As usual, yesterday's meeting, in its entirety, can be viewed here so I will only refer to a couple of points.
Due to Mr James' last minute alterations to the agenda for the avoidance of awkward questions, the whole thing was over with in two hours. Sadly he didn't have any powerpoint presentations available this time, but I'm sure they're well in-hand for next time...
CCTV
Amid something of an uproar, the Police Commissioner, Christopher Salmon (Con) has withdrawn the police contribution to fund the monitoring of CCTV. The council, well the Executive Board, has refused make up the shortfall.
Mr Salmon is definitely not the flavour of the month, or year, in the council chamber. The Motion, put forward by Cllr Elwyn Williams was for Mr Salmon to have a rethink over the funding.
The South Wales Guardian published a powerful opinion piece in this week's paper.
Both Plaid and Labour accused Mr Salmon of politicising the police and said his recent 5% reduction in the precept was, basically, an election move, at the expense of police services. It was pointed out that in 2012/13 the old style police authority cost £377k, but with the arrival of the new Commissioner system, that figure had now jumped to £619k.
Mr Salmon defends his decision claiming that monitoring CCTV makes little difference to crime levels and there was no difference when live monitoring stopped in Powys and the area has one of the lowest crime rates.
Despite Plaid saying they'd never supported the idea of a police commissioner in the first place and Labour's Calum Higgins getting in on the act saying Labour would abolish the PCC if it gained power in May, it was all immaterial really as the PCC has no intention of restoring the funding.
Anyway, the upshot of it all is that CCTV will remain, but will no longer be actively monitored, and only time will tell whether this was a poor decision or not. Hopefully not, and hopefully the staff can be redeployed.
It does appear however that police resources were available for Dyfed Powys police officers to visit various corner shops to find out who in our Welsh villages has been reading Charlie Hebdo....
Election talk
With three candidates for the general election in May in the Chamber, some Westminster style debate was inevitable. Not only that, but a fairly hotly contested council by-election in Hengoed will be held next Thursday (19th).
Cllrs Calum Higgins (Lab), Elwyn Williams (Plaid) and Sian Caiach (People First) are all standing in the general election. Cllr Dole's Motion, whilst mentioning the council's budget was in reality an attack on Labour's support of the Tory austerity policy.
Cllr Dole referred to several Labour Members' wards and the high levels of child poverty, he also mentioned, that to be on the safe side, voters in Hengoed by-election should avoid Labour...
Labour candidate Calum Higgins responded and tried to say that Labour didn't exactly agree with the policy, their view was different, a gradual 'balancing of the books' rather than huge short term cuts...
You get the drift. And 84 days still to go.
Cllr Caiach suggested that actually, nobody had any real answers and this wasn't presently an issue on the doorsteps of Hengoed anyway. Perhaps they should concentrate on the nitty gritty of their own budget.
Eventually the Motion was lost, 31 against, 27 for and 4 abstentions.
Pension question
Sian Caiach could not ask her question regarding the unlawful pension arrangement as the Leader, Cllr Madge was not present. She was told by Mr James, via the Chair, that she must wait for his return.
I don't suppose Deputy Leader, Pam Palmer could have answered as she didn't have a copy of the script, prepared for Mr Madge by Mr James.......
Pension scrutiny
There was then a general grumble to the setting up of a local Pension Board to oversee the panel of trustees of the Dyfed Pension Fund. Essentially the purpose of the Board was to hold the trustees to account, advising over matters of governance and compliance. The chief exec chipped in to say it was 'completely unnecessary'. I suppose he has a bit of a personal 'thing' about scrutiny of pension payments...
Anyway, as it was part of new legislation, more bureaucracy or not, the changes had to be accepted.
Constitutional mischief
After some discussion relating to Blue Badge charges and the lack of consultation with local members, it was time for the agenda change. As I mentioned here, scrutiny and planning committee minutes were now 'for information only', no questions allowed. A move that Mr James was particularly keen on, unsurprisingly.
However, he was very careful to point out, as some members had been critical, that this was a decision of the working group. They had decided, he said, that he should implement this change with 'immediate effect'.at their meeting on the 26th January.
