The reputations of Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire as rogue states was further confirmed yesterday as the Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer of Pembrokeshire survived votes of No Confidence. Both authorities are currently under investigation be Gloucestershire police. Like Carmarthenshire, it was the ruling administration, who closed ranks and outvoted the opposition. Only it wasn't the opposition, it was public opinion and anger which was treated with contempt. I'll put a link to the archive when it appears and I'm sure the blogging councillors from Pembs will enlighten us further.
We learnt that Pembs has spent around £27,000 on legal advice from Tim Kerr QC and a pensions expert to defend Bryn Parry Jones, in Carmarthenshire we can roughly double that as there is the libel indemnity as well as the pension scam.
The Pembrokeshire leader said that the situation in Carmarthenshire was worse as there were the two reports and a 'personal element' regarding the indemnity paid to the Chief Executive. In Carms of course, the indemnity has been stopped, whether this was before Mr James' legal team took part in the appeal process or not is unclear. What is clear is that the indemnity was unlawful.
What is most striking are the attempts to defend the presence of both Chief Executives in the meetings where they stood to directly benefit financially from the decisions. Mr James' presence in the indemnity meeting was described by one member of the independent group as a 'schoolboy error', I still can't quite believe he said that.
Listening to Executive Board members, Kev, Meryl, Pam and co at last weeks emergency meeting in Carms, it is very unlikely that any of them would have remotely understood the complexities of the two decisions or to put it simply, what on earth was going on. They would have been presented with the legal advice marked 'This way up', and told what they had to do. In this case I suggest that ignorance will probably be their best defence, if and when they need one...
In both authorities the scandals have completely overshadowed anything else, including the all important budgets. There is an enormous public anger over all this as residents and staff are realising, partly through the power of webcasting, how the arrogance and bullying tactics of senior officials, in Carmarthenshire at least, have made a complete mockery of democracy in their county.
As for bullying tactics it appears, from a document, that the training ground was many years ago, in an borough council far away...
The situation in Carmarthenshire has been dire for years and it was my observations of the monthly farce in Carmarthenshire which was one of the things which first led me to try and film a meeting. I felt it was quite unbelievable and that as many people as possible should be aware of what was happening. The minutes are still selective and inaccurate; for instance, the minutes from the meeting of the 12th February completely omitted the exchange between Cllr Caiach and Linda Rees Jones over the libel case 'update' in early January.
It has cost me dear but with around half of Welsh counties now webcasting, which is something of a result.
There's another instalment this morning, Carmarthenshire Council live; http://www.carmarthenshire.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/129950
We learnt that Pembs has spent around £27,000 on legal advice from Tim Kerr QC and a pensions expert to defend Bryn Parry Jones, in Carmarthenshire we can roughly double that as there is the libel indemnity as well as the pension scam.
The Pembrokeshire leader said that the situation in Carmarthenshire was worse as there were the two reports and a 'personal element' regarding the indemnity paid to the Chief Executive. In Carms of course, the indemnity has been stopped, whether this was before Mr James' legal team took part in the appeal process or not is unclear. What is clear is that the indemnity was unlawful.
What is most striking are the attempts to defend the presence of both Chief Executives in the meetings where they stood to directly benefit financially from the decisions. Mr James' presence in the indemnity meeting was described by one member of the independent group as a 'schoolboy error', I still can't quite believe he said that.
Listening to Executive Board members, Kev, Meryl, Pam and co at last weeks emergency meeting in Carms, it is very unlikely that any of them would have remotely understood the complexities of the two decisions or to put it simply, what on earth was going on. They would have been presented with the legal advice marked 'This way up', and told what they had to do. In this case I suggest that ignorance will probably be their best defence, if and when they need one...
In both authorities the scandals have completely overshadowed anything else, including the all important budgets. There is an enormous public anger over all this as residents and staff are realising, partly through the power of webcasting, how the arrogance and bullying tactics of senior officials, in Carmarthenshire at least, have made a complete mockery of democracy in their county.
As for bullying tactics it appears, from a document, that the training ground was many years ago, in an borough council far away...
The situation in Carmarthenshire has been dire for years and it was my observations of the monthly farce in Carmarthenshire which was one of the things which first led me to try and film a meeting. I felt it was quite unbelievable and that as many people as possible should be aware of what was happening. The minutes are still selective and inaccurate; for instance, the minutes from the meeting of the 12th February completely omitted the exchange between Cllr Caiach and Linda Rees Jones over the libel case 'update' in early January.
It has cost me dear but with around half of Welsh counties now webcasting, which is something of a result.
There's another instalment this morning, Carmarthenshire Council live; http://www.carmarthenshire.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/129950