Heap of praise

One wet morning in election week, I & some comrades were outside Seaview School at 8.30am, meeting the mums and getting them to sign our petition against cuts in the education budget, when Uriah Heap (Cllr Peter May the Lib-Dem candidate) emerged from a nearby house – and was as much surprised to see us standing in the road by the garden gate, as we were to see him. Where had he come from, had he materialised? We all pointed to him and shouted, "That's the man – he's the one going to cut your children's education" (or somesuch) and he scuttled back inside pronto. We didn't see him again – so I suppose he waited us out. That must have been a bit awkward.
However, you have to admire the Heap's dedication to the cause of the individual voter, that he was out so early (sometime before 8.30) on a very wet morning, canvassing. I'd also like to know how he had stayed so dry without a coat – I was soaked. You have to hope that after all that effort he got that vote.

Restart

I stopped doing this in the run-up to and during the election – I had neither the time nor (frankly) the energy – and then you rather get out of the habit. But the election's now done and dusted. So here I am having another go a trying to keep this blog up & running – I am probably not going to be any more successful than I was before! We'll see. I wonder how many 'Restart programmes' I'm allowed? So a few catch-up items will follow.

I spent all my campaigning time in Swansea West (largely with Don – sorry Lord – Anderson) – so I am particularly gratified at the result. I know that the Lib-Dems are claiming it a victory, but then we all know that they have difficulties with truth and reality. Yes Alan Williams majority was reduced, but that has to be judged in context. This was the number one Lib-Dem target n Wales, enormous sums were spent on their campaign, with an enormous team, shovelling out huge amounts of papers. Rumours are that they spent over £40,000 – it was certainly fairly reliable suggested that they had a local campaign fund of over £30,000. No doubt Lib-Dem insiders are scoffing at these figures – "if only he knew how much we really spent". Well no doubt some anorak or other will have a quick shufty at their expenses when they are published and then we will be able to compare that truth with the reality.

This had always been a marginal seat – I think Alan Williams was down to about a 400 majority at one election - and Labour were widely expected to lose. This prediction was assisted by a largely unpopular Labour Government in Westminster (that seemed more interested in its own internal squabbling than governing the country), a very unpopular Prime Minister (whose standing/credibility was not helped by shenanigins of the 'Blairistas' in the Parliamentary Party. Who did they think they were helping?), MPs expenses, the press (including the Guardian sadly) against us, the ridiculous Cleggmania and all the rest of it. The result in Swansea West was therefore a surprise to many – not least Uriah Heap, who almost collapsed when he found he wasn't going to get his train tickets up to the 'Smoke'. It was all the more pleasing as the Lib-Dems had been going around for weeks saying that the election "was in the bag" – yes but not theirs.

It wasn't of course a surprise to us on the doorstep – our returns indicated a win with a reduced majority, although I admit not quite as small as it turned out. But hey, a win is a win!

I must also pay tribute to the assistance of Uriah Heap himself. It's a pity that his husting's performances were not captured on film as they would have become classics of the genre and I would have been able to keep them alongside my video footage of Bethan Jenkins' 'aircraft carrier for Wales' interview, John Redwood singing the National Anthem and Cheryl Gillan looking forward to working with Rhodri Morgan as Wales' First Minister. I have keep Rob Speht's prescient EPost comment, given at the Swansea East count, that they had won Swansea West, that it had been a foregone conclusion. And only then was he told that they'd actually lost. Ho Ho.

During one part of the count Uriah ran through the bar at the Brangwyn Hall, punching the air and shouting, "We've done it! We've done it!". Only twenty minutes later being told that, "..erm...sorry, no you haven't". It was only the strong comforting arm of his agent, ex-Cllr Gerald Clement, that kept the by then limp candidate in the vertical axis. I suppose that I should feel sorry for the Heap, a bit magnanimous in victory, but I don't. He ran a nasty campaign and got the result he deserved. I have never been at an election count previously where a candidate had been so universally disliked as Uriah Heap at this one (and that included some in the Lib-Dem camp who were quietly (and some not so quietly) delighted at his defeat). The downside is that we still have him as the Cabinet Member for Housing. Well, we'll have to make sure that we welcome him with appropriate kindness!

Uriah Heap's loser's speech at the last Assembly election was very ungracious. His effort this time was simply disgraceful. Crass, graceless in the extreme and very, very long. It seemed that once he'd started, he was unable to stop. Certainly, his thanks to the communities of the constituency that (he claimed) had voted for him seemed interminable as he appeared to be reading from a Bartholomew's A-Z. He didn't seem to have twigged that if they had done what he'd claimed, he'd have made the victory speech instead. There was just the first few slaps of a slow-hand clap starting, when he stopped.

 

 

Susan Clegg

From the BBC's News Quiz

"Nick Clegg was hailed as the new Susan Boyle:- at first no one had heard of him; then they were pleasantly surprised by what came out of his mouth; but in the end they didn't vote for him anyway!!!"

Jackboots in the applecart

Whilst on the subject of job changes, I also hear that John Hague is to be doubly challenged - both as Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for the Environment. His challenger is the Eastside Gauleiter - Alan Robinson. No really, now stop laughing, stop - that's very cruel.

Given the exemplary job Herr Robinson has done as Cabinet Member for Community Regeneration, this seems an entirely justified reward. One of the many highlights of his period was his appearance at the South Wales Police Authority, where it was rumoured he covered himself in shit glory by his commanding grasp of the effects of the PACT policy across Swansea.

We will wait and see whether the exquisitely tailored Monsewer Hague will see off this challenge with his usual equanimity – or call in his friend Arfa Housebrick (see earlier posts).

Also upsetting the Lib-Dem apple-cart was the (for them) unexpected return of Uriah Heep to the Council fold – following his defeat by the Croydon Cruiser. He will want to hang onto his job in Housing, which had rather unwisely already been re-allocated. I would imagine that the expectant recipient would be disappointed. But who was it to be – there isn’t much to choose from. Rob Speht – to busy in China with his wind turbines (he really should explain this to Cleggy), Cheryl Philpot – well still I guess to ‘mouthy’ for the Admin mysoginists, Paul Meara – too clever. So Jeff Jones – unlikely, as this would create a Killay power couple.

I can say definitively (well at least I am fairly sure) that there is absolutely no truth in the rumour that it was to be offered to the Brilliant Comrade, the alleged Leader of the ‘Care in the Community Group’, the other member for Clydach. No truth whatsoever. Whatever would his acolytes say – not least the Mistress of Bonymaen.

Sack, sock, sick

So - the rumour that has been circulating since last week is now confirmed as true.

David Daycock, our late Monitoring Officer, has got himself a new job - Chief Executive & Monitoring Officer for the Mid & West Wales Fire Authority.

I wonder whether he told them that he had left this Authority whilst subject to a disciplinary investigation. Somehow, I think not.

Although the terms of his departure from the City & County of Swansea have not been made public (all requests for information have been declined on the grounds of a confidentiality agreement with Mr Daycock) it is widely rumoured that there was a pay-off of some description involved.

I'll bet the 750 other staff about to be got rid of, would like similar consideration - they won't of course. Leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

There is also the question of the terms of his settlement and whether any of it should now be repaid - seeing as he has landed another job before his notice period from this Authority has even run out.

I am sure that he was the best candidate for the job and any suggestion that it was anything to do with the black sock brigade is entirely scurrilous.

