Ombudsman ‘rebuffed’ as councillor’s suspension judged to be too harsh

Martin Shipton

The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has suffered a rebuff after a decision that a councillor should be suspended for six months following a petty row was judged too harsh by the Adjudication Panel for Wales.

Back in 2022, during a meeting of Bridgend Town Council’s regeneration committee, chaired by Independent Cllr Steven Bletsoe, a discussion took place about the possibility of inviting the then Prince Charles to unveil a plaque to honour Bridgend-born John Thomas, who was Royal Harpist to Queen Victoria.

Cllr Bletsoe’s wife Freya Bletsoe, also a councillor, suggested after consulting the Lord Lieutenant of Mid Glamorgan Peter Vaughan that the discussion should take place in private: if the invitation to the Prince was declined, it would embarrass him if the request was in the public domain, and if he accepted, there would be security considerations.

The clerk to the committee disagreed and there was a robust exchange of views. Cllr Freya Bletsoe, who was attending remotely from Yorkshire, left the meeting. Subsequently she complained about the clerk, who in turn complained she had been bullied by the councillor.

Detail

At the next meeting of the committee, Cllr Steven Bletsoe objected to the minutes of the meeting, claiming they did not accurately reflect what happened and that they broke normal procedure by going into too much detail about the exchange of words between his wife and the committee clerk. In terms of accuracy, he said the minutes failed to say that his wife had said sorry when leaving. Committee members agreed to change the minutes accordingly.

The clerk to the town council then made a complaint about Cllr Steven Bletsoe to the Ombudsman, claiming that he should have declared an interest and not complained about the minutes because he was the husband of Cllr Freya Bletsoe.

Sinead Cook, who headed the complaints team at the Ombudsman’s office, initially had an involvement in dealing with the complaint at the Ombudsman’s office, later handing the case over to a colleague when responsibilities in the office were reallocated.

Independent councillors, including Cllr Bletsoe, were involved in complaining about Ms Cook, who had been posting offensive messages on social media using pseudonyms, including one that said “F..k the Tories.” She lost her job as a result.

A 406-page report on the complaint against Cllr Steven Bletsoe, including findings from Ombudsman Michelle Morris, was sent to members of Bridgend County Borough Council’s standards committee, which has oversight over the town council.

Gain advantage

Ms Morris’s report states: “I consider the member used his position improperly in an attempt to gain advantage when he suggested the minutes should not include the detail of the dispute, nor details about his wife’s alleged behaviour therefore, and by stating that he had heard his wife apologise and say she was leaving the meeting.

“I am not persuaded by the member’s argument that there was no advantage to his wife, because my office would seek its own evidence, regardless of what the minutes said. While my office would of course investigate impartially and independently, minutes are an important evidential document and his suggestion to remove any details about the dispute, including what was alleged to have been said and by whom, including references which showed his wife may not have treated others with respect and consideration can only have been advantageous to his wife and disadvantage to the clerk.”

The committee decided that Cllr Bletsoe should be suspended from the town council for six months.

He said at the time: “The decision is absolutely appalling. I have been suspended for the longest period possible and if the decision is upheld I will lose my seat on the council because you are automatically disqualified if you don’t attend a meeting for six months.

“As chair of the committee I considered it my duty to raise the issue of the inaccuracy of the minutes, and would have done so whether the issue concerned my wife or any other councillor. I am extremely concerned about the initial involvement of Sinead Cook in this case. I am one of the people she made derogatory comments about on social media. I can’t help feeling that the Ombudsman’s office has it in for me.

Now the Appeal Tribunal of the Adjudication Panel for Wales has recommended that Cllr Bletsoe’s period of suspension should be reduced from six months to 10 weeks.

The tribunal’s judgement said: it did not consider that the breaches comprised of the most serious type of breach typically referred to Standards Committees in Wales.

‘Clear cut’

It added: “The Appeal Tribunal noted that the examples of failure to declare personal and prejudicial interests provided in the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (PSOW) Guidance were clear-cut, relating to matters such as deliberate deception for personal gain, systematic bullying, or a breach of confidentiality regarding sensitive information.

“The substantive issue in this case … was to do with the unveiling of blue plaques and was not to do with a matter which personally affected the appellant’s wife. The failure to declare a personal and prejudicial interest arose in relation to the subsequent minutes and arose because of the recording of certain details of a dispute that occurred at the meeting and involving the appellant’s wife and the clerk which then led to a complaint to the PSOW about the wife’s behaviour at that meeting. Significantly, however, the Appellant’s wife declared a personal and prejudicial interest and the Appeal Tribunal considered that this should have alerted the Appellant to the need to consider his own position with regard to the relevant item.”

The judgement added: “[The] Appeal Tribunal noted that the Standards Committee found the Appellant to have been in breach of six paragraphs of the Code. However, these were all in relation to the same events concerning the minutes of the Regeneration Committee dated June 12 2022. The Appeal Tribunal did however consider that there had been a pattern of behaviour in terms of there being a repeated failure to declare personal and prejudicial interests, particularly in relation to the Regeneration Committee meeting of October 24 2022 and the full Council meeting of December 12 2022. As regards the Council meeting of September 26 2022, the Appeal Tribunal recognised that, as Chairman of the Regeneration Committee meeting, the Appellant was in an invidious position in his chairman’s role of presenting and signing minutes which he did not feel able to support.

“The misconduct related to one set of minutes, albeit that the failure to declare a personal and prejudicial interest, and participation in relation to the relevant item, took place over more than one meeting. The appellant was acting in good faith and due to an honestly held, albeit mistaken view that the conduct did not involve a breach of the Code of Conduct. The misconduct arose from the unusual way in which the minutes had been drafted.

“The Appeal Tribunal considered that if the minutes had been drafted in a neutral manner, to simply record that a dispute had occurred, then it was unlikely that the minutes would have been controversial or that a Code breach would have been established.”

The tribunal’s recommendation has been sent to the Standards Committee for a final decision.