I've given Councillor Rob James, representing Bryncoch South for Labour, some real stick in recent months, due mainly to his poor attendance record at Council committees. To his credit he has not been shy in responding, though has yet to supply any hard facts that would lead me to withdraw the figures I'd presented. Most of these were obtained from NPT council in any case.
I've also written in the past about the fact we are short-changed by our Council when it comes to us being easily able to get hold of attendance figures for our councillors. http://www.spanglefish.com/stan/news.asp?intent=viewstory&newsid=85113
We are promised a system may be introduced after May - whoopee doo - only then bringing us in line with authorities that include Bridgend, Swansea, Carmarthen, Powys, Cardiff and Merthyr. But in fact, there's already a system up and running in NPT that shows councillors' attendances at Council, committee meetings and in the numerous Member Seminars put on throughout the year for our councillors. The only thing is - it's not accessible to the public, only to the councillors via their Intranet. So it's OK for them to know who is and isn't attending meetings, but it's not OK for us to know. That's totally unacceptable and the statement put out by council officers that the council is trialling software and subject to the Council passing it, we can have figures AFTER the elections in May, well, it's just not acceptable in my opinion.
Because of this I have to live off scraps of information on attendances. Be that as it may, I do have some additional statistics to publish. I am not able to reproduce figures for every councillor but blame the Council's failings for that, not me. And any councillor aggrieved by the statistics - well, get the Council to formally publish the stuff and we can all debate it then. Or write in to the Neath Ferret with your own corrected figures where you may find a sympathetic ear, but I doubt it will be one of mine. But I will publish them, with an apology if I've got it wrong.
The statistics below include attendances at the Council Members' Seminars as well. These are numerous but I don't have exact figures for them so you need to bear that in mind. What weight people choose to give to Members' attendance at these - it's up to you. All I can say is the Council's own figures list attendances at these as among the "Expected to Attend" figures. And it could be that the councillors concerned have genuine reasons for sustained poor attendance figures, e.g. illness, pregnancy, sleeping late, couldn't be bothered etc.
If you are wondering why I've zeroed in on some and not others - it's a combination of information received, gut feeling and finally - because I'm writing it! There will undoubtedly be others I should have included. I have no idea how many but it could be a sizeable figure. Poor attendance could be endemic in the Council - but we'll never know. But as surely as night follows day, IF this council ever introduces the records system available in our neighbouring authorities and beyond, then attendance figures will increase - dramatically. Councillors are failing to turn up because they think the public won't find out. It's as simple as that. If they are rumbled, attendances suddenly shoot up - the Invisible Man in Bryncoch South is living proof of it.
The latest figures I've got are collated over 4 attendance periods which take us back nearly two years:
Period 1 - 30/8/16 to 24/2/17
Period 2 - 07/3/16 to 30/8/16
Period 3 - 13/9/15 to 07/3/16
Period 4 - 15/5/15 to 13/9/15
And the figures are basically crystallised into just two headings, those events the councillor was "Expected" at, and those the councillor was actually "Present" at.
Councillor Harry Bebell, Coedffranc West
Period 1 2 3 4
Expected 25 26 33 25
Present 3 15 13 6
Councillor Mrs Paula Bebell, Coedffranc Central
Period 1 2 3 4
Expected 34 31 38 28
Present 4 10 14 12
Councillor Ceri Golding, Aberavon
Period 1 2 3 4
Expected 16 18 21 17
Present 2 4 5 7
Councillor Paul Greenaway, Baglan
Period 1 2 3 4
Expected 15 20 23 19 Present 0 0 6 9
Councillor Rob James, Bryncoch South
Period 1 2 3 4
Expected 19 20 23 25
Present 7 1 3 7
Councillor David Lewis, Alltwen
Period 1 2 3 4
Expected 12 15 19 13
Present 1 2 5 3
Councillor Mrs Marian Lewis, Bryn and Cwmavon
Period 1 2 3 4
Expected 16 18 20 15
Present 3 4 3 6
Councillor John Warman, Cimla
Period 1 2 3 4
Expected 32 29 43 40
Present 11 11 21 22
Councillor Mrs Annette Wingrave, Cadoxton
Period 1 2 3 4
Expected 43 36 48 44
Present 21 10 21 12
Finbarr (Councillor David Lewis) will correct me if I'm wrong but in Periods 1 and 2 I don't believe he attended any Council or Committee meetings. His absences in Period 1 are 92%, in Period 2 are 87%. He is surely a man on the way out and will doubtless soon have lots more free time to spend stroking his Goldfish, with the occasional outburst on the Neath Ferret website.
In the case of Councillor Paul Greenaway I do wonder if those Zero figure attendances in Periods 1 and 2 could be sickness related. How else could you never attend and still be a councillor? So he'd be off the hook if that was the case, though the earlier figures aren't exactly inspiring.
Those really clued up on what's happening with deselection of Labour councillors will note that 4 of the 9 above have been deselected by their Party and are now listed on the Council's website as Independents. These are Councillors Mr and Mrs Bebell, Ceri Golding and Marian Lewis. Rest assured that the Labour Party will say - this is us putting our house in order. Believe that and you'll believe that pigs can fly, a cow can really jump over the moon and that there's no such thing as nepotism in the Labour Party. I have heard rumours that a couple of councillors have gone on long-term sickness coincidentally since the deselection processes, seemingly determined to draw their remaining allowance for actually doing nothing until May.
So there we have it. STaN's further attempt at rooting out attendance figures on NPT councillors. They hardly paint a picture of commitment to the day-to-day machinations of the Council. In my opinion, if every Councillor attended meetings as infrequently as some of those above, we might as well pack it all in and start again. To be honest, I might have something there.
