A Labour councillor reported to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales after allegedly not declaring an interest during a vote to award council bosses huge pay rises has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Darran Valley councillor David Hardacre has “no case to answer” as a result of a complaint made by Cllr Colin Mann, the leader of the Plaid Cymru group on Caerphilly County Borough Council.
The complaint was in relation to a vote to award pay rises to 21 senior council managers.
One of the managers to receive a pay rise was Gareth Hardacre, the council’s head of human resources and organisational development. He was present at the meeting of the Senior Remuneration Committee on September 5 when rises for top managers, including himself, were approved.
Mr Hardacre’s father, Labour councillor David Hardacre, the cabinet member for performance and asset management, was present when the minutes of the committee meeting were received and noted at a full council meeting on October 9, but did not allegedly declare a conflict of interest.
The ombudsman has said Cllr Hardacre had no case to answer as there was “no prima facie evidence of a breach of the Code of Conduct”.
Cllr Harry Andrews, the leader of Caerphilly Council, said: “We welcome official confirmation that Cllr David Hardacre has acted properly throughout in this issue. David is a long-serving councillor of distinction. It’s saddening that Plaid Cymru tried to play party politics by impugning Cllr Hardacre’s widely-respected integrity.”
How convenient!!
This complaint against Councillor David Hardacre was always a non starter, and, a ` non` event`, after all, he was accused of doing ` nothing`, rather than acting in a way which offended against the Councillors Code of Conduct.
If all Councillors who were reported for ` Doing Nothing`I know of a few who would be 100% guilty of that ` offense`, but, I hesitate to name them.
This is typical!
Seems to have been a cynical ploy to catch him out on a technicality. Whilst I think this farce has been a waste of money, I recognise the need for the councillor in question to have his name cleared.
Plaid should not be trying to besmirch the reputation of councillors in such an underhand way.
I can well remember a Tory councillor who declared an "interest" in Cardiff. Although nothing happened, he played safe. Ditto – or was it not ? – the happening in Caerffili. The Labour man was lucky this time. The Plaid man did not win, but he was right to raise the case.