Another horror story from Kremlin Kernow. Apologies for the lengthy update, but it could be 10 or 20 times longer still, given the number of horror stories emanating from across the Duchy, as Cornwall Council officers go AWOL in their duty of care to Cornwall's beleaguered residents. Calls are growing inside and outside the Council for Kate Kennally to be sacked, following five disastrous years as a very highly paid CEO. She seems to have achieved little for ordinary residents other than help destroy the local environment, worked closely with SWW for Cornish water users to endure the highest rates in the country, followed closely by tax payers having one of the highest rates and rises for council tax, and council debt to balloon to horrific levels, yet with services for young and old, abled and disabled to vanish into thin air. What does she do all day, when she's not organising expensive champagne and prostitute jamborees with developers to the south of France?!

And what of Phil Teflon Mason, who's survived mishap after blunder as Chief Planner and Director of Strategy at the council for over 10 years, yet calls his "work" a mess, then just keeps adding to it?

To whom are these people actually accountable when they're offered these gilt-edged positions at the council often with pay-packets - with perks - worth over £200,000pa??

Cornwall Housing Limited - A story of failures and cover up

At a recent Scrutiny Meeting the Managing Director of the Corserv Group was asked about an external review that had been provided in relation to Cornwall Housing Limited (“CHL”), which is part of the Corserv Group which in turn is wholly owned by Cornwall Council.

No previous mention had been made of this review and when pressed the MD agreed to circulate the Executive Summary of the review to members. After much chasing for this document, and some six weeks later, members have been sent an internal, public report, which you can view here, prepared by officers and which contains a supposed summary of parts of the report rather than the report itself.

Given that this report to members is produced by those whose deeds are the subject of the review, it is reasonable to assume that the best possible “spin” has been put on the external review.

Based solely on the officers’ report, it is clear that there have been multiple failures within and around CHL. The report notes that;

1. CHL’s services are average.

2. There are compliance issues that must be urgently addressed.

3. The programme for electrical testing of properties is so delinquent that Cornwall Council has referred itself to the Regulator for Social Housing.

4. Repairs on average take longer to complete compared with other providers.

5. Void turnaround times are greater than the average.

6. Management costs in relation to repairs and voids are higher than the average (despite lower than average performance).

7. Key actions are required now in relation to governance, commissioning and compliance.

The report also comments on a recent scheme under which Corserv Property Limited would spend up to £40 million on purchasing Private Rented Accommodation to be used to house homeless people, a very sensible and economically sound concept.

Before this report it was clear that this project had suffered delays, some of which could quite reasonably be attributed to Covid.

However, the report highlights that this project has “been impacted by internal factors” and also notes that required refurbishment on properties acquired “was significantly under-estimated at the time of purchase”.

The report also comments on a proposed new agreement between CHL and Cornwall Council which has not yet been entered into because of “protracted negotiation of certain legal provisions”. This is an agreement between Cornwall Council and a company that it wholly owns, and not between two unrelated parties, and yet its terms require negotiations and legal costs and time.

Finally, the report notes that the relevant Strategic Director proposed that a new Strategic Risk in relation to CHL to be rated “Red” be added to the Council’s risk register in September 2020, but appears to have been talked out of this by the promise of an external review.

If the risk had been added in September 2020, these problems, or at least a hint of them, would have become public and subject to scrutiny, however belated.

Councillor David Harris, deputy Leader of the Conservative Group on Cornwall Council said:

“This report is damning of the workings of Cornwall Housing Limited, its supervision by officers within the Council and the total absence of any leadership by the relevant Cabinet Member and indeed the whole Cabinet. I am not criticising those at the coal face within CHL, I have seen the work they do and the constraints that they have to work within.

