The PSOW has responded to my Maladministration Complaint at Merthyr Council

Text version of PSOW’s response

By email only geoff.jones1@btinternet.com

Dear Mr Jones

Complaint against Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council

I have considered your complaint against Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council (“Council”), which we received on 4 April 2024. I am sorry to read of your concerns.

Your complaint

You complained that the Council had failed to record sufficient information as required by specified guidelines; failed to adequately record the reasons for some of the decisions or actions it has taken; and said there is evidence of falsification or tampering with records.

What we do

We consider complaints of maladministration or service failure on the part of public bodies, which causes hardship or injustice to members of the public.

We normally take maladministration/service failure to mean that the body concerned has not acted in accordance with its policies or procedures.

In considering a complaint, we take account of the Ombudsman’s legal powers and jurisdiction, as well as thinking about whether our intervention is proportionate taking account of our limited resources, or if anything further can be usefully achieved.

Our factsheet explains our complaint and review procedures.

My decision

My role is to consider, on the Ombudsman’s behalf, the complaint you put to us and to assess whether, or to what extent, we can help you.

I have carefully considered the information you provided.

Having considered all the information, I am sorry to tell you that your complaint is not one which we can investigate. I will explain the reasons for my decision.

You will be aware from previous correspondence, as you made a similar complaint to the Ombudsman in October 2022, that a complainant must have directly suffered a personal hardship or injustice as a result of maladministration or service failure to allow the Ombudsman to investigate and/or uphold their complaint.

As per your previous complaint, I cannot see from the information you have supplied that, even if the Council was in some way at fault, you have suffered a personal hardship or injustice (over and above any of the Council’s residents) as a result, particularly as you do not appear to live in the Council’s area.

This being the case, there are no grounds for the Ombudsman to investigate your complaint.

As I advised previously, issues relating to the way in which the Council confirms its minutes are likely for its elected members to scrutinise.

Falsification of documents may be for the Police, if the falsification is criminal in nature, or potentially for the Information Commissioner’s Office to consider.

Whilst I have decided that we will not investigate your complaint, I would like to stress that this does not mean I am not sympathetic to the problems you have described. My decision is based upon the information I have seen.

Procedural matters

An anonymised copy of this letter, which constitutes a formal statement of reasons for the decision not to investigate your complaint, has been sent to the Council.

Your data

In considering your complaint, we need to process personal data. We have legal powers to look into complaints about public services in Wales.

The law allows us to ask anyone we think may have information that will help us to reach a decision on your complaint to provide that information to us.

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We may need to share your complaint and all the material you supplied with the public body you have complained about unless you tell us otherwise.

We need to ask the public body to share information from their records with us.

This may include information held in health or social services records if your complaint relates to one of these areas.

Please note that the information we receive from you will be scanned to an electronic case record. We therefore routinely destroy hard copy information received 3 months after receipt unless there is an exceptional reason to keep the information for longer. Please let us know as soon as possible if you would like us to return any of the information you have sent to us.

Your electronic complaint record is retained for 10 years from the date your complaint is closed. We remove identifiable information from the electronic case record so that we can keep information about complaints for longer to analyse trends.

Yours sincerely

Амито

Leigh McAndrew

Rheolwr Tîm Derbyn/Intake Team Manager

Text version of my response to PSOW

Thank you for your response to my complaint. 


You state that a complainant must have directly suffered a personal hardship or injustice as a result of maladministration or service failure to allow the Ombudsman to investigate and/or uphold their complaint.

 I accept that I have not suffered personal hardship as a result of the Council’s failures to comply with its Constitution. 


I note that you say that the way in which the Council confirms its minutes are likely for its elected members to scrutinise.

I must say that it is not so much to do with falsification of documents, it is more to do with the suppression of official external reports and misinforming or misleading the elected members.

Elected Members cannot debate and make decisions on reports that have not been put before them.

It is my belief that the reason for withholding certain reports from the elected members is down to the Senior Officers protecting themselves for being held to account for their wrongdoings. 

Regarding the presentation of minutes of Committee Meetings to the Full Council for approval rather than to the Committees themselves, Merthyr Council is the only Council in Wales that follows this unconstitutional practice. 

Surely, this should be a concern for the appropriate organisation and needs to be investigated.

I understand that whilst you have decided that you will not investigate my complaint, you do stress that this does not mean that you are  unsympathetic to the problems I have described. 

I also understand that your decision is based solely upon the information you have seen.

So, I would like to give you more information that should enable you to review your decision.

You say that even if the Council was in some way at fault, you cannot see that I have suffered a personal hardship or injustice (over and above any of the Council’s residents) as a result, particularly as I do not appear to live in the Council’s area.

This being the case, there are no grounds for the Ombudsman to investigate my complaint.

I made my complaint of maladministration against the Council as I don’t know any other way of getting you to investigate the matter.

I have read the Factsheet KEEPING RECORDS and note that thorough record-keeping is necessary to ensure accountability in decision-making.

It is also often a good practice requirement and is set out in the appropriate guidelines assisting public bodies in the delivery of their services.

This Factsheet is about complaints relating to flawed or inadequate record-keeping on the part of bodies within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

It states that thorough record-keeping is necessary to ensure accountability in decision-making. It is also often a good practice requirement and is set out in the appropriate guidelines assisting public bodies in the delivery of their services.

It goes on to say that although the initial grounds of a complaint may not necessarily include any reference to record-keeping, we may nevertheless uphold at least part of a complaint where the record-keeping has been flawed or inadequate.

We consider that examples of flawed or inadequate record-keeping will include the following:

• where a public body has failed to record sufficient information as required by specified guidelines;

• where a public body has failed to adequately record the reasons for some of the decisions or actions it has taken;

• where there is evidence of falsification or tampering with records.

It is my belief that Merthyr Council’s unconstitutional governance practices fall within these categories.

I consider it irrelevant that I do not live in the Council’s area.

I am reporting that the Senior Officers of Merthyr Council should be made accountable for their wrongdoings in matters relating to good governance and failure to comply with its Constitution.

These wrongdoings affect the residents of the Council’s area.

The residents deserve to have a Council that complies with its Constitution at all times.

If the PSOW is not able to deal with a Council’s maladministration, perhaps you could suggest which organisation/institution can deal with such wrongdoings.

Update – Email from Council and my response Screenshots of Response Text version including my observations/comments (in red) In your formal complaint, you raise distinct concerns relating to Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council’s compliance with the Constitution. In a bid to determine whether your concerns have bearing, I chose to look at each of them […]

At last, a response from Merthyr Council to my Maladministration Complaint.