Serious Case Reviews & Extraordinary Council Meeting. Introduction (1 of 9)

Introduction
This has post has been a couple of days in the writing as I decided that I would explore not just the Serious Case Reviews (SCRs) but the wider issues involved – as it was not possible to cover all this in the council meeting (and the Presiding Officer would not have allowed me to anyway). I don't apologise for it being long, but for ease of reading, I have split it into 8 different sequential posts:

• The Council Meeting
• The Background
• The SCR reports, divided
• • Publication
  • Editing
  • Style & Content
• The children's circumstances
• Accountability
• Recommendations

However, they should all be considered as a piece.
You will also note that my usual sardonic tone is absent. I don't apologise for that either.

Read the reports yourself here Serious Case Review reports

Also of interest the Western Mail editorial here

Serious Case Reviews – The Extraordinary Meeting (2 of 9)

The meeting

It was not an accident that there was no formal motion before the Council – not even the usual catch-all that the "Reports should be noted". I believe it was anticipated what would have happened had there been an opportunity for amendment or a vote. The reason given for the absence of any motion, was that they were not the Authority's reports and Council therefore could do nothing with them. We had had them "For Information only" and that was the only basis on which the Council could be called.

This was not adequate and was not what I wanted when I pressed for the meeting. Yes, we got an opportunity to discuss it, but not in any meaningful democratic sense. I was frustrated and angered by this outcome, which meant that no action could be taken.

I had hoped that Thursday night's Extraordinary (i.e. Special) Council Meeting about the Serious Case Reviews (SCRs) would at least have prompted contributions from the Administration's members – which the debate on latest CSSIW report the previous week had so signally failed to do. But I was disappointed, as they refused to be disturbed from their usual indolence. Not even the added spark provided by the story in Wednesday's Western Mail (WM) about the alleged 'doctoring' of certain passages in one report (lessening or removing criticisms), could light their fires. They seemed indifferent to the possibility that they might have been mislead.

It was left to the Opposition to make the running on questioning the detail of the reports. For the Administration, John Newbury read out a prepared speech that was at least about the subject under discussion. Audrey Clement however, provided a self-justification, apparently seeing the very mention of her name as some sort of criticism that had to be responded to. Apart from these two I cannot recall anyone on the Administration side saying anything at all. No that's not strictly true, as over in the 'wild man' corner, the usual sotto voce grumblings, groanings and mutterings were audible, particularly when I tried to continue with my questions and was forced to sit by the Presiding Officer. Indeed, it was the intervention of Rene Kinzett that made her retreat and allow me to follow up a supplementary to the Director of Education.

Her behaviour was scandalous and if there were any doubts remaining about her fitness to continue as Chair of Council, she comprehensively disposed of them. Prior to the meeting, I had questioned the appropriateness of Cllr Fitzgerald chairing this Council, given that these children died during her occupation of the Social Services portfolio, that got nowhere. Cllr Fitzgerald was completely out of touch with the mood of the meeting or, indeed, the necessary sensitivity required to handle what was going to be an emotional meeting anyway. Huw Rees would have done this entirely differently. The Acting Deputy Monitoring Officer (if that is the role she had), provided no guidance and Cllr Fitzgerald's manner was so bad, that the Chief Executive had his head in his hands at several points. Indeed, I was given an apology after the meeting was over – not from Cllr Fitzgerald, of course.

This was not a good Council meeting, and did not show the Council at its best, wholly engaged with an important issue, unlike the discussion that followed the screening of A Swansea Love Story the night before.

Serious Case Reviews – Background (3 of 9)

Background

This meeting nearly never happened (as with last week's to discuss the latest CSSIW (Care & Social Service Inspectorate for Wales) report into Swansea's Children & Family Services, where only 2 out of 14 measures were shown to have improved and they were to do with political and corporate leadership, rather than the actual services themselves). From the outset, there was no intention to have a full Council debate on either of these serious matters. It was only considerable pressure from me (with RK's support), that they took place. Even so, the allowed extent (the remit) of both meetings was unsatisfactory and limited.

Councillors first saw the CSSIW report just before they arrived in the Chamber for the meeting, which meant that most members had about 10 minutes to read it before the Inspectors' presentation. (Entirely fortuitously, I got just over an hour to read it). I had already objected that this procedure, insisted on by CSSIW, was not only contrary to the law, in that it did not allow the three days publication of papers required by the Local Government Act & the Council's Constitution, but was also entirely unreasonable. I can speed read (loads of practice), many can't. Most Members would only be able to read (and comprehend) the report after the meeting was over and, if they then had questions, would be unable to ask them. I had sought to get the CSSIW Inspectors to return to Council. I asked them directly when we met the Minister and later at their presentation. They refused. In fact, the Chief Inspector over-ruled one of his Inspectors who had already accepted an invitation to attend the Scrutiny Board, on the grounds that 'that was not the way they did things'!

In regards to the SCRs, the Social Service Department's view was not to have a Council meeting at all. It was concerned about the effect that dragging this all up again in public would have on the families and that there would be disclosure of the children's identities. The first argument might just about stand for Child E (Chloe), but not for the others – Mother and sister in prison for causing the death of Child B (Carly) and given away by the mother and generally ignored by his carer (and everyone else) Child D (Kyle). It seems to me that any 'rights' the families might have had, had been sacrificed. In any event, should these rights over-ride those of elected members in being able to arrive at an informed judgement? What was the purpose of these reports being published if the elected representatives of the people of Swansea were not allowed to debate them? I expressed the view that the only way to deal with issues such as these was to be full and frank. If we (the Council) accepted the conclusions, if we had nothing to hide, then full and frank disclosure was the only way to proceed. To do otherwise would be, at least, to play into the hands of those who would allege a 'cover-up'.

Under Cllr Fitzgerald's tenure, as Cabinet Member, she had had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into providing any information on the SCR or circumstances surrounding the death of Aaron Gilbert. It was only Labour motions that got anything before Council – and even then her behaviour bordered on the contemptuous. Readers may need reminding, that Cllr Mrs Fitzgerald denied absolutely that Swansea Social Services had any involvement in Aaron Gilbert's death, even though a Social Worker had been suspended and disciplinary action initiated. That she misled Council seems beyond doubt.

Therefore, following Cllr Fitzgerald's sacking and Nick Tregonning's appointment, I discussed with him how he would deal with future cases. I was pleased that he agreed with my analysis and with his assurance that he would not try to hide anything and that such matters would be quickly brought before Council. I was therefore particularly disappointed when, following the initial presentation on the SCRs to Council, Nick seemed to waver and be inclined to resist a meeting/debate.

Considerable backstage negotiation then went on, which resulted in yesterday's meeting, although the ground rules were restrictive and were still being negotiated up to the meeting. I understand that not having a meeting was not a view shared across the Corporate Management Team and it was good that Nick Tregonning subsequently changed his mind. I was pleased that common sense won out over the Department's wish for anonymity being maintained with the children being referred to by letters. I thought this wrong – we had failed these young people, and the very least we could do was remember that they were real and use their names and not treat them as statistics. Not least, as their identities had already been made public anyway.

Serious Case Reviews – Publication (4 of 9)

The Reports - Publication

The full Serious Case Review reports are never made public, only the Executive Summary. As a result councillors have to take the Summaries on trust. I find that inadequate. That's not about distrusting our officers, it's about confidence in the system. Confidence, that we have identified what went wrong and that we know what we need to do to put it right. I am not sure that these reports give us that.