Ever since I became a councillor, I have challenged the absolute lack of transparency in relation to the workings of the Council’s group of companies and this is just the final proof, if it were needed, that change is needed. The Managing Director of Cornwall Housing left very suddenly earlier this year, but no notification was given to Members. I doubt we would even have known about this report had I not asked questions about it and then pressed for a response. If we were not only days away from elections, I would be demanding the resignation of Andrew Mitchell as Cabinet Member for Housing. As it is, I am now asking for the following:

1. The release, in full, of the external report

2. A copy of the self referral made to the Regulator of Social Housing and any response to this

3. An explanation of the “internal factors” that have cause delay within Corserv Property Limited.

4. Confirmation that the previous MD of CHL did not get any sort of “pay off”

5. An accounting of the cost of the underestimate of refurbishment works on properties acquired. Did we use external surveyors to look at these properties in which case what action is being taken against them?

6. Who determined that the recommendation to place this matter on the Council’s Risk Register should be ignored-the ultimate cover up.”

For more information contact David Harris:

Mobile: 07900 054924

Email: david.harris@cornwallcouncillors.org.uk

And if that wasn’t enough, this is your council taxes, folks, and you wonder why they keep rising at horrific rates!

County Hall officials told they must not ignore the local government Ombudsman (by Richard Whitehouse)

A senior Cornwall council officer has been told to write to more than 2,000 people to ask if they want a review of the way their care costs have been assessed.

The move, which will cost County Hall more than £30,000 in additional staff time, follows a ruling by the local government Ombudsman – which council chiefs had wanted to ignore.

On Monday council officers were accused of “making excuses” after claiming they could not complete the Ombudsman’s recommendations due to cost.

Cornwall Council was found at fault by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) earlier this year in how it assessed the finances of a resident eligible for care.

It found that errors in assessing the man’s finances which led to a delay in funding his care. As a result the council was ordered to pay the man’s family £250 in compensation as well as paying £6,491 to restore his capital to £23,250.

The case centred around how the council considered a pension which was paid into a joint account for the couple and so was shared by them. The council had in error considered the money to belong solely to the man requiring care.

The council has apologised to the family and has paid the compensation as well as the money to restore the man’s savings.

However the LGSCO also said that the council should also identify anyone else who might have been adversely affected by its practices over the last 12 months, address any injustices and provides evidence it has done this.

The council officer in charge told the council’s standards committee that there were no plans to comply with that recommendation because it would take too much time and money to complete.

Keith Cheesman, service director of adult social care modernisation, said: “It would mean reviewing 2,000 assessments carried out over the last 12 months. That would take a full time officer 32 weeks to carry out. We are not minded to go back through the case list to do that.”

In a report to the committee it was explained that reviewing 2,423 files which would cost more than £30,000.

Instead Mr Cheesman said that the council would agree to review any files should people contact the council and ask them to do so.

However the committee was unhappy with this and instead agreed that the council should send a letter to every user from the 2,423 files explaining the ombudsman’s findings and inviting them to apply for a review if they want to.

The committee also agreed that the council should also assess a random sample of 200 of the cases to see if there had been any similar errors made.

Tony Woodhams, a parish and town council representative on the committee, said: “You can’t cherry pick on what you do want to do and you don’t want to do. If that is the finding of the ombudsman then, at the very least, that is what you should enact.”

Meryll Dean, a non-elected independent member of the committee, said she endorsed what Mr Woodhams said.

She said: “I am not getting the sense that the ombudsman’s report is being taken on board at all.”

She said that it was vital that the council follow all the recommendations set by the ombudsman and added: “This is potentially a Windrush moment for the council.”

Mrs Dean said that it was not good enough that council officers considered that if people felt that they might be affected by the ombudsman’s findings that they would contact the council. She asked how they would even know about the ombudsman’s judgement to make such a call.

She said: “To say you are not minded or you may not or there are issues when something as serious as this has taken place I find very troubling.

“To ignore what the ombudsman has said should happen is very dangerous ground. I accept that we have limited funds and it will cost. I am not hearing any sense that the recommendation is being taken on board in any serious way.

“This is the lives of people, they are probably in very complex situations. It is incumbent on the council to do something.”

And she added: “I simply do not accept that the council can sit back and ignore what the ombudsman said.”

Sally Vincent, representing parish and town council clerks, said: “With respect to Mr Cheesman I am hearing excuses not solutions.”