Presumably Mr James was on hand at the meeting to give them plenty of encouragement. a bit like his carefully engineered 'democratic mandate' over the unlawful libel indemnity and pension tax avoidance scam..
He went on to explain that as there was no requirement in the constitution to include these meetings on the agenda then there was no constitutional amendment necessary.
Cllr Caiach said that even if that were the case, it should have still gone to full council for discussion and approval, it had been clumsy and discourteous.
Incidentally, there's no 'requirement' in the constitution specifically preventing supplementary questions from Members either, but according to Mr James, a constitutional amendment is going to be necessary to allow them....
There was nothing in the constitution, you may remember, banning the public from filming meetings either...
Labour Cllr Anthony Jones acknowledged that Councillors could ask questions relating to these meetings, but as they had to be made in writing seven days before the meeting, it was not satisfactory.
Basically, aside from Executive Board minutes, no spontaneous questions relating to other committees are now allowed, any questions will now involve the drafting of letters and vetting by the chief executive.
Motions on notice still require a record seven signatures as well as the proposer. I'm sure all will be relieved when this is relaxed back to the normal two as per the WLGA recommendations.
This particularity unpleasant requirement only lasted three years having been implemented by Mr James due to a number of Motions in 2011 which, amongst other irritants, were, and I quote, "criticising the council".
According to Mr James, who seems to be in complete control over the working group considering the WLGA governance recommendations, they have now covered everything and will be reporting to council soon. His trusty acting sidekick, and legal rubber stamp, Linda Rees Jones is drawing up reports for council and amendments to the constitution as we speak.
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As I said the full meeting can be seen on the archive. No one mentioned the Public Interest Report from the Ombudsman, no one mentioned the protest outside County Hall by Unison concerned about the latest outsourcing venture
Incidentally, all council tax and housing benefit correspondence much of which is highly sensitive, has now been outsourced to Dstoutput Ltd based in Dagenham. This contract, which I mentioned back in October, is worth £220,000.
Annual budget meeting
The next webcast meeting of full council will be on Tuedsay 24th February to decide on the budget. Hopefully these two pictured below will perk up by then and speak up for all the residents of Caebrwyn's corner of Carmarthenshire. Then again, pigs might fly.
Due to Mr James' last minute alterations to the agenda for the avoidance of awkward questions, the whole thing was over with in two hours. Sadly he didn't have any powerpoint presentations available this time, but I'm sure they're well in-hand for next time...
CCTV
Amid something of an uproar, the Police Commissioner, Christopher Salmon (Con) has withdrawn the police contribution to fund the monitoring of CCTV. The council, well the Executive Board, has refused make up the shortfall.
Mr Salmon is definitely not the flavour of the month, or year, in the council chamber. The Motion, put forward by Cllr Elwyn Williams was for Mr Salmon to have a rethink over the funding.
The South Wales Guardian published a powerful opinion piece in this week's paper.
Both Plaid and Labour accused Mr Salmon of politicising the police and said his recent 5% reduction in the precept was, basically, an election move, at the expense of police services. It was pointed out that in 2012/13 the old style police authority cost £377k, but with the arrival of the new Commissioner system, that figure had now jumped to £619k.
Mr Salmon defends his decision claiming that monitoring CCTV makes little difference to crime levels and there was no difference when live monitoring stopped in Powys and the area has one of the lowest crime rates.
Despite Plaid saying they'd never supported the idea of a police commissioner in the first place and Labour's Calum Higgins getting in on the act saying Labour would abolish the PCC if it gained power in May, it was all immaterial really as the PCC has no intention of restoring the funding.
Anyway, the upshot of it all is that CCTV will remain, but will no longer be actively monitored, and only time will tell whether this was a poor decision or not. Hopefully not, and hopefully the staff can be redeployed.
It does appear however that police resources were available for Dyfed Powys police officers to visit various corner shops to find out who in our Welsh villages has been reading Charlie Hebdo....
Election talk
With three candidates for the general election in May in the Chamber, some Westminster style debate was inevitable. Not only that, but a fairly hotly contested council by-election in Hengoed will be held next Thursday (19th).
Cllrs Calum Higgins (Lab), Elwyn Williams (Plaid) and Sian Caiach (People First) are all standing in the general election. Cllr Dole's Motion, whilst mentioning the council's budget was in reality an attack on Labour's support of the Tory austerity policy.