The first big issue is the considerable delay in publishing these reports, why they were published when they were and why they were published together. These children died in 2007 & 2008. A clue to how long they have been around is in the anonymisation. Child A was Aaron Gilbert (who died in 2005) – these three reports are for Child B, D & E. (Child C has not been published for reasons that, in the information I have been given, I entirely accept as valid). I accept that where criminal prosecution is likely/pending or the judicial process is in train, it could be difficult to publish certain information. However, of these three specific cases, only one gave rise to criminal proceedings (Child B - Carly). Although it seems certain that proceedings would have been considered in Child D (Kyle), in the third case (Child E – Chloe) they don't seem relevant at all.

So a more reasonable publication order would have been E (Chloe), almost immediately after her death in 2008, followed by D (Kyle) after decisions had been taken on proceedings, and finally Child B (Carly, who had died in early 2007) after the whole judicial procedure, including appeals, had been dispensed with. But no, the three reports were published together in March 2010. No satisfactory explanation has been given for this. Council was told that the reports were only finalised the day before publication. That is entirely unconvincing.

Why then were they all published together? Council was assured that this was just a co-incidence. Again, unconvincing.

I know that the Authority was expecting to get major headlines and the national news with at least one of the cases. So was it 'managing' the release to mitigate the damage? Well, it would be surprising if it didn't, but again Council was told that wasn't the case. Did the Authority want them out of the way before what they hoped was a good (or at least not too bad) CSSIW report? Again, that would not be unreasonable. Again Council was told that was not the case. What role did CSSIW have in governing the publication date? The Chief Inspector's dissembling and rather ill-tempered responses to my questions on this subject at Council, just created more suspicion – whether it is warranted or not I simply have no idea. What is clear is that what was always going to be a difficult period for the Authority was made worse by the way it was handled. The Authority probably couldn't believe its luck when Birmingham published just before Swansea and captured all the headlines. Or was that known? And was it that that dictated the publication date? We have still to get to the bottom of all of this.

Serious Case Reviews – Editing (5 of 9)

The Reports – Editing

It was my questions that elicited the admission from the Director of Social Service, that the passages quoted in the WM article about the Kyle SCR were accurate. (I take no particular credit for that – it was just the advantage of being first. Someone else would surely have raised it, if not me). I think the Director was quite open about it. However, I do not accept his reasoning; that it was to make the report easier to read and that the report remained critical of Social Services. He did not seem to accept the point of the significant difference of emphasis between the earlier draft and the published version.

For example, that;

"...over several years ...social work staff...and their managers failed to apply the law, appropriate procedure or elementary standards of professional practice..."

is considerably more critical (and a great deal more concerning) than

"...between 2002 and 2005...social work staff and their immediate managers failed to apply the appropriate procedures or standards of professional practice...".

And then there is the complete excision of the "at least" 15 occasions that various agencies referred information to Social Services regarding Kyle's;

"persistent involvement" in "risky and criminal behaviour, self-harming or drug and alcohol abuse and inadequate parenting from the age of 12...they (the agencies) expected action to be taken.

The review found no evidence that the failures identified...were due to ...staff being overwhelmed with work...

Management and supervision... had not picked up these issues over many years

(Kyle's) circumstances were not known to senior managers ...until his death".

which becomes

"Referrals were not properly considered or acted on...Judgements were not properly reached and assessments of risk were inadequate or not carried out. No enquiries were carried into the child's presentation...there was no proper consideration of Child D's circumstances and his needs... Information shared with social services...did not lead to any appropriate assessments of Child D's needs"

Yes both versions are critical, but placed side by side, I believe that the differences are stark. They might say substantially the same thing – but they don't certainly mean the same thing! Whilst the published version is damning, the draft version is considerably more so.

These are the ones I know of, thanks to the WM and the InsideOut blogsite. Are there others? Of course, I don't know. I have written to the Authority seeking the release of certain information that would clear all this up. I have already been told that some of the information I seek is confidential, and was provided to the SCR on that basis. I have two means to access information, one in my representative capacity and the other as an FOI. Negotiations on both continue. Of course someone could always send me the draft!

Serious Case Reviews – Style & Content – (6 of 9)

The Reports – Style & Content

The three reports themselves were entirely different in size and scope. The first (Carly) was very detailed, properly numbered, logical in its layout and easy to read (in the stylistic sense). The second (Kyle) was similar (it was written by the same person) but would have benefited from a more consistent layout. The third was simply inadequate. If I had produced a report like this when I was working for Coopers & Lybrand I would have had it thrown back to me and been told to do it again. Let's not forget the authors of these reports are getting paid for writing them.

I found it surprising that there was not a standard format, so that one report can be compared to another and that the ground they cover can be seen to be consistent.

The layout of all three reports is different. Report B is 23 pages long, and gives a clear picture of the circumstances that lead to Carly's death. Report D is 13 pages long, is not quite as clear on the circumstances of Kyle's death and contains 3 and half pages of recommendations. Report E (Chloe) is none of these things.

It is only 8 pages long (and that includes the title page) and has slightly more than half a page of recommendations. And of those scant pages only four short paragraphs are about Chloe herself. Four! Seven sentences and one of those was about the Coroner's verdict and another about her family being known to various agencies. One sad life (and even sadder death) disposed of in 142 words.

The whole tone of this report (read to me) as that summary suggests – as cold & dismissive. As 'care less' as the response of the agencies it reports on to the obvious screams of a child in distress and her mother desperately seeking to understand what she could do. This is best demonstrated by quoting two paragraphs;

9.7. "With hindsight, it is possible to speculate that a holistic, child-centred assessment of the family during this period, taking the full history into account, might have led to a clearer understanding of the degree to which the mother was struggling to meet Child E's needs and a more intensive and better coordinated preventative support plan. However, the lengthy history and complex nature of the factors in Child's (E) life mean that this may not have resulted in a different outcome."

9.9. "There are many young people who suffer a difficult childhood and adolescence, but who have sufficient resilience or have developed coping mechanisms which allow them to make a successful transition into adulthood."

In other words, more might possibly have been done, but it probably wouldn't have made any difference. And anyway other young people have got over it. So that's all right then!

My response to this report was one of anger. All the findings are vague, superficial and lack detail. If you were searching for clues as to why the various agencies failed to prevent Chloe's death, you won't find them here, other than they didn't seem to talk to one another, but we are assured they, "...did their best...".

Clearly their best wasn't good enough.

Serious Case Reviews – Children’s circumstances (7 of 9)

The children's circumstances

It is inevitable that you have an emotional reaction to reports like these. Reading the details of the death of a child is always a harrowing experience. Not just at the waste of a life – but (in two of these reports) on the presentation of a life whose sheer dreadfulness is difficult to comprehend.

Carly's personal circumstances were desperate from very early in her life, with her Mother and sister both being heroin addicts. She seemingly became an addict around 14, being supplied by her mother and sister. All this was known to all the agencies involved and yet, after a spell in secure accommodation where she got 'clean' she was returned to her mother and within days was dead from heroin allegedly supplied by her family, whilst an agency worker knowing she had gone back on heroin said nothing.