Mr Cheesman said that he was not taking the issue lightly but said that he believed that the number of people who might be affected would be “relatively low”.

This did not appease Mrs Dean who said: “To completely ignore the recommendation is wrong, it is wrong in principle and a way through it needs to be found.

“It is very troubling that what I am seeing is an unwillingness to take on what has been said by the ombudsman. It is down to cost rather than injustice.”

Cllr Sue Nicholas said she agreed and said that even if there were a small number of people affected the impact of it could be far greater than the impact on the council of carrying out the work.

Cllr Loveday Jenkin also agreed and said that the ombudsman’s recommendation was clear in stating that the council would have to carry out a review and provide evidence that it has done so. She added: “We can’t turn around and say we are not going to do it because it costs too much.”

The committee agreed that letters should be sent to all 2,423 cases identified inviting them to seek a review and that a random sample of 200 cases should be reviewed by the council with an update provided to the committee when it meets in July.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Cornwall keeps losing its unique character, environment and charm, as preparations are made by the army of development carpet-baggers for G7 and tourism/Covid invasion this summer:

"Every day, any comment I've made two days before on news pages that includes this photo link (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10226001076441249&set=a.1332983292410 triggers a Facebook notification that tells me the comment goes against their community standards. I took Johnson's name out of the photo's text but it's still happening. 'Somebody' has an ever faithful army defending the abnormal/inhumane way in which Carbis Bay has been treated. Soon there might be no way to discuss any behaviour that an 'elected' person gets up to?"

www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/government-didnt-ask-controversial-new-5319178

"Who has been behind it? See the following: https://www.facebook.com/borisjohnson/posts/10158085685456317
More photos, one proving the badgers were driven out: https://www.cornwalllive.com/.../no-wildlife-crime-carbis
See the cluster of beach "lodges" at https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10225887075551298&set=a.1332983292410
Follow in more detail at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2231030427120239"

One commentator notes:

"The annoying thing is many people warned of this phenomenon developing in some villages over two decades ago and cried for effective measures to be put in place to stop this; and not rocket science measures, but tried and tested in Devon and beyond.
But high and mighty Cornwall councillors, usually totally ineffective or just complicit themselves, allowed - often English city vip (venomous intellectually- challenged poodles) - senior council officers to drive through any large scale “growth”, i.e. lots more low quality expensive houses for non-Cornish landlords and racketeering national developers (when you offer political parties a large donation/bribe during an election, that’s a racket), fuelling massive in-migration and urbanisation for years whilst offering no protection for young working families in these villages. So deck hands, farm hands, gardeners, masons, building site gofers, pub workers growing up in their grandparents’ villages had effectively zero chance of ever affording a simple two up/two down cottage in the same village they were born in, and sometimes generations of their families before them.
Phil Mason has a massive responsibility to answer for all these problems, as the chief protagonist, chief planner and now head of strategy for much of the chaos (or as he rather unfunnily called it: “mess”) that’s ensued. Kate Kennally has accelerated the problems in her five years as CEO.
They must both resign immediately and apologise for the crass incompetence with which they’ve driven Cornwall council.
Replace them with anyone, because I don’t think a half-eaten pasty could do a worse job."

And Richard Stubbs Chair of CPRE Cornwall said ""Many schemes that are nodded through by the elected councillors are in breach of the law and get approval simply because nobody knows or notices" Not his words they came from a Cornwall Planning Officer!

Whilst a candidate (Michael Bunney) for next week's elections rightfully adds:

"I'm a candidate for MK in St.Mewan & Grampound and I'm completely opposed to them being allowed to use this loop hole and avoiding contributing to local services. Second homes shouldn't be able to receive the support grants either. Local residents are subsiding these houses, which are often owned by people far away. We also need Cornish powers to limit holiday lets and second homes or our coastal communities will become ghost towns. There's such a huge difference between a local person converting their barn/ garage/ flat etc to build a business to supplement income and the wholesale purchasing of our villages, so they become holiday villages, owned by people from up country."

Cornwall seems doomed....