Caerphilly MP Wayne David will demand that the UK Government reimburse Caerphilly County Borough Council more than £1 million it paid out to three suspended council bosses.
Mr David will make the demand in a debate today at Westminster, due to begin at 11am.
Caerphilly County Borough Council’s chief executive Anthony O’Sullivan, his deputy Nigel Barnett and Daniel Perkins, the authority’s head of legal services, were all arrested in 2013 on suspicion of misconduct in a public office after a scandal which saw around 20 council bosses getting secret pay rises.
The decision to charge the men followed a police investigation into a Wales Audit Office report into the pay rises.
They were all suspended on full pay while the criminal investigation took place. The charges were dropped in October last year after the judge declared there was a lack of evidence. The three currently remain suspended on full pay while the council carries out its own internal disciplinary investigation.
In today’s debate, Wayne David will point to the “catalogue” of legal mistakes and failings in the legal system, which led to such a “saga”. He will argue that the UK Government should reimburse the local authority for £1m in salary costs as the council should not bear the brunt of the “failings” of the legal system.
Mr David is expected to say: “It is totally wrong that Caerphilly Council have had to pay over £1 million to these officers because of the failings of the legal system.
“At a time of public spending cuts, Caerphilly Council can ill-afford to lose such a large sum of money. In effect, the people of the Caerphilly Borough are having to pay for the shortcomings of the legal system.
“This is wrong and I hope the Government will recognise this unfairness and foot the bill by reimbursing Caerphilly Council the salary costs they have incurred.”
There is about as much chance of the council being reimbursed by the government as Cameron, as he travels around with his begging bowl, has of getting meaningful change to the EU.
Explain to me how Labour messing up equals the UK government reimbursing Labour? It was Labour who pushed forward with pay rises.
Yes, four Labour and one Plaid councillor on the remuneration committee. Far simpler to have rejected the report, which was produced by senior officers, that demanded they be given ridiculous pay rises.
The ‘elephant in the room’ is that the pay structure recommended by this report is still in place, ready to be activated when nobody is looking. In the meantime the taxpayer continues to fork out handsome salaries to people who have done no work at all for the council in nearly three years. These are the issues which should be addressed.
How about surcharging the Councillors who failed in thier duty to properly consider and closely scrutinise the extraordinary hikes in pay THEY awarded to a few men and women who were allowed to pull thier strings, these officers DID NOT award themselves this money, it was given `freely`, not under any threats, by the sub committee of six Councillors appointed to do so.
It appears to me to rest firmly in the lap of the SIX COUNCILLORS, it is they who should be made to repay this money due to their total lack of due diligence as our elected representatives. Wayne David MP should seek a course of recovery from those responsible for the waste of money in the first place, NOT some third party who were playing at a distance from the `deed`. and he knows he is simply flying a flag on this issue and his attempts to divert attention from his labour colleagues who were actually responsible will not work I am aware that a complaint against the Councillors involved is already before the Auditor General for Wales. who knows where this will go?.
Interesting idea; I thought that there were five councillors involved in the secret caucus, not six. To them can be added the various party officials from Labour and Plaid that must have known about this meeting and set it up. I do not think that the majority of councillors had any inkling of what was happening, but some did.
In addition there may be also a common purpose element involving civil servants and the elected government, who knows? My, often stated, view is that good council leadership would have nipped this scandal in the bud. Who, outside the political bubble, thinks that council administrators are worth six figure salaries? Not many methinks, but this is the entrenched view of an increasingly out of touch political elite.
I predicted that this scandal would run and run more than two years ago and have been proven correct. We need resolution and quickly, there is no chance that the government, or anyone else, will foot the bill. In the meantime agreement has to be reached before the council taxpayer throws even more money away because of this shameful episode. This is the money that could be used for schools, the elderly, roads and a hundred other more useful things.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/…
Typical Labour. We make the mess – someone else can pay for our mistake’.
It the rhetoric they instilled in the county in 15 years of power.
1) Have a kid with different blokes – someone else will pay
2) Do nothing at school and come out without qualifications – someone else will pay
3) Have an accident’ – someone else will pay
4) Vandalise your community – someone else will pay
5) Can’t be bothered to work – someone else will pay
6) Over pay chief officers – someone else will pay
7) Sell land at a fraction of the price – someone else will pay
I wish people will learn that Labour will NOT accept responsibility for their actions or accountability wit OUR money.
Labour voters will never learn, they believe the rubbish that Labour come out with and continue to vote them in, Welsh Labour bleat on about devolution but don’t really want the responsibility that comes with it because then they’d have nobody to blame for their own failings, and that shower of chancers and charlatans who rule over us in Caerphilly from their European funded glass tower need voting out – but sadly come election day the fools will vote them in again for another 5 years.
Its because voters see Labour as the best of a bad bunch. What is the alternative? vote for the Tory`s?
That would be even worse.
Labour will be getting a very bloody nose at the next elections from UKIP.
UKIP may not win the seat – but they will show that it won`t be long before they do.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2016-02-02a.328.0&s=speaker%3A10842#g328.1
CHECK IT OUT
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/…
No Chance.
I don’t think Mr. David has thought this through very well, if at all. He is about to bring the attention of an unsympathetic Tory government to a situation that has been a complete and utter indictment of the incompetence of a Welsh Labour run local authority – not that it was under better management when under Plaid control.