South Wales Evening Post - 26 August 2008
The row over Swansea Council's controversial eGovernment project is rumbling on after 31 councillors were reported to a public services watchdog.
The issue reached boiling point last month when Labour and the Conservatives insisted the financial aspects of the deal between the council and its IT partner CapGemini should be discussed in public.
After opposition members called a vote against excluding the public, only to be defeated, they walked out.
Council leader Chris Holley then made the complaint to the ombudsman, suggesting the Labour Party and the Conservatives had broken the members' code of conduct by voting to hold the discussion in public.
In his complaint, Councillor Holley said the 31 members had "voted against the specific advice of the monitoring officer and head of legal services, plus the Section 151 officer for a report on eGovernment going into private session.
"In voting against advice, none of the members gave any valid reason why the monitoring officer or the 151 officer might be wrong or against the public interest."
However, Andrew Walsh, the director of investigations at the Public Service Ombudsman for Wales, has decided not to investigate the complaint.
In a letter to Councillor Holley, also sent to every member named in the complaint, he said the item on the council summons stated that councillors were "requested" to exclude members of the public. "This implies the council can deny the request," he added.
Councillor Holley said: "I am disappointed the ombudsman, who answered this with a great deal of speed, has felt he didn't need to investigate it, as part of the code of conduct states we are obliged to report breaches of the code.
"It calls into question whether advice from the monitoring officer is going to be valued by the ombudsman."
Controversy raged in the week leading up to the July31 meeting, after the Post revealed a confidential council agenda showed work done by CapGemini could cost £8 million. Council leaders have since emphasised the final bill will be negotiated down.
Labour group leader David Phillips said: " When I opened it I thought it was a joke. I wondered whether the leader of the council didn't have better things to do."
Tory group leader Rene Kinzett said: "It strikes me as very bizarre that the leader of the council has made such an ill-advised complaint.
"If councillors are now told that they can't vote any other way other than the way officers tell them, is that advice now an instruction? Does Chris Holley believe it is instruction, because I don't."