Cllr Dole referred to several Labour Members' wards and the high levels of child poverty, he also mentioned, that to be on the safe side, voters in Hengoed by-election should avoid Labour...
Labour candidate Calum Higgins responded and tried to say that Labour didn't exactly agree with the policy, their view was different, a gradual 'balancing of the books' rather than huge short term cuts...
You get the drift. And 84 days still to go.
Cllr Caiach suggested that actually, nobody had any real answers and this wasn't presently an issue on the doorsteps of Hengoed anyway. Perhaps they should concentrate on the nitty gritty of their own budget.
Eventually the Motion was lost, 31 against, 27 for and 4 abstentions.
Pension question
Sian Caiach could not ask her question regarding the unlawful pension arrangement as the Leader, Cllr Madge was not present. She was told by Mr James, via the Chair, that she must wait for his return.
I don't suppose Deputy Leader, Pam Palmer could have answered as she didn't have a copy of the script, prepared for Mr Madge by Mr James.......
Pension scrutiny
There was then a general grumble to the setting up of a local Pension Board to oversee the panel of trustees of the Dyfed Pension Fund. Essentially the purpose of the Board was to hold the trustees to account, advising over matters of governance and compliance. The chief exec chipped in to say it was 'completely unnecessary'. I suppose he has a bit of a personal 'thing' about scrutiny of pension payments...
Anyway, as it was part of new legislation, more bureaucracy or not, the changes had to be accepted.
Constitutional mischief
After some discussion relating to Blue Badge charges and the lack of consultation with local members, it was time for the agenda change. As I mentioned here, scrutiny and planning committee minutes were now 'for information only', no questions allowed. A move that Mr James was particularly keen on, unsurprisingly.
However, he was very careful to point out, as some members had been critical, that this was a decision of the working group. They had decided, he said, that he should implement this change with 'immediate effect'.at their meeting on the 26th January.
Presumably Mr James was on hand at the meeting to give them plenty of encouragement. a bit like his carefully engineered 'democratic mandate' over the unlawful libel indemnity and pension tax avoidance scam..
He went on to explain that as there was no requirement in the constitution to include these meetings on the agenda then there was no constitutional amendment necessary.
Cllr Caiach said that even if that were the case, it should have still gone to full council for discussion and approval, it had been clumsy and discourteous.
Incidentally, there's no 'requirement' in the constitution specifically preventing supplementary questions from Members either, but according to Mr James, a constitutional amendment is going to be necessary to allow them....
There was nothing in the constitution, you may remember, banning the public from filming meetings either...
Labour Cllr Anthony Jones acknowledged that Councillors could ask questions relating to these meetings, but as they had to be made in writing seven days before the meeting, it was not satisfactory.
Basically, aside from Executive Board minutes, no spontaneous questions relating to other committees are now allowed, any questions will now involve the drafting of letters and vetting by the chief executive.
Motions on notice still require a record seven signatures as well as the proposer. I'm sure all will be relieved when this is relaxed back to the normal two as per the WLGA recommendations.
This particularity unpleasant requirement only lasted three years having been implemented by Mr James due to a number of Motions in 2011 which, amongst other irritants, were, and I quote, "criticising the council".
According to Mr James, who seems to be in complete control over the working group considering the WLGA governance recommendations, they have now covered everything and will be reporting to council soon. His trusty acting sidekick, and legal rubber stamp, Linda Rees Jones is drawing up reports for council and amendments to the constitution as we speak.
As I said the full meeting can be seen on the archive. No one mentioned the Public Interest Report from the Ombudsman, no one mentioned the protest outside County Hall by Unison concerned about the latest outsourcing venture
Incidentally, all council tax and housing benefit correspondence much of which is highly sensitive, has now been outsourced to Dstoutput Ltd based in Dagenham. This contract, which I mentioned back in October, is worth £220,000.
Annual budget meeting
The next webcast meeting of full council will be on Tuedsay 24th February to decide on the budget. Hopefully these two pictured below will perk up by then and speak up for all the residents of Caebrwyn's corner of Carmarthenshire. Then again, pigs might fly.
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| Independent Group Cllrs Tom Theophilus and Ivor Jackson |