However, the most harrowing was Kyle's report. I was really upset by this one – still am. It is difficult to conceive of a life so hopeless (in the sense of being devoid of hope) or so appalling. It reads like the favelas of Brazil – but this is Swansea today! Given away by his mother to a neighbour immediately after birth, he never went to school from the age of 10, but became involved in criminal activity from the age of 11. Thereafter he was repeatedly involved in substance abuse (alcohol and an enormous variety of drugs), violence, petty criminality, inappropriate sexual (potentially paedophilic) activity, was seen unkempt and smelly, picked up, arrested and imprisoned. He had involvement with many agencies over nearly all his life – being referred to Social Services at least 15 times. Yet in 2007 he disappeared off the radar, but nobody asked why. It was known where he lived, yet it seems no-one went to check on how he was doing. The following year he's found dead.

What kind of life was this? What view did he have of the world? His mother didn't care for him at all and his carer didn't care enough and for 17 years no-one else seemed to either. I am sure that some did (well I must trust that they did) but if they did, they didn't care enough, so he grew up without either love or hope.

There was no doubt that this child was 'trouble', but Kyle was a child. It seems from reading the report that that was what all the agencies forgot. They saw the 'problem', but not the child and so countless opportunities were missed.

I have been approached by concerned individuals wanting an independent review of these latest deaths. I am not convinced of the need for that as yet. When I have seen (or not) the information I have requested, I will look at this again.

Serious Case Reviews – Accountability (8 of 9)

Accountability

It is difficult not to conclude that the failings of all the agencies involved were inexcusable.

The Director of Social Service (as the Chair of the Safeguarding Children Board) has apologised for failing these children. As has Swansea's Head of Service for Child & Family Social Services & the Police Chief Superintendent. We have been assured that lessons have been learnt. These are sincere expressions of regret, but they inevitably sound glib and inadequate. But what of the myriad other agencies involved? Very little (if anything) publicly has been heard from any of them. Chief Superintendent Mark Mathias on behalf of the Police has been a notable exception. It seems that the view of these agencies is lie low and let the Authority take the flak – but in at least two of these cases the principal causes lay outside the Authority.

And Swansea Council has been public about these reports – they could and should have gone further – but they have gone much much further than anyone else. And that's because local government has a way of dealing with these situations – and publicly. The others do not. Last year, we saw how the NHS Trust flatly refused to attend the Scrutiny Board and how other agencies reacted to questioning in regards to their involvement in Children's Services. This is not good enough. There has to be some way for these agencies to be made publicly accountable.

It is of course very easy to criticise. I saw that the new head of the family courts, Lord Justice Wall, has said that social workers have a "legal duty to unite families rather than separate them". But in Carly's case it was doing precisely that, that led to her death. But who would be a Social Worker – as the judge said, "damned if they do and damned if they don't". I am deeply disturbed merely by reading these reports, what about the social workers who deal with this day after day? My ward colleague, the Lord Mayor, Cllr Allan Lloyd, has led a life of political activism not just here in Swansea but across the world. I was given thought by comments he made at the recent opening of the Anne Frank exhibition, when he asked whether, in difficult and threatening circumstances, he would still have been prepared to stand up and take action. Like the rest of us, he hoped he would. But in this context, if we were the social workers, what would we have done? Would we have been able to save these children?

As councillors we have a responsibility as corporate parents, and whilst we cannot deal with each case, we do have a responsibility to ensure that our services are fit for purpose. The difficulty is determining exactly how we do that.

But everyone has responsibility here. Responsibility not just to stand by, but to act, where we see things are wrong. I refer again to Allan Lloyd's words. This is not being a busybody – it is our civic and human duty. Let me be clear, we know of these children, because they are children. Had they lived longer and become adults, over 18, there would have been no Serious Case Reviews, they would have been just another drug related death, just another statistic. And how many of those young adults are victims failed by our 'system'?

The other evening, Council was shown A Swansea Love Story. Whilst in one reading it is an uplifting story of survival against the odds, its back-story is harrowing, painting a picture of moral and family breakdown that most of us would see with horror and incomprehension. Of course, it is not typical – but it is real. And that is the big question, how have we created a society in which we have forgotten or allowed to be forgotten, whole swathes of people, families, not only without hope but (seemingly) without the possibility of redemption or recovery? The creation of generational cycles of dislocation and dissociation, people who have fallen so low that heroin and strong cider are not recreational drugs, but the only coping mechanism they have.

Serious Case Reviews – (9 of 9) Recommendations

Recommendations

It is very important that the public have confidence in the systems that are provided in their name. This cannot have been helped by the considerable delay in publication, by the removal of harder hitting passages and by the fact that the Board is chaired by the Director of Social Service. This is not about lack of trust in our officers or indeed specifically, Swansea's Director of Social Services, it's all about the public perception of independence.

I would suggest consideration of the following for the future:

• All SCRs should have the same format
  
• All SCRs should be published within 6 months
  
• All SCRs should be entirely independent of any of the agencies that provided services. This would probably require the responsibility being taken away from the Safeguarding Children Board.
  
• The person responsible for commissioning the SCR should also be entirely independent.
  

And

• Urgent consideration be given to extending, by law, the Council Scrutiny process to cover all publicly funded agencies operating in the public sphere.
  

PR - Now is the time for review of child death cases to be fully independent

Labour councillors call for review of child death cases to be fully independent.

Swansea Council tonight debated the three recently published Serious Case Reviews into the deaths of young people in their care. The reports have been seriously criticised for taking up to three years to get published and accused of being doctored to remove or tone down significant harder hitting criticisms of the agencies involved.

Speaking after the meeting, Swansea Labour Leader Cllr David Phillips said, “Whilst sincere, apologies, condolences and claims of ‘lessons have been learnt’ sound glib and inadequate in the face of the sad death of young people who died in 2007/8.”

The full Serious Case Review reports are never made public, only the Executive Summary.

Cllr David Phillips said, “It is not acceptable that councillors cannot see the reports themselves and have to take the Summaries on trust. It is not about lack of trust in our officers, it’s about confidence in the system. Confidence, that we have identified what went wrong and that we know what we need to do to put it right. I am not sure that these reports give us that.”

Cllr Phillips said that he had been approached by concerned individuals wanting an independent review of these latest deaths. He said, “I am not convinced of the need for that as yet. However, I am in the process of seeking certain information from Swansea Council and others –I will have to see what that shows.”

He said, “Nonetheless, it is very important that the public have confidence in the system and that cannot have been helped by the considerable delay in publication, by the removal of harder hitting passages and by the fact that the Board is chaired by the Director of Social Service”.

Safeguarding Children’s Boards are routinely chaired by the local Director of Social Service.

Cllr Phillips stressed that this wasn’t about a lack of trust in Swansea’s, Director of Social Service, Chris Maggs. He said, “This is all about the public perception of independence. I welcome the suggestion that such reports should be produced within six months in future. But I would go further, I would suggest it is now time to consider that the whole process should be independent, with an independent chair as well.”Ends

Sent out this evening  after tonights Council meeting. I will be writing more about that tomorrow.

Will she or won’t she

There is a most curious sight down County Hall at the moment, where long lines of people are standing with their ears pressed to the walls of the Administration Group's accommodation, listening to the screams and wails as the 'arrangements' over who is getting what from the trough at the Annual General Meeting are thrashed out – and all the ears are members of the Adminstration (well the unlucky ones, I guess, the excluded). If they want to know what's going on they should just ask the Opposition, officers or indeed the guy who changes the water bottles – as everyone else seems to know. Unless, of course, this is just an elaborate game of double-bluff. But what the hell – it's amusing, even if it isn't true.

