On the face of it this is a preposterous idea. The Ombudsman, after all, is supposed to find maladministration, and prevent it, not promote it. But in Anglesey we have a curious and anomalous situation in which the Welsh Ombudsman identified maladministration (as a result of which a complainant received financial compensation from the maladministrating local authority). However, the maladministration not only persists, but is now being set in concrete with the benefit of Objective 1 funding from the European Commission
How could such a thing happen?
Anglesey (Ynys Mon) Council clearly made a bad planning decision in 1992 when it authorised a motor racing track on an old MOD< site, within a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), contrary to local, national and EEC policy on protection of the environment. There was no environmental assessment. There is (apparently) no written record of the proceedings.
The Countryside Council for Wales (CCW), the body that designated the AONB apparently knew nothing of this decision until afterwards. But nor did the CCW oppose that bad planning decision when it did learn of it. The die was now cast. Welsh Assembly Government takes the advice of CCW on these matters, so WAG did not oppose it either. The race organisers had no qualms about applying for a Welsh Development Agency (WDA)grant of £320 000 to clear the site - the understanding being that it would be returned to agriculture. Clearly, it wasn't. When asked about this, the National Audit Office (NAO)said that this was only an understanding, not a condition, and that there would no claw back of misused public funds.
In 1996 the Ombudsman was appealed to (mostly by local residents complaining of noise nuisance). Initially he was reluctant to consider the original planning decision, but was eventually persuaded that it would be absurd to investigate noise nuisance without considering the planning decision that had authorised it. In 1998 his report found maladministration by the local Council.
Clearly the Council had been in breach of its statutory duty in making that bad planning decision. But if the findings were admirable, the recommendations at the end of the report were far from being admirable. They took the form of a thoroughly half-baked compromise in which which the maladministrating Council was given the option of offering compensation of a few hundred pounds to one individual, leaving a flawed planning decision intact, and the abuse of an illegal motor racing track not merely to continue, but to flourish.
Not merely did noise nuisance continue, but the noise monitoring laid down as a condition in the original planning decision was quietly discontinued. It has proved impossible to ascertain, from Ynys Mon officials, whether anything other than "ad hoc" monitoring (whatever that means) has being carried out over the past five years.
What has the Welsh Ombudsman to say about this ongoing shambles of misgovernance? Nothing. After issuing the 1998 report he declared himself "functus officio". Job done. No further comment.
Ongoing breach of statutory duty is not, it appears, such a big deal. CCW is not bothered about it. Nor is WAG. Nor is the Ombudsman. Nor is the Welsh Public Services Ombudsman, as the Welsh Administration Ombudsman has been repackaged and rebranded since 1st April 2006 (note the date!) Nor is the intellectually zero Welsh Office for European Funding (WEFO). Nor is the European Commission (who have made the big mistake of taking advice from WEFO). Nor is the National Association of AONB (NAAONB). Nor is the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales CPRW). Nor are Westminster politicians, with the honourable exception of Michael Meacher and Tony Benn. As for the Anglesey MP (Albert Owen), he admits admits there has been breach of statutory duty, but proposes to do nothing whatsoever about it. The Committee for Standards in Public Life refuses to address the issue, on the grounds that is an individual case. But was there ever a breach of standards that wasn't?
Shouldn't the media in the UK, and certainly Wales, be taking this important public interest issue on board? The editor of the Guardian can't even acknowledge letters on the subject. Charles Clover, the Daily Telegraph environment correspondent, doesn't respond to emails. (Nor does Prof Giddings of the Centre for Ombudsman and Government Studies at Reading University).
BBC Wales not only refuses to touch the topic, it refuses to disclose even how many times it has covered sporting events at this controversial venue. And this is the news organisation without which, according to its Chairman, Professor Merfyn Jones "Wales would be bereft."
Is it fair to lay this mess at the door of the Ombudsman? The answer is both yes and no. No, inasmuch as the remit of the Ombudsman as laid down in the 1974 specifically excludes the public interest from consideration. The hapless Ombudsman is the victim of administrative muddle. He is called on - exclusively- to address individual cases of complaint, despite the fact that in the real world the private and public interest can't be separated in this way. Yes, inasmuch as a publicly funded organisation that simply "finds" maladministration and then declines to involve itself in any way with stopping the maladministration runs the risk of being seen as a cynical bureaucratic irrelevance - on a par with the joker who escorts the old lady only half way across the road. It certainly ensures that breach of statutory duty on the part of local authorities remains un-remedied. The abuse remains in existence, and other branches of a pullulating bureaucracy who try and deal with the consequences get their credibility damaged by having to pretend there has been no abuse.
If it wasn't so serious it would be comical.
But will anyone who reads this case history deny that the Ombudsman's office, as it currently operates, promotes maladministration?
Pablo