Tonight’s Caia Park community council meeting saw a fiery
exchange between community councillors over discussions about a funding application
from the Venture for £14,000. The council, which is usually chaired by Venture
Manager Cllr Malcolm King, had received the grant application following a previous
bid for £30,000 for play sessions being rejected recently due to a lack of
detail.
Cllr Malcolm Kings Labour colleague Cllr Brian Cameron
stepped in to Chair the discussion following Cllr King declaring a conflict of
interest due to being employed by the organisation applying, along with another
Cllr declaring an interest for the same reason.
A discussion ensued with queries about Councillors conflicts
of interest over the item given there were several members employed by or
linked to the organisation applying for funding.
Plaid Cllr Carrie Harper addressed the meeting and said:
“I’ll start for the record by saying that every member of this council has
been a supporter of the Venture, numerous funding applications have received
support over the years that have likely amounted to hundreds of thousands of
pounds. We’ve approved a separate one just tonight for the annual bonfire event
and everyone was happy to support that.We all voice support for the services provided and the contribution made by the staff there to our
community."
"However, I have several issues with this application. We
have all agreed to set a grant budget of £10,000 for this financial year, about
half of that has already been spent and we have a policy to cap grants for each
organisation to £2,500 per year. It’s therefore completely inappropriate for
the Chair of this council to submit a grant bid for £14,000 being well aware of
those rules. In fact he was advised that this was not an appropriate route to take by our clerk but chose to disregard that advice."
"I also have to put on record my concerns that members of
this council have been put in an awful situation by this behaviour. If another
organisation had put this application in, it wouldn’t have even made the
agenda, we’d have written back to them to explain that it exceeded the maximum
amount available."
"As community councillors we are responsible for an annual budget
of just under a quarter of a million pounds. People in Caia Park quite rightly
have an expectation that we will ensure that funding is managed properly and
that all the relevant policies and procedures will be applied fairly, to ensure
that every local organisation has the same opportunity to apply for funding. By
putting this application in, we’re being asked to breach our agreed policies,
for an organisation that is run by the Chair. It looks awful."
"We also know that to continue funding the Venture on the
same basis next year will cost £30,000 and that the community council is
already overspent. The only feasible way to fund this next year is to put people’s
council tax up in Caia Park significantly, I will not support that."
"I also want to put my concerns on the record that certain
members of this council have been pressured to vote a certain way tonight. I
don’t make that claim lightly but that is corrupt. This has got to stop. You
can’t just throw the rule book out when it suits and I won’t have Plaid Cymru
Councillors tarnished by this behaviour if you decide to vote this through
tonight."
"I propose we don’t support this bid as it is because it
breaches our grant allocation policy."
The discussion then escalated with an accusation made by
Cllr Steve Jones of ‘game playing’ to pass tax payers money to the Chair Cllr Malcolm
King. It escalated further following this into an even more heated exchange
between Cllr Jones and the temprary Chair Cllr Brian Cameron. His frustration at the complete disregard for due process was physicly visible. Due to the escalating tension a
time out break was called.
When Councillors returned, Labour Cllr Colin Powell, proposed that
£14,000 was taken from the dwindling council reserves to fund the Venture. This was
passed with a vote of 5- 4.
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