It seems that the elevation of Tricky Dicky, the Earl of Gower, to the Lord Mayorship, has provided the excuse to kick him out of his much abused Chairmanship of the Area 2 Planning Committee. Enough it seems is enough! Even thought the numbers of Planning Committees has doubled, TD's name is not on any of them. Less clear is the position of his running mate – the Mountain Man of Mawr – as he prepares for his second chance at the summit. I would think that he should be pretty safe as Chair of one of the Licensing Committees – as he is generally considered to have done a decent (well decent enough) and conscientious job – all the other stuff notwithstanding.

However, what of Milady Fitzgerald? Well the talk here seems pretty consistent, she's not to be the newly minted Chairman of the Authority after all. Here too, it seems, enough is enough. What has seemed to have stuck in a few throats is that in creating this post, no-one (not least the recently departed Monitoring Officer) seemed to have read the provisions of the Local Government Act, which puts this position second only to the Queen (or her representative) in order of Precedence. In other words, up the front before the Lord Mayor! This is undoubtedly going to get changed – but the risk that it might be the Princess of Penllegaer even if only for a few weeks seems a reward too far – not least to the aforementioned Earl of Gower, who considered he was much put upon in his last outing. A bit of public jostling would be amusing, however.

What is less clear, is where Milady goes. There is one team screaming for her to depart hence to the back-benches, where she should have gone before ("and not before bloody time" as one eloquent Admin-er said). Another that she will become the Chair of Planning – it would seem that they are seriously trying to put the nose of their newest member (The aforementioned etc) critically out of joint. However, there is life in the old dear yet as there is a third version ---- that she is working busily behind the scenes trying to shaft one (anyone) in the Cabinet and get back the place that she so properly and rightfully claims as her birthright. (You may have forgotten – or may not be aware, that Milady has never been an ordinary back-bencher. She arrived newly elected and so (obviously) newly minted as non-cannon fodder. She was not to be one of that underclass destined to fight for the light and an SRA, forced to turn to quick fixes of caffeine and free biscuits and a moan in the Members Lounge (I'll have to think of a synonym here. I was going to use the Funeral Parlour – but that was too near an advert for Mervyn)).

The favourite for the knife in the back is her Independent colleague, Cllr Gareth Sullivan. Well it's either him or John Hague – and he's too much of a bruiser, with half a brick always readily to hand in his elegantly tailored trousers!

Time will reveal all, as always.

Update: I was reminded prior to tonight's Council Meeting that there is another candidate that I had forgotten - the Eastside Gaulieter, the BNP supporting steriliser - Herr Allan Robinson (but then on performance, eminently forgettable). Certainly there would be a synergy in an exchange of positions between Milady and the goosestepper as they share very similar views on parenting support. So it seems unlikley that she would want to cuckoo him out of the nest.  I also rather think that he too would put up a fight - and he is rumoured to be much in favour with the Big Yin himself. But would he become the Council Chairman? If anything - he would be more unpopular (and unwanted) that Milady - mind you the prospect of him trying to manage a Council meeting has a certain morbid fascination (I am truly sick!). Whilst he would be politically closer to his Earlship, I still don't think that TD would find the idea of him taking precedence an easy swallow.

Come what May – well not at all actually

Last Thursday's Council meeting began with a completely pointless (and by Milady Fitzgerald – witless) display of chairmanship (see previous post). It was prompted by the non-arrival of the cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Peter May – the Uplands Uriah Heep.

Now Chris Holley had told me that UH would be late – childcare issues out of town. Given the frequency with which he brings his children to meetings, I thought it more likely to be canvassing, but then I am a cynic! Prior to the meeting he had apparently told others the same thing (arriving late, childcare) – including the Evening Post (which seems a very curious thing to do....). Why say this if you weren't planning to come at all? So it would seem he was coming. The Housing items were the first on the Agenda, as it was known he would be late, why not just defer them until later? And why didn't he arrive?However, the first Housing item was a contentious one – mobility scooters in Gloucester House (see a previous post) and the wider application of his Department's decision to all users in Council sheltered and shared entrance accommodation (and indeed private/Social landlords). Given the imminent election, I had suspected that Cllr Heep would not want to stick his head above this particular parapet – and indeed so it proved.

As the evening wore on and he still did not appear, CH began to look a little desperate. And as the meeting went on until nearly 9.30pm (almost 5 and half hours) UH had plenty of opportunity, but no sign. Indeed, every time the doors to the Chamber opened, one of the wags on my side cried out "Is it Peter May?" – but it never was.

Now I entirely understand that things happen – especially with children. However, this was a scheduled meeting, in the diary for over twelve months – he could claim for the costs of caring (and he often brought his kids with him) – neither he nor his children were ill and his absence seemed apparently planned - so where was he, why had he arranged something else on the evening of a Council meeting when he had items on the agenda – something that doesn't happen too often with his portfolio at the best of times, and no-one was prepared to put the items off until later in the meeting. I believe that politics were being played here. UH has always tried to stay away from anything troublesome in case it harms his slim chances of victory in the election.

Well, whatever his reason was, it was contemptuous of the Council meeting and of the fact that he is getting a large wedge to be the Cabinet Member and for which is not normally called upon to do much in receipt of it.

If anyone saw him around in Swansea last Thursday or knows his actual whereabouts please get in touch.

That’s the way to do it – or not!

First, a bit of background. In an attempt to resolve some of the 'process & procedure' issues the Council has operated for some time, a 'usual channels' confidential committee involving the Leaders & Deputies of the Opposition parties and the Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer – the so-called Constitutional Working Group (CWG). Originally, just me, June Burtonshaw, Chris Holley & Gerald Clement (and now John Hague) attended, but were later joined by Rene Kinzett when he had his Cameroonian conversion. The principle reasoning was to sort out non-political stuff away from the floor of the Council Chamber, avoiding tedious, boring (and not just to members of the public) arcane, and to outsiders, incomprehensible debates. In addition, there were ad hoc meetings between the Group Leaders only.

However, these meeting became increasingly pointless due to Chris Holley's inability to deliver his Group on a wide variety of issues. Although I still nurse the suspicion that not everything had been taken to his Group (see my earlier posts on the Planning Committee issue) and this was just a handy unarguable excuse.

In addition, we also had the Scrutiny & Overview Working Group (I think that was what it was/is called) and the pre-Council briefing, both chaired by the Presiding Officer. The first to determine the order of business for Scrutiny and (given that it had a huge in-built Administration majority) control what was actually scrutinised. (It was this that led to the complaint from the Intervention Board – see earlier post). The second was where we sat down and told each other what we were going to do in the meeting. No, we did really. Well not everything – there had to be some surprises.

Anyway, in response to the appointment of Milady Fitzgerald as the Council's Presiding Officer (it was hardly an election – being a golden gag and a seeming reward for her previous failure)and the control freakery of the Administration, who both started refusing to allow their Leader to meet Opposition Leaders on his own and made the CWG 'proportional', ie loaded it with additional Admin members to build-in a majority (for a committee that could take no decisions), in response to all that, Opposition Leaders took 'industrial action' (I guess that Rene would not want to be seen to be on strike!) and refused to co-operate and attend all these useless meetings.

