Carmarthenshire County Council's devotion (£1.4m worth of devotion) to the evangelical organisation, the Towy Community Church is well documented and the bowling alley (featuring toddler play area complete with licensed bar) is now open. Phase two, which includes the Church auditorium and various counselling or 'therapy' rooms should be underway before long, subject to funding. Where that funding will come from remains to be seen.
During the process, alarm bells rang when the then Leader of the Council, Meryl Gravell stressed the importance of this fundamentalist christian group in easing the pressure on the council's social care budget.
It looks like the evangelical theme is continuing, if on a slightly lesser scale. Information recently published shows the council's spending on social care training sessions and the organisations involved.
Amongst the data are two entries for 2012/2013, one is for 'Conducting effective one-to-one meetings' and another for 'Developing your team', at a total cost of £500. The provider of these team building sessions is named as a Mr Matt Bownds (Communications Skills Intervention), who also happens to be the Pastor of the Living Word Church in Carmarthen.
This particular organisation has a similar faith base to the Council's partners, the Towy Community Church. It follows the evangelical tradition that it's 'great commission is to make disciples'; Non-believers, in other words, sinners, will 'spend eternity separated from Christ, in hell'; and, of course, the literal belief in the Bible, 'which is completely trustworthy, true and without error'.
Perhaps it should be noted that as well as team building sessions for council staff, other members deliver assemblies in our Carmarthenshire schools.
On a related note, the Freedom of Information request appeared to be a bit of a 'round robin', perhaps a company on a 'fishing' expedition and went to many other local authorities. One of which was Ceredigion County Council who refused to reveal the names of the suppliers. They said; 'We are not able to provide you with the name of the personal details of the training providers due to confidentiality'. Given that the usually reticent Carms Council did give the names, it makes you wonder just how much grasp of the law, and consistency of its application, our public bodies have.
During the process, alarm bells rang when the then Leader of the Council, Meryl Gravell stressed the importance of this fundamentalist christian group in easing the pressure on the council's social care budget.
It looks like the evangelical theme is continuing, if on a slightly lesser scale. Information recently published shows the council's spending on social care training sessions and the organisations involved.
Amongst the data are two entries for 2012/2013, one is for 'Conducting effective one-to-one meetings' and another for 'Developing your team', at a total cost of £500. The provider of these team building sessions is named as a Mr Matt Bownds (Communications Skills Intervention), who also happens to be the Pastor of the Living Word Church in Carmarthen.
This particular organisation has a similar faith base to the Council's partners, the Towy Community Church. It follows the evangelical tradition that it's 'great commission is to make disciples'; Non-believers, in other words, sinners, will 'spend eternity separated from Christ, in hell'; and, of course, the literal belief in the Bible, 'which is completely trustworthy, true and without error'.
Perhaps it should be noted that as well as team building sessions for council staff, other members deliver assemblies in our Carmarthenshire schools.
On a related note, the Freedom of Information request appeared to be a bit of a 'round robin', perhaps a company on a 'fishing' expedition and went to many other local authorities. One of which was Ceredigion County Council who refused to reveal the names of the suppliers. They said; 'We are not able to provide you with the name of the personal details of the training providers due to confidentiality'. Given that the usually reticent Carms Council did give the names, it makes you wonder just how much grasp of the law, and consistency of its application, our public bodies have.