Ken Skates carries on as usual praising his previous Ministerial Officials

Dear,Mark Drakeford,

Ken Skates first contribution as a back bencher on 19/05/2021 was “”Would you join with me in thanking the civil servants who have and will continue to serve Ministers so well?””. This contribution was disingenuous in view of the Civil Servants in his previous Ministerial Department being under investigation for falsifying Bus Transport Data. He should really have excluded from the praise his Director, Simon Jones and Professor Stuart Cole, the “creator” of the Trawscymru Network.

Mark Drakeford replied “”Well, Llywydd, what a pleasure I share exactly what he said about the efforts that are made by civil servants, often unseen, and it’s not fashionable often to thank them for what they do . We are well served by that sense of public service here in Wales “”

Well, Mark Drakeford, you are right when you say efforts that are made by civil servants are often unseen. The level of deceit and misleading of the public by the WG is unseen and puts the comedy program “Yes Minister” in the shade. Forget “Open Welsh Government” and talk a bit more about “Closed Welsh Government”.

Three years ago in Senedd on 11 Jul 2018 Ken Skates was also singing the praises of his Ministerial Officials when they were heavily criticised by the Public Accounts Committee, who in May 2018 published the Circuit of Wales Report and highlighted a number of concerns about the robustness of the decision making process, particularly regarding the rationale for various decisions by officials and the poor quality of their record-keeping. Some of the oral and written responses the Committee received in evidence from witnesses were evasive (evidenced by the number of times the Committee had to write on the same point), and did not appear to be contemporaneous. One of the most Senior Civil Servants in Wales suggested Auditors made “Factual inaccuracies” , but then could not give any examples of what those inaccuracies were. The final key theme which emerged in this inquiry was around the lack of external communication of decisions. both to the public and to those directly involved. On 11 Jul 2018 in Senedd the Welsh Government’s actions were described by the Committee as a “shocking catalogue of political myopia and administrative incompetence, evasiveness and even duplicity”. The Public accounts committee chairman said the public were “misled” . Ken Skates in reply said “we have recognised that there are lessons to be learnt from elements of the Welsh Government’s handling of this project and have put in place new processes.” and then proceeded with an impassioned speech outlining the successes of his WG Officials in various projects. There was no apology for the actions of his officials just praise.

Now 3 years on from the Circuit of Wales Report Ken Skates is yet again on 19/05/2021 singing the praises of his previous Ministerial Officials when those same Officials are currently being investigated by the police for fabrication of data in 2 Trawscymru Annual reports (2018-2019 and 2019-2020) . Those same Welsh Government Officials have conducted a 4 year catalogue of deceit, from October 2017, involving suppression of FOIA requests by declaring the requester to be “vexatious”, fabrication of the review of a Trawscymru route between Aberystwyth and Wrexham (at the same time as the data in the Trawscymru 2018-2019 Annual report was being fabricated), and have repeatedly lied to both the Information Commissioner and High Court Tribunals. Unlike the Senior Civil Servant who suggested Auditors made “Factual inaccuracies”, I can give examples of those lies. The 4 year catalogue of deceit has been orchestrated by the Director of Transport , Simon Jones, who enlisted the help of Professor Stuart Cole to produce the fabricated review of a Trawscymru route between Aberystwyth and Wrexham. Professor Stuart Cole produced the very first Trawscymru 2017-2018 Annual report in which he provided a misleading analysis of Trawscymru passenger data to support the continuity of the Free Weekend Travel scheme which has been completely unsuccessful in increasing passengers travelling on weekdays.

Professor Stuart Cole is a self publicist describing himself as a “guru” , a really inspiring man, a legend , the creator of TrawsCymru who has revived and developed profitable transport systems in countries such as Estonia, Latvia, France, Poland, Canada, America, Peru etc. and who claims that he has been achieving incredible work across Wales with the TrawsCymru Bus network. His efforts in Estonia in 2018 led to the National Audit Office of Estonia investigating the free public transport introduced in Tallin and the scheme was recently abandoned on 24 Mar 2021.

I have twice asked you to investigate the actions of Ken Skates and his Officials on 09/03/2021 and 31/03/2021 and you have refused to do so. Ken Skates has now returned to the back benches . However I would hope that the Government is co-operating with South Wales Police to identify which Government Official carried out the fabrication of Trawscymru passenger data which is a Criminal Offence. I would also hope that your Government will review the Civil Service structure dealing with bus transport and the way the Trawscymru Strategy Board operates (or does not operate as the Government said in 2016 that it had been scrapped !!) and that future changes to the Trawscymru Network are carried out with a thorough research/evaluation process which is publicised before introduction of the new routes. The High Court recommendation in 2018 that the Government publish Trawscymru punctuality data should also be put in place . There should be an immediate independent review (not by Government) to reevaluate Trawscymru Bus Passenger data, reevaluate the Free Weekend Travel Scheme, and reevaluate the network. The present practice of cobbling together 2 or more local bus services and rebranding as Trawscymru (T11/T12) should be discontinued as it only transfers passenger figures for local bus services onto the figures for Trawscymru and will do nothing to remove cars from the road.

Yours Sincerely,

Dr John McTighe