The consequence of this was that the 'workings' of the Council began to grind exceeding slow – and this bothered the Chief Executive. To the extent that he persuaded us to go along with a conciliator (whom I have described as a 'marriage guidance counsellor') to see whether we could find some common ground to reinstate the 'usual channels'. This proved surprisingly productive. And in a 'full & frank' exchange R & I expressed our dissatisfaction with her conduct of the meetings (especially her frequently exasperated expression and body language), whilst Milady accepted that she could do with some training and would do better. SO meetings between Chris and I were re-instigated and Milady's conduct of the last Council meeting was almost ok – certainly much improved.

However, however....all that was not to last.

Last week's meeting was dreadful. Chris had declined to discuss the Independent Remuneration report and refused the suggestion of the Chief Executive (so I am told) to discuss his plans for the revised committee structure (see previous post) – what was he afraid of? – and Milady's conduct of the meeting was abysmal. I would admit that I started the meeting in a bad mood, as I just learnt that agreements (I thought had been secured) as to how certain reports were to be dealt with had been reneged upon. The Leader of Council had told me (prior) that Peter May (the Uplands Uriah Heep), the Housing Cabinet Member would be late to the meeting (see next post). The first couple of items were to do with the Housing Portfolio, so I asked, not unreasonably, for the items to be deferred until he turned up. This provoked a ridiculous row, as neither CH nor Milady would allow the matter to be deferred to later in the meeting, even though it was obvious that Milady Fitzgerald had been advised by the Chief Executive to do so. Milady then refused to allow me to speak even tho' it was a ward matter. One of my colleagues sought to get the matter deferred to the next meeting and Milady refused that as well. She was then countermanded by CH who said he didn't mind if it was deferred, so she changed her mind and deferred it. This was all completely mad and ridiculous and had unnecessarily raised the temperature of the meeting. Points of order flying around, Two Dinners screaming his head off and Milady F looking right royally irritated – to the extent that I demanded that she took that 'damned exasperated expression of her face' – with her response 'How dare you be so rude' and so on and on.

This was a battle that didn't need to be fought, what was being asked for was not unreasonable, but the way it was handled was disastrous. Unsurprisingly, the meeting went downhill from there. It was one of the worst, I think I've been to. Heaven only knows what the public made of it.

Spring is Sprung

I apologise to my many (!) followers who have been deprived of their fix of Scouse wit and wisdom – well you're respite is over – I'm back! Well until the next disaster. I have been off-line as my home computer has been out of action due to some technical conflict problem with the operating software (no doubt my fault). At least that is what I was told – with a sad purse of the lips and the word "Vista" accompanied by a dismissive shake of the head. It went down immediately after I had a conversation with a mate who was trying to persuade me to switch to an AppleMac. So it might have just been a fit of machine pique. Whatever.......
Spring has most definitely arrived as County Hall has seen a frenzy of nest feathering (and the ejection of at least one cuckoo).

I have posted previously about the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales (IRP). Amongst other things, they removed the Special Responsibility Allowances for the vice-Chairman of all committees. Unsurprisingly this was met with wails of protest from the Administration, although this has not seemed to include the Mountain Man of Mawr. Perhaps he had in mind the consequences of his previous outburst over loss of allowances and didn't want to put his forthcoming re-elevation to the Lord Mayorality at risk – but then again he wasn't directly affected. Anyway, I don't want to be churlish as he has been quite nice to me recently and very amusing on the pomposity of the Brilliant Comrade.

Last Thursday's Council meeting saw the Administration's response. After wingeing for years that it was unreasonable to ask politicians to set their own pay, what is the first thing that our illustrious Leader does – politically interfere with the result. Throwing away an important principle for a cheap political stunt – whilst at the same time cynically (and hypocritically) creating a load of new committees with attached allowances for his Administration cronies. It was actually sickening to hear him trying to explain this increase as a direct and necessary consequence of getting rid of hundreds of staff. (No I didn't understand it either!).

The proposal to double the number of area Planning committees was particularly daft – as Swansea has just finished a long-running skirmish with the District Auditor about our having two committees – he wanted one. Swansea had originally had four committees – but in an attempt to speed-up the process had adopted various suggestions from my Group, including reducing the number of committees to two. So now we have gone back to where we were several years ago – I cannot see that the DA will lie down for this.

However, the most cynical manoeuvre, was the creation of a Chair of Council. Erm...this is apparently different to the Presiding Officer, having different and (as far as I can see) less responsibility – but getting paid the same! I have sat in meetings over the past 18 months or so with previous, the current and next Lord Mayors, the Leader, Chief executive and other officers discussing the changing role of the Lord Mayor – the principle part of which was to re-institute the Lord Mayor chairing Council meetings. All had thought this a good idea. I thought that it had been helped along by a letter from WAG as a result of questions from the Intervention Board about the Presiding Officer's involvement in Scrutiny. Apparently not – in an unambiguous two-fingered response, we have created a new post and in order to pay lip-service to the previous discussions created a new form of ceremonial Council that the Lord Mayor will be allowed Chair!

The new Chair of Council is based on an inexcusable (and inexplicable) misinterpretation of the relevant legislation. But I am guessing that the then (and now departed) Monitoring Officer – and how I would like to post something about his leaving – had some involvement in that so perhaps it wasn't surprising. This new post is not to be paid a Special Responsibility Allowance but an amount to cover the expenses of the office – which have been set (entirely co-incidentally!) at the same level as previous - £9,700 or thereabouts.

However, given that there have been no previous expenses of the post – it's difficult to see how anyone is going to get paid – and I am sure that the DA will have a view of this. I understand that the Leader is planning to go to the IRP to argue for this allowances. I'd really like to be a fly on the wall.

In the debate Paxton Hood-Williams castigated the moral bankruptcy of the Administration – many of whom were visibly uncomfortable with having to vote for the changes – but vote for them they did. And in a recorded vote – I feel another advert coming on! Cllr Margaret Smith described the report as a "lactating financial teat...at which they were all greedily sucking" or words to that effect.

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz,

The Admin knows where their pockets iz

The monstrous meeting

We had a five hour Budget meeting yesterday - no breaks, so great discomfort. And the Council Chamber gets extremely cold. We have the bizarre spectacle of members wearing jumpers or the more discreet with thermal underwear. Well that is the norm for one 'lady member' - she always seem to turn up as if she's just come in from the garden - and seems very anxious to get back there as soon as possible.

As usual all the running was made by the Opposition parties (well that's us (Labour) and the Conservative'). Retiring to his previous idleness and indolence, the Brilliant Comrade, the so-called’ Leader of The Care in the Community Group’, hit on the clever expeditious wheeze of saying that he would have said what Rene K and I said , but as we’d said it first, he wouldn’t repeat it! Too idle even to bother to plagiarise. He even had the effrontery to describe RK and myself as his “fellow Leaders” (Oh, the shame. I'm not his fellow anything). He tried to explain the absence of an amendment by saying he didn’t know what figures to ask for, so didn’t know what to change – or something like that. To be honest it didn’t make a great deal of sense. But then he rarely does (and didn’t even when a member of our Group, or perhaps that should be, especially when he was a member of our Group!). I did like RK’s riposte when the GC said that he wasn’t a Conservative, “No, but you look like one!”


The Admin lot just sat there like a load of over-stuffed (with the SRA sauce) lemons. Not a bleat out of any of them. But the intellectual wing still found it hard to take. The ex-lefty, nationalist ‘two-dinners’ Morgan, stormed out of the Chamber at one point screaming, “I’m not staying here to listen to that crap!” – and went off for a nice restful cup of tea and a couple of kilos of biscuits. After all he had to get his energy up for his usual “I move the question be put” intervention – which sadly never actually came.

