On the face of it this is a preposterous idea. The Ombudsman, after all, is
supposed to find maladministration, and prevent it, not promote it. But in
Anglesey we have a curious and anomalous situation in which the Welsh Ombudsman
identified maladministration (as a result of which a complainant received
financial compensation from the maladministrating local authority). However, the
maladministration not only persists, but is now being set in concrete with the
benefit of Objective 1 funding from the
European Commission.
How could such a thing happen?
Anglesey (Ynys Mon) Council clearly made a bad planning decision in 1992 when it
authorised a motor racing track on an old
MOD site, within a designated
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), contrary to local, national and EEC policy on
protection of the environment. There was no environmental assessment. There is
(apparently) no written record of the proceedings.
The Countryside Council for
Wales (CCW), the body that designated the AONB apparently knew nothing of this
decision until afterwards. But nor did the CCW oppose that bad planning decision
when it did learn of it. The die was now cast.
Welsh Assembly Government
takes
the advice of CCW on these matters, so WAG did not oppose it either. The race
organisers had no qualms about applying for a
Welsh Development Agency (WDA)
grant of £320 000 to clear the site - the understanding being that it would be
returned to agriculture. Clearly, it wasn't. When asked about this, the
National
Audit Office (NAO) said that this was only an understanding, not a condition,
and that there would no claw back of misused public funds.
In 1996 the
Ombudsman was appealed to (mostly by local residents complaining of
noise nuisance). Initially he was reluctant to consider the original planning
decision, but was eventually persuaded that it would be absurd to investigate
noise nuisance without considering the planning decision that had authorised it.
In 1998 his report found maladministration by the local Council.
Clearly the Council had been in breach of its statutory duty in making that bad
planning decision. But if the findings were admirable, the recommendations at
the end of the report were far from being admirable. They took the form of a
thoroughly half-baked compromise in which which the maladministrating Council
was given the option of offering compensation of a few hundred pounds to one
individual, leaving a flawed planning decision intact, and the abuse of an
illegal motor racing track not merely to continue, but to flourish.
Not merely did noise nuisance continue, but the noise monitoring laid down as a
condition in the original planning decision was quietly discontinued. It has
proved impossible to ascertain, from Ynys Mon officials, whether anything other
than "ad hoc" monitoring (whatever that means) has being carried out over the
past five years.
What has the Welsh Ombudsman to say about this ongoing shambles of misgovernance?
Nothing. After issuing the 1998 report he declared himself "functus officio".
Job done. No further comment.
Ongoing breach of statutory duty is not, it appears, such a big deal. CCW is not
bothered about it. Nor is WAG. Nor is the Ombudsman.
Nor
is the Welsh Public Services Ombudsman, as the Welsh Administration Ombudsman
has been repackaged and rebranded since 1st April 2006 (note the date!)
Nor is the intellectually zero
Welsh Office for
European Funding (WEFO). Nor is the
European Commission (who have made the big mistake of taking advice from WEFO).
Nor is the
National Association of AONB (NAAONB).
Nor is the
Campaign for the
Protection of Rural Wales CPRW). Nor are Westminster politicians, with the
honourable exception of Michael Meacher and Tony Benn. As for the Anglesey MP
(Albert Owen), he admits admits there has been breach of statutory duty, but
proposes to do nothing whatsoever about it.
The Committee for Standards in
Public Life refuses to address the issue, on the grounds that is an individual
case. But was there ever a breach of standards that wasn't?
Shouldn't the media in the UK, and certainly Wales, be taking this important
public interest issue on board? The editor of the
Guardian can't even
acknowledge letters on the subject. Charles Clover, the
Daily Telegraph
environment correspondent, doesn't respond to emails. (Nor does
Prof Giddings of
the Centre for Ombudsman and Government Studies at Reading University).
BBC
Wales not only refuses to touch the topic, it refuses to disclose even how many
times it has covered sporting events at this controversial venue. And this is
the news organisation without which, according to its Chairman,
Professor Merfyn
Jones "Wales would be bereft."
Is it fair to lay this mess at the door of the Ombudsman? The answer is both yes
and no. No, inasmuch as the remit of the Ombudsman as laid down in the 1974
specifically excludes the public interest from consideration. The hapless
Ombudsman is the victim of administrative muddle. He is called on - exclusively-
to address individual cases of complaint, despite the fact that in the real
world the private and public interest can't be separated in this way. Yes,
inasmuch as a publicly funded organisation that simply "finds" maladministration
and then declines to involve itself in any way with stopping the
maladministration runs the risk of being seen as a cynical bureaucratic
irrelevance - on a par with the joker who escorts the old lady only half way
across the road. It certainly ensures that breach of statutory duty on the part
of local authorities remains un-remedied. The abuse remains in existence, and
other branches of a pullulating bureaucracy who try and deal with the
consequences get their credibility damaged by having to pretend there has been
no abuse.
If it wasn't so serious it would be comical.
But will anyone who reads this case history deny that the Ombudsman's office, as
it currently operates, promotes maladministration?
Pablo
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