Gwynedd Council,FOI's Staff Suspensions And The ICO.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) recently 'advised' Cyngor Gwynedd council to release information relating to a subject access request (SAR) from 2020. On the 14th July, 2022, the Information manager emailed in response to the ICO 'advice' - the original information asked for has not been provided...

The ICO has explained that if the council refuse their advice then the next step would be a judicial review - costs of such a review start at £25,000. The council's legal team have access to unlimited public funds to fight the public in such cases - joe public does not...

The original SAR was delayed in part due to the council having to purchase specialist data redaction software... When the information was finally provided it had been so heavily redacted in places that it was unreadable. A complaint was raised and a review was undertaken by the Information manager's line manager, Emyr Edwards, who also informed that the software had destroyed some data on retrieval. Hope the council got a refund. Mr Edward's review did not release the information hence the ICO's involvement...

One such example of heavy redaction is an email thread between the Senior Safeguarding And Quality Officer and a Cabinet Member discussing a possible corporate complaint. Concerns had been raised that the Annual Complaints Handling report presented to the Care Scrutiny Committee was not accurate. The report that year was authored by the Senior Safeguarding officer, himself. A meeting was requested so the evidence could be presented. The Member ignored the request. Both the officer and Cabinet Member have refused to answer questions from Councillors of the Scrutiny Committee in the past... In 2020, a complaint was raised with the council that the same officer had misled another Care Scrutiny Committee. The officer had given a statement regarding the Ombudsman for Wales. The Ombudsman was contacted and denied the words of the officer...

Correspondence from the former Director of SS raises more concerns. In it, she admits that she with the aid of the legal team could not understand the Ombudsman's wording in one report.The former CEO had claimed the same during his incumbency. The present Head of Children's SS has stated in 'lessons learnt' a need to 'read and understand' reports....

The Ombudsman has already raised concerns with the council's lack of knowledge of procedures and law and dismissed one social worker's evidence to his investigation as disingenuous...

In other news, the council's information department has failed to comply with law regarding the FOI Act. A question involving the number of officers suspended from work and for how long has been awaiting an internal review by the Monitoring Officer for over a year.

From a 2018 Wales Online article - 'Welsh councils have paid £9m to staff they have suspended'

Second was Gwynedd, totalling £1,327,117. They said £800,000 of that referred to "police matters". The longest time a member of staff has been on paid suspension at the authority is four years – the longest in Wales... “The other case involves the suspension of members of staff for the duration of a statutory investigation by the police and social services which lasted for approximately three years. This process concluded with the CPS deciding not to proceed with any prosecutions. The council is currently carrying out its own subsequent internal investigation into the matter and as a result the individuals remain suspended from their posts.” The full article can be found here - https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-councils-paid-9m-staff-14876849 So the CPS dropped the case - issues with evidence? The council then began its own internal investigation but since then radio silence... Has this investigation been completed? Or are the officer's still suspended from the council - after 8 years? Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...