(It’s going to be interesting when the 1st April comes and all the vice-Chair SRAs disappear – whilst the Sage of Cwmbrwla goes up by £10k a year to £57k (I think),whilst his Cabinet colleagues trouser an additional £4k. My SRA goes down by £17 (no ‘k’) a year. I’m not jealous, really I’m not. (Even though I do more work than most of the Cabinet – and seem to take more responsibility than they are prepared to do.) But I’m sure that there might be a bit more competition for the SRAs that remain).

I thought the quality of the contributions from the Opposition was very high. I know that we in Labour had put in a tremendous amount of time and energy into researching the budget lines and working on our amendments. We did at least get a credit from Mike Day, who said we get a good job of being an Opposition. Thanks, Mike, much appreciated.

Nice Stuart Rice floundered about trying to find an excuse for their financial mismanagement. He never refuted any of the figures that I had put forward – he couldn’t as he knew where I’d got them from and that they were correct. (Even Wackie Blackie (that’s a reference to his being a Scouser like me, rather than any recreational substance) couldn’t do it on his blog. Although I confess that I gave up halfway through out of sheer boredom). Nice Rice made me laugh, when he said that there was some good news and then announced that the Budget balanced! This provoked The Sage to cry out that it didn’t need to…which will probably be news to the Finance Director and the District Auditor.

Nicey Ricey then started out on some wander around the UK, pointing out Authorities that were in deeper financial doo-doo than here – which prompted one wag to point out that they were nearly all run by Liberal Democrats! However, the best crack of the night came in response to a further traipse around the world by the Council Leader, who when he arrived at Canada, waving a picture of the Lord Mayor and myself at some Haiti fundraiser (no, I don’t either) prompted my, normally quiet, ward colleague Barbara Hynes to shout out “this is about Swansea not Canada”. Himself had the grace to look abashed and quickly moved on.

He and his cronies must have been shocked by the vehemence of the opposition from the public benches, which prompted one to retort, “I’m not going to vote for you lot again”. Let’s hope so.

With the ‘named votes’ (how councillors vote is recorded by name) we got, it will impossible for any of the Administration to hide behind some excuse or other. Save for Audrey Clement who left the meeting early – and our Dennis James who was ill.

Now the game continues with this information finding its way into our leaflets etc. Never seems to end. Ah well, I shouldn’t have joined, should I?

Ignorance & irresponsibility

I was asked by the EPost to respond to a demand for an apology from Chris Holley about some alleged slight about his competence. (I would like to point out that it wasn’t alleged it was quite, quite explicit, and it most certainly wasn’t ‘slight’.) I couldn’t have the whole press release but I did get the quotes, which read as if they came from the great man himself.

“Councillor Chris Holley, Leader of the City and County of Swansea said “When I pointed out that our Country’s lack of finance is the responsibility of the Labour Party in Westminster not the controlling banking sector, there was total denial that any of the problems in Local Government were down the actions of their political party.

Councillor Chris Holley said “The unions are to join with us to call for fair funding for Local Government and call on Welsh Assembly Government and Westminster to make sure we have the funding to keep services going and stop the job losses”.”

I responded:

“Cllr Phillips said, “Here he goes again. Chris Holley must be getting really desperate to claim that the international financial crisis is nothing to do with the banks irresponsibility, but wholly the fault of Labour in Westminster. With such a level of ignorance it’s hardly surprising that Swansea is in such a mess. Of course, I can see why he would want to side with the banks as they have a great deal in common – trousering large salaries for incompetence and total financial irresponsibility coupled with an expectation of someone else to pick up the tab.

Cllr Phillips said, “He might not like it, but I do not apologise for telling the truth, that the serious financial situation is made worse in Swansea by the wild ‘borrow & spend’ plans of his Administration. It’s very worrying that he appears not know that you cannot live on credit forever, and that at some point his ‘friends’ in the banks will want their money back with interest”.

The full exchange will appear in tomorrow's EPost - I will read it with interest.

Now we know

At last night’s 5 hour noisy budget meeting Labour councillors proposed some wide ranging amendments that would have not only kept the Tennis Centre open but avoided teacher redundancies.

Swansea Labour Leader, Cllr David Phillips said, “We presented carefully thought out and considered amendments. It’s disappointing that they were rejected out of hand on a block vote by the Lib-Dems/Independent councillors”.

The amendments not only funded the Teachers Pay settlement in full, but reversed the charge for musical instruments and the cut in weekly black bag collection, kept all street lights on and increased the replacement of faulty street lights. The proposals had been cleared with both the Director of Education and the Council’s Finance Director.

Cllr Phillips said, “Chris Holley and his Finance Cabinet Member had no answers, and made no attempt to answer for their catalogue of financial mismanagement, except bluster and finger-pointing. Having ruined Social Services by years of under-investment they had no choice but the knee-jerk reaction of raiding the Education budget”.

He said, “The hollowness of the claims of the so-called Independents to ‘independence’ was demonstrated beyond doubt last night, as they all voted on-bloc for this regressive and reactionary budget”.

Labour councillors obtained ‘named votes’ for all the budget amendments, in which a record is taken of how councillors actually voted on any particular issue. The Minutes of all council meeting are posted on Swansea Council’s website.

Cllr Phillips said, “The Lib-Dems and Independents won’t be able to hide how they voted. The people of Swansea will be able to see what their ward councillor actually did – and compare that to what they say they did, These councillors will have to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.”

Cllr Phillips was especially critical of the sole Plaid Cymru councillor, Darren Price, who works for the Plaid AM, Dr Dai Lloyd. Cllr Phillips said, “Dai Lloyd had his picture in the paper supporting the Tennis Centre – but when it came down to it, Cllr Price voted with the Lib-Dems to shut it. This is just blatant hypocrisy”. He said, “This Administration is completely out of touch with the people of Swansea – but still expects them to pick up the tab for their expensive mistakes. They are going to get a rude awakening”.

Labour's Budget Amendments

Labour’s amendment details are as follows (I apologise but of necessity they look a bit ‘anoraky’ - and I find I am unable to post the original table - so the alignement is a bit off, Sorry).
The second one perhaps looks a mite complicated. Both we agreed as acceptable amendments by the Finance Director and the second as a potential way forward. It can be seen from both what the Labour Group’s intentions were.

The first is fairly self-explanatory. We proposed


Retain Tennis Centre *                    £   50,000
Retain weekly black bag collection       150,000
200 extra grit bins *                            50,000
Keep Street lights on                          100,000
Additional street light replacement *    150,000
Total                                                 500,000


Financed by reducing Contingency Fund 500,000

* One-year non-recurring items only

The second looks a bit more complicated (and it is) but it works. The intention was to get sufficient money freed up to fund the Teacher’s pay settlement in full.

Teachers Pay Settlement             £ 2,430,000
Musical Instrument Loan                     20,000
Total                                            2,450,000
Financed by
SEN *                                                          £667,000
SRA – Pres. Officer/Deputy Pres                       16,200
Reduce Cabinet Portfolios -4                            64,836
Swansea Futures                                             79,000
Communications                                            100,000
Research & Info (Hd Infom. Cst Serv)              24,000
Contingency Fund                                          500,000
Teachers Redundancy (caveat)**               1,000,000
Total                                                          2,451,000
Balance 1,000

* Schools have to reduce demand for 1-2-1
**Schools have to sign up to redeployment.

