask my question live on air. It was, as you may have guessed, to ask what the Welsh Government was doing to restore public faith and accountability in local authorities following the recent auditor's reports into Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Caerphilly.
I don't suppose you become First Minister of anything by actually answering questions or by providing a relevant comment but I was surprised by the complete non-response, I even thought he was answering a different question from another caller. But he wasn't.
Firstly he said something about it being 'only three' and there were lots of local authorities. After he'd dropped that bombshell I found it difficult to concentrate on the rest of his response.
He continued by mentioning that there was a forthcoming commission looking at reducing the number of Welsh Councils. Well that's all very well but it had nothing to do with what I'd said.
However, my attempt to come back at Mr Jones was cut short as they had lots of people waiting to ask things. Like myself, they were clearly wasting their time.
----------------------------------------------
Lastly, the minutes from a recent meeting (Oct 7th) of the Policy and Resources Scrutiny have just been published. It provided members with an update on the webcast viewing figures to date (to that date, so doesn't include the October's meeting). 5,500 had watched either live or on archive the first four meetings, which is 5,500 more than would have seen them.
Don't forget the pilot kicked off with the ridiculous ritual of the Council AGM which must have put many would-be viewers off for life. However, officers seemed pleased to note that figures were declining and only 66 had watched the September meeting live. With pilot due to end in April or May next year it's extremely important that we don't lose this small window into Carmarthenshire Council. There is nothing more that some senior officers and members of the council would like to do than to pull the plug.
The committee also wondered what had become of the promised reports on 'councillors' emails' and officer participation in formulating press releases (after Kevin Madge was found to have breached the code over the Sainsbury's fiasco). Disappeared into the long grass of course. According to the minutes the 'Senior Consultant agreed to circulate an update to the committee before the next scrutiny committee'. How informative.