WHY did issues of governance and oversight between a council and a waste services contractor “fly under the radar” for so many years, a councillor has asked.

At a special meeting of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council on Monday, February 7, councillors looked at the findings of the Audit Wales report into the council’s relationship with Silent Valley and to agree a way forward.

Silent Valley Waste Services Limited, is a company owned and controlled by Blaenau Gwent, and can be described as a “teckal” company.

The report is the fruit of a four-year investigation and delves back as far as the formation of the company more than 30 years ago.

Wales auditor general, Adrian Crompton took councillors through the main points that his report raised and highlighted that that the council failed to establish robust and effective arrangements in its relationship with Silent Valley between 2003 and 2017.

Cllr Wayne Hodgins said:

“This has been going on for a number of years under all administrations, Labour, Independent, whatever – way back.

“What’s really concerning is that annually the Wales audit office, audit Blaenau Gwent.

“Over that period of time there wasn’t any indications in reports that audit had gone into the teckal compliant company of the local authority, and I can’t understand that,

“When there was a full, warts and all  analysis of the authorities’ actions by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) there was no mention of it there either.

“I cannot understand how this has stayed under the radar until 2017.”

Cllr Hodgins said that he could see Silent Valley were generating a profit but there was “no sign” of a dividend being paid back to the shareholder, Blaenau Gwent.

Cllr Hodgins said: “Why haven’t the audit office picked this up many years ago?”

Wales auditor general Adrian Crompton said:

“It’s a perfectly understandable question.”

“I am not the auditor of Silent Valley itself, they have their own external auditors.”

Mr Crompton pointed out that he was the auditor for Blaenau Gwent and that the accounts of Silent Valley are “consolidated” into the councils.

Mr Crompton said:

“With a turnover of around £1 million the financial significance is relatively small in the scheme of the authority’s overall expenditure

“My audit of the group accounts of the authority as whole, focus on the higher value areas.

“I guess that illustrates the fundamental point that flows from my report.

“Audit Wales and audit professionals generally should not be seen as the safeguard that protects any public body from this sort of action or behaviour.

“The internal oversight and governance and organisation puts in place is the first line of defence to ensure this sort of situation is avoided.”

Mr Crompton explained that they were only brought in to investigate after a whistle-blower had brought the issues to the council’s attention in August 2017.