Who is failing who in Ynys Mon?

Whatever your views on the on-going events at Ynys Mon, the planted suggestion that Carl Sergeant is about to send in the gauleiters indicates that he and his advisors are not so much out of patience as out of ideas.

Central government in Wales, pre and post devolution, is used to having compliant local authorities run by competent officers who corral advise members in accordance with the relevant legislation and allow them an absolute minimum of discretion. There is nothing in the civil service manual on how to deal with a political culture which allows officers to morph into councillors and back again. Nor will you find a guideline telling you how to tackle a situation whereby leaked information is deemed a form of currency and planning permission has become an internal tradable commodity.

The reported exasperation at Cathay’s Park is no doubt linked to suggestions that the earlier idea of merging the troubled island with a neighbouring authority has stalled. This is said to be because Gwynedd is seeking a ‘carer’s allowance’ for taking on the challenge of accommodating new colleagues who too often confuse pushing the envelope with passing it.

The local government minister’s problem is that a chronic inability to ‘reboot’ Ynys Mon into something halfway acceptable remains exclusively his problem. But a much larger worry for him and the WLGA should be the extent to which the ‘improvement agenda’, 'connections' and all the attendant public sector bean-counter industry has patently failed its own critical test. We of course do not know the remit of the recently completed Wales Audit Office review into the authority. But the fact that it reportedly lacks any recommendations speaks volumes.