2010 Budget - What I said

My hanky is damp with all the sobbing of Cllr Rice’s woes. He blames someone – anyone – else, he doesn’t care. But this just won’t wash. You’ve been here for six years now – you should grow up and accept the responsibility of your actions.


There is no doubt that Swansea Council is in deep financial trouble with nearly all services facing drastic cut-backs. But this is not the fault of the Welsh Assembly, which has provided over £5million extra. This desperate situation is the result of your Administration’s ‘borrow and spend’ plans, where you have placed vanity projects over the needs of ordinary people for essential services. You could have avoided this catastrophe – because that is what it is - if you had made better choices.


You cannot continue to max out the Council’s credit card – without there being consequences. And those chickens have now come home to roost.

We have a financial black hole of £17m – which will grow over the next three/four years to £53million – that’s a 200% increase. So that’s another 1,500 to 2,000 extra staff to be made redundant; tennis players deprived of facilities (and we will be proposing an amendment that will save the Tennis Centre), poorer children having to pay for musical instruments, elderly deprived of respite care, city centre residents having to pay to park in their own streets - when visitors can park for free, libraries closed, teachers being made redundant and above all our children’s future being sold off to pay for your incompetence and weak unfocused leadership. You are very good at always seeking someone else to blame – but what is true is that it is others who have to pay for your mistakes.


You should have looked to the private sector solution for delivering the LC2, buses that people needed, not the derided and largely empty ‘purple whale’. We have aspirations to be a major European city – we are certainly unique in one aspect, our train and bus stations are a mile apart. The Library and Call Centre (well as much of it as we have got) are welcome facilities – but in entirely the wrong place and with a funding deficit to renovate St David's still being required. You inherited an outstanding Social Services department and ruined it by failing to invest adequately. The intervention in Children’s Services mess was inevitable.


You have consistently failed on project and financial management – you scrapped Labour’s stringent financial controls that I introduced (the Budget Prioritisation programme) – replacing it with a wish and a prayer, and ignored the concerns of your own officers, because you knew that many of your projects would not stand proper scrutiny.


You have consistently wasted money, £83million on Service@Swansea – over budget and with little to show for it and none of the £26million promised savings, the Civic Centre more than twice its original budget plus huge sums being spent on staff relocations, the LC2 over budget, you have frittered away £68 million in asset sales to cover failures in leadership and with what to show for it?, and you cannot now borrow anymore money, so Qed 2020 is dead in the water - and on and sadly on.


Yes the current financial outlook is bleak but we believe that better choices in these areas would have strengthened Swansea’s ability to withstand the current problems, not only saving over £100million capital but providing an additional £15+ million to invest in services now.


Times are tough and you have been reckless with the assets of the people of Swansea, your decision making has been slow, reactionary and often wrong. I always knew that the price for your rule would be high. Sadly even my fears fell well short of how badly you’ve failed.


This Budget is a shaming indictment of your management and the people of Swansea can see what you get from Lib-Dem/Independent rule – very little expect the bill! This budget should be roundly rejected.


I give notice Presiding Officer that we will be moving two amendments to this budget at the appropriate time.

Life is hard – background to the previous post

In a sign about how seriously things have changed (and how seriously the Evening Post is taking the consequences of the financial mess – perhaps not surprising given the public furore and published website reactions) for the first time, I was asked to write a piece for their ‘Opinion’ section on the editorial pages saying what ‘Labour would do’ if this was our budget.

However, I had to explain that it wasn’t as simple as that. It’s very difficult for an Opposition party (in local government at any rate) to produce a proper alternative budget – we have neither the physical resources nor the access to the accountants to do the number crunching or the legal advice.


I also had to point out that Labour wouldn’t have been ‘here’ in the first place. Whilst there is no doubt that local government across the UK faces a dire economic situation, the position in Swansea is made so much worse by the consequences (and costs) of the decisions made by the Lib-Dem/Independent coalition led (sic) by Chris Holley.


Their ‘borrow & spend’ philosophy (‘maxing out the credit card’ as I have previously described it) has been ruinous. Swansea cannot borrow any more money until it repays a large chunk of what it already owes and the repayment costs of which are crippling. My personal view was that the Lib-Dems/Independents had adopted a sort of ‘DFS two years free credit’ idea, get the goodies now but pay for it after the (2008) election. And as they didn’t expect to win, they didn’t expect it to be their problem anyway.


As the article makes clear, Labour would have done it differently. The figures are all correct and were provided by Council officers. You will see that they are eye-wateringly large.


One of the big items in the Administration’s budget strategy is their decision to renew the Contingency Fund, an idea with which Labour profoundly disagrees. This is set at £10million and its redirection to specific services would be a useful source of funds. However, it’s clear from our continuing discussions with Council officers that our ability to propose radical budget alternatives based on this Fund is seriously curtailed, as any proposal based on a significant reduction in the fund would be ruled out of order. We are still looking for other room to manoeuvre, but as I said in the opening, this is very difficult with the resources at our disposal and officers can hardly be expected to assist us in demolishing their own strategy!


What’s also clear is that Qed 2020 (the education improvement programme) is dead in the water. No capital budget provision been made and it can only proceed if WAG put up the money. This is not assured. In any event, all future grant schemes will require a 20% contribution from the local authority. This contribution will have to be unsecured borrowing and must be underwritten by a disposal of education land that will repay the borrowing (see my comment on borrowing above). Holley and his mates will be required to submit a robust business case, showing the land, value and disposal dates etc, all agreed in advance or the scheme will not be allowed to proceed. As I say, it’s dead in the water.

The reports also make clear that the shiny new Quadrant Bus Station is already tarnished –and it isn’t even built yet! Due to various on site problems (the statutory undertakers (Gas, Water etc) not actually knowing where their underground services were, design problems – it wasn’t high enough to accommodate the shops and so forth) it is suggested that the funding timetable may have been put at risk – and some of this may fall back on the Authority. Doubt is also cast on the start of the major £9million refurbishment of the Glyn Vivian Art Gallery. Despite all the excited press announcements of the wonders of the project and the imminent planned years long close-down, it seems that the scheme is light by around £3million. It’s been made clear that it won’t start until this gap has been firmly closed – either by finding further monies (hard) or cutting back on the actual work, which could put some of the grants already received at risk.


At a recent Scrutiny Board meeting, the Finance Cabinet Member, the nice Mr Rice, tried vainly to keep the Qed 2020 ship afloat, and had no real answers as to why the Glyn Vivian had been so loudly announced as starting, when the funding wasn’t complete and the total silence on the problems with the Quadrant. That’s open, transparent and democratic government for you, well the Lib-Dem version.


Meanwhile, he’s closing the Tennis Centre (£50,000), taking £40 grand off Cefn Hengoed Leisure Centre and (a really cheap one this) introducing a £10 per session charge to kids for the use of musical instruments in music lessons – nice egalitarian measure that one.


Makes you wonder really. We’ve had Cleggy in the EPost telling us how they’d run the country and Kirsty why we should all vote Labour (sorry Lib-Dem). Run the country – they can’t even run the city! Or is there an ‘i’ missing? I’m trying to remember that crack about whelk stalls – but it’s probably a cliché?