Council workers dismissed for side hustles

Richard Youle, local democracy reporter

A council worker who couldn’t resist the lure of a side hustle was rumbled and dismissed, a report has revealed.

The person was found to be using Carmarthenshire Council grass-cutting machinery for private work and carrying out the work when they were supposed to be on duty.

The incident was mentioned in an audit and governance committee report, which also found that an employee gained unauthorised access to the council’s leisure booking system and allowed friends and acquaintances free entry.

Dyfed-Powys Police investigated following a referral from the council and issued the individual with a community resolution – an outcome used for lower-level offences.

The employee no longer works for the authority.

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Rare

Given the council has more than 8,000 staff incidents such as this are vanishingly rare.

Committee members heard more about the council teams which tackle fraud and corruption including the consumer and business affairs service, which carries out Trading Standards investigations. The work of this service led to 15 convictions in 2023-24 and was said to have prevented £14.3m of losses for people. The corresponding figures for the previous year were 12 convictions and £11m.

Cllr Kim Broom said she wished to highlight the Trading Standards success, which was echoed by committee chairman David MacGregor – a lay member. “It is a way of the community being protected by the council services,” he said. “There’s always bad news and now and again it’s good to get some good news out really.”

The consumer and business affairs service received 1,830 referrals in 2023-24, fewer than the previous 12 months, and among its other successes was busting a large-scale counterfeit cigarette operation. Searches by the team and police of the retail premises in question unearthed nearly 100,000 suspected illegal cigarettes. The report said the defendants have been found guilty of offences under the 2006 Fraud Act and were awaiting sentencing.

Married

Meanwhile a resident who had claimed a single person discount on their council tax had actually been married since 2017 and was ordered to repay £2,646. And the case of a company found to have falsely submitted quotations to win work as part of a renewable energy grant scheme was referred to police.

The report, which outlined the council’s “zero-tolerance” approach to fraud and corruption, said it took five months to replace and train and a new fraud investigation officer after the previous one left in April 2023. Last year the committee heard that the specific counter-fraud team has two employees.

Caroline Powell, the council’s principal auditor, was asked what lessons had been learned from the case of the employee who’d gained unauthorised access to the leisure services system. Additional controls had, she said, been put in place. “We have been working really closely with leisure service teams,” she said.