Left of picture: Jonathan Haswell on a site visit with the Audit Committee

A SENIOR Pembrokeshire County Council officer’s intervention at the Council’s Audit Committee has raised questions about the selection of its Vice Chair.

Jon Haswell, the Council’s Director of Finance, whose department is overseen by the Audit Committee, appears to have sounded out a councillor to accept the post and then checked to make sure that the councillor could be appointed while out of the country.

Following the Council legal officers’ embarrassment at being proved wrong by Cllr Jacob Williams on the correct construction of the law governing the Committee’s operation, a member of the opposition had to be appointed Vice Chair to abide the event of the Chairman’s absence. This meant that only Cllrs Guy Woodham and Jacob Williams, as members of the opposition could be appointed to the post.

At the meeting of the Committee on Monday, June 22, Cllr Woodham was absent. As was widely known, he was on holiday in the United States of America. With only Cllr Williams present of the elected members, it might have appeared inevitable that the appointment would fall to him by default.

That did not, however, happen.

When Cllr Mike James proposed Cllr Woodham for the post in absentia, Cllr Williams asked whether Cllr Woodham was in a position to consent to the nomination.

At that point Jon Haswell, the Council’s Finance Director, intervened.

Mr Haswell told the Committee meeting that he knew Cllr Woodham would accept the nomination, saying: “My understanding is that he [Cllr. Woodham] would accept the nomination.”

When The Herald asked Mr Haswell to clarify the circumstances in which he spoke with Guy Woodham about the nomination for vice chair of the Committee, we received the following response from a Council spokesperson: “Mr Haswell recalls that he spoke to Cllr Woodham in May. He did not approach Cllr Woodham and the subject of the Vice Chairmanship of the Audit Committee came up in conversation.”

At the meeting of the Audit Committee, however, Mr Haswell went further. He told the Committee he had asked Cllr. Woodham “if he would be happy to be nominated” – to which Cllr. Woodham answered in the affirmative.

The clear inference to be drawn from the above is that not only did Mr Haswell ‘pop the question’, but Cllr Woodham was open to the proposal. It also leads to the inference that it was subsequently, and after learning of Cllr Woodham’s impending absence from the meeting that the Council’s Finance Director took steps to establish whether the candidate he had asked about accepting the nomination could ascend to the heights of being Peter Jones’ number two.

We asked Cllr Woodham to comment on what had happened. He told us: “Not being at the meeting I don’t feel in a position to comment. As for events prior to the meeting I’m sure these will be clarified when the Committee meets in September.”

In spite of his comments, we are now able to offer some clarification as to the sequence of events.

According to both Mike Stoddart and Jacob Williams, a clue was given to the meeting by Jon Haswell himself. He revealed he had discussed the appointment with Cllr Woodham’s leader, Cllr Paul Miller. While Cllr Miller was himself on holiday on the day of the meeting, The Herald spoke to him about the position.

Cllr Miller told us: “At the end of a 30min meeting on the Neyland Community Hub Project Mr Haswell mentioned in passing that he had not seen Guy recently. I confirmed that Guy was still away on leave at which point Mr Haswell inquired as to his availability for the audit committee which was coming up.”

He continued: “When I passed on Cllr Woodham’s apologies for that meeting Mr Haswell said something along the lines of ‘oh I think they were planning on nominating him for the vice-chairmanship. Could he still be nominated if he’s not there?’ I provided my view on that question (that yes he could) and there the conversation on the audit committee ended. (No more than 30 secs in the course of leaving his office).”

At which point two questions arise: Who are they? And why was the Council’s Finance Director, whose work is overseen by the Audit Committee, involved in the process at all?

As the only persons who can nominate a person for a post on the Audit Committee are its members, ‘they’ have to be the IPPG members of the Committee. Why ‘they’ should have communicated their wishes to Mr Haswell is a mystery. Still more mysterious is why Mr Haswell had asked Cllr Woodham if he, in Mr Haswell’s own words ‘would be happy to be nominated’.

It appears to be the unlikeliest of happy accidents that Mr Haswell would ask the pertinent question of Cllr Woodham unprompted; not least in the light of his subsequent comments to Cllr Paul Miller about the identity of the persons who wanted to nominate Cllr Woodham to the role.

Having prolonged the appointment process for the lay member who now chairs the Audit Committee, Mr Haswell is now in the invidious position of having apparently taken an active role in the appointment of the Vice Chair.

With all of the respect in the world, that cannot be proper the function of a council officer, least of all the Director responsible for Finance. As all Council officers, Jon Haswell is bound by a code of conduct that provides that he, “must serve all Councillors” and “must ensure that the individual rights of all Councillors are respected.” He is obliged to be impartial.

It is immaterial whether or not Cllr Woodham is the right person to be vice chair of a committee charged with the marking of, amongst others, Mr Haswell’s homework. The process seems to have become hopelessly compromised by Mr Haswell’s acting as the agent for one party, or at least seemingly being aware of the wishes of one party, when seeking to ensure Cllr Woodham’s nomination could go through.

Cllr Woodham must now be very aware of the risk of being perceived as the IPPG nominee or, worse, that of Council officers. Whether he is prepared to continue in such circumstances we shall all, no doubt, discover in September.