THIS WEEK, Badger wants to invite you to Join him on a journey through one of the most famous sayings in English: Namely that if you provided an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters (or, in these go-getting times, so-called ‘laptop’ computing devices), and an infinite amount of time then one of them would eventually come up with the works of Shakespeare. Or perhaps Frederick Forsyth. Badger forgets. Badger has written before about the County Council’s European Manager, Gwyn Evans. Mr Evans has a string of letters after his name which suggests that, whatever his failings in putting in place adequate guidance for the proper operation of a multi-million pounds grant scheme, he could re-arrange his qualifications into a formidable score at Scrabble. Hiding behind a cloud of verbiage and ink is, perhaps, an appropriate image for the Council’s own ‘Captain Euro.’ The kudos afforded to the ‘highly qualified’ European Team at Pembrokeshire County Council at a time when this week’s Audit Committee revealed that so convinced of their own expertise were its members that the basic stuff of doing their job passed them by. Having ticked the right box they were able to say everything was okay with its administration of millions of pounds of public money. Except it wasn’t. Bearing in mind the extent to which the report has been filleted at the desperate behest of County Council officers desperate to cling to their jobs and their pensions, what remains is striking enough. Imagine, readers, imagine what the unexpurgated version would have looked like had it been prepared by an independent assessor instead of the Council’s own officers. Assuming, of course, that an

independent assessor had been given access to the documents as they existed at the time they were created and not as subsequently ‘amended.’ Gwyn Evans knows all about ‘amending’ things to make the record look better. Remember, readers, Gwyn is the notorious ‘minutes-meddler,’ whose identification in this newspaper caused Bryn to summon senior officers, senior councilors and the former Audit Chair John Evans MBE and tell them he had ‘vays of making zem tok.’ However many changes an: made, readers, no number of weasel words can hide the fact that the procedural guide used to administer grants was — well, readers, Badger apologises for the crudity — crap. It did not provide adequate safeguards to ensure that scarce public funds were being spent as they were supposed to be spent. Or, perhaps, it was not the manual which was crap, just those charged with using it. In either circumstance, Gwyn might well look grim. As Badger’s dear old friend Grumpy has revealed — Grim Gwyn knew everything about the original grant manual. He was an authority on it. He told Grumpy that he knew he was an authority on it as he wrote it. It’s an interesting dilemma: Either Gwyn’s manual was useless and needed amending, or the manual was adequate but his fellow officers believed that be and it could be safely ignored. In his shoes, readers, would you rather your work was useless or that your co-workers thought it valueless? On the face of the Internal Audit Report, readers, all those letters, wit and skill managed to miss out pretty obvious steps, like requiring officers junior to him to establish that work for which payment was made had actually been done. And, readers, in case you

are dubious that such a highly expert and qualified individual could be that daft, here is what the Internal Audit Report actually says what should be in the revised manual it proposes: Detailed photographic evidence of all proposed grant funded work (internal and external) should be captured and retained prior to work commencing, at each site visit and on completion of works; The frequency of site visits should be stipulated and the exact checks undertaken should be clarified (i.e. cross-referenced to the specification and signed off as satisfactorily completed); Payment should only be made when the authorising officer is satisfied that the checks have been undertaken to verify the completion of work and evidence of defrayment has been obtained: Checks should be undertaken to verify the authenticity of infonnation provided, e.g. hazardous waste disposal certification. What does this all mean, readers? Look at what it says must happen in the future. Working backwards, and proceeding on the basis that those bullet points refer to deficiencies in the previous procedure, allows us to posit that: No detailed photographic information exists of projects that claimed hundreds of thousands of pounds; Site visits were haphazard and checks on works ineffective; Payment was made when no evidence of payment had been received. They never even got bank statements as evidence at the time claims for payment were made. Please note, readers, when asked after the proverbial hit the fan, the developer Cathal McCosker refused to provide them. He is said to have been willing to pay back £125,000 to make it all

go away rather than let the Council or WEFO examine his bank statements. Statements that the Council’s own procedure manual say should be provided before payments out are made; Checks were not carried out — or were inadequately performed – to validate whether substances such as asbestos (for example) had been safely removed and disposed of. Imagine not handling or disposing of asbestos (for example) safely. You would have to be mad, bad or both to even contemplate such a thing. Asbestos (for example) is lethal stuff and can cause all sorts of nasty problems: mesothelioma (for example). You can’t just bury it (for example) under a handy backyard, garden, or car parking area and hope for the best. Can you? And, of course, this is only one grant scheme: The Commercial Property Grants Scheme, funded by the European Union. The Town Heritage Initiative, funded by Lotto, did not even have a manual. Badger will restate that point, readers: So arrogant were officers in the Council’s Regeneration Department that they did not think they needed something as basic as a procedural manual to manage hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money. When Jamie Adams says he thinks it is about outcomes not processes, Badger hopes Jamie understands that there are occasions when procedures are important. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and has many benefits. The problem with Mr Evans and his colleagues is that they were told what the problems were by Mike Stoddart a long time ago. The response of the Council was to try and rubbish Councillor Slot!dart. Officers briefed against him, a fatuous – and demonstrably wrong – FAQ document was prepared to contradict him to the

general public; no effort was spared to help the IPPG claque try to knock him of course. Officers effectively stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted: “La-la-la” to stop the truth getting to them. Grumpy, Mike Stoddart may be, but he was right at the time, right all along in all important respects, and he is owed an apology by all of those who would not listen to an inconvenient truth when first told. So, readers, who is at fault? The answer, you might be surprised to learn, is not the man at the top: The Council’s own Dr Dolittle, Steven Jones. He is not to blame. He made it clear that the buck wouldn’t stop with him when this whole shebang kicked off in January. Badger notes that elsewhere in this paper he is still convinced the buck stops elsewhere. And it probably —almost certainly — won’t stop with Grim Gwyn, whose gyroscopic sense of his own importance and intelligence might actually have persuaded other officers that he is almost as clever as he thinks he is. No readers, some other patsy will retire on ill health and grab a pension before he is given a stern wigging and told not to do it again. Perhaps those wheels are already in motion, readers. Say no more. After all, readers, at Pembrokeshire County Council — and to Dr Dolittle’s relief — with great power does not come great responsibility. Let’s go back to those monkeys tip-tapping away on those typewriters, readers. In under five minutes, Bongo, the Macaque in the far corner, has come up with a new motto for the Council’s Regeneration Office and its ‘highly regarded and expert’ European Team. Let’s have a peek, shall we? What has Bongo come up with? “It matters not whether you win or lose but where you place the blame.” How true readers. How true.