A VALE councillor will be temporarily suspended for a number of reasons including failing to update the council that he was liable for business rates at one of his properties.

Conservative ward councillor for Dinas Powys, Cllr Vince Driscoll, faced the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s standards committee on Monday, July 29, after being accused of breaching council conduct rules by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (PSOW).

The committee heard how Cllr Driscoll also failed to declare a property in his register of interests and used his council email address for matters relating to his personal business interests.

The councillor made two coronavirus business grant applications to Vale of Glamorgan Council in 2020 and both were declined after the council raised concerns about inconsistencies with what Cllr Driscoll told its non domestic rates department and what he included in his grant applications.

Cllr Driscoll’s counsel, Joseph Broadway, told standards committee members that no financial gain had been made by his client and that he had co-operated with the council and ombudsman during investigations. He will be suspended for three months.

Cllr Driscoll was suspended as a community councillor in 2015 for one month after he was found to have breached the members’ code for operating a dog boarding kennels without a licence, failing to declare an interest and lobbying members of a Dinas Powys Community Council sub committee.

The most recent complaints against Cllr Driscoll were made in 2022, but the events in question go as far back as 2017.

In one coronavirus grant application, for office 6 at 50 Holton Road, Cllr Driscoll told the local authority that his and his wife’s company, Fresh Bacon Company Ltd, had occupied the premises since 2017.

However, another tenant held the lease for the property for a period of time in 2018.
Another property, 50C Holton Road, was leased to a business but the tenant vacated the site on March 11, 2020.

The ombudsman’s investigation report states the council internal audit team found that Cllr Driscoll failed to update the council’s non domestic rates department on this matter, which made him liable for property business rates.

In his Covid-19 business grant application for 50C Holton Road, Cllr Driscoll said a business called Baguette Shop occupied the premises on March 11, 2020.

His application for a coronavirus business grant was submitted on April 7, 2020.

Speaking on behalf of PSOW at the meeting, counsel Gwydion Hughes said of Cllr Driscoll’s contrasting messages to the council that “at the very least, it is a cavalier approach”.

He later went on to call Cllr Driscoll an experienced councillor who served as a county councillor for some three years before some of the events in question, and served as a community councillor for many years.

Mr Hughes added: “He really ought to have known better. He ought to have been fully aware of his obligations.

“It is certainly not suggested that a financial benefit has been obtained, but it is only right to point out that these breaches did occur within the context of seeking financial benefit.”

The standards committee found Cllr Driscoll to have breached the members code of conduct adopted by Vale of Glamorgan Council for failing to update the council on the occupancy of 50C Holton Road and not making a declaration of interest for a property at Biglis House.

They also found that three emails sent from Cllr Driscoll’s Vale of Glamorgan Council email address were in breach of paragraph 4 (d) of the Model code –  “You must not do anything which compromises, or which is likely to compromise, the impartiality of those who work for, or on behalf of, your authority”.

Cllr Driscoll called the use of his council email address a mistake and said Unit 5 Biglis House is a commercial property that his wife owns.

Fresh Bacon Company Ltd ceased using Unit 5 Biglis House in 2010 when it was leased to another company and Cllr Driscoll said he did not realise he still had a leasehold in place.

On office 6 at 50 Holton Road, Cllr Driscoll said this premises was used for administrative tasks, but when the building was full this office was also leased.

He argued that there was a high turnover of tenants at the offices which his company owned and that it was not practical to update his registered business address every time he switched office.

Regarding 50C Holton Road, Mr Broadway said the application for coronavirus support was made shortly after Cllr Driscoll took on the property and that he paid the correct rates from the date that the property was taken over.

Mr Broadway called Cllr Driscoll a publicly-minded man and an active member of the council and his community.

He went on to add that the “breaches as they are are more from oversight than an attempt to take financial gain.

“I am aware that financial gain is the context and that can’t be avoided in the conversation about any appropriate sanction.

“However, it is not the case that any financial gain was made.”

Standards committee chair Richard Hendicott said: “Some of these were fairly technical and fairly minor matters, but when we heard that you had previously been suspended… we thought it was only appropriate that any period of suspension had to exceed the previous period.”

He went on to comment that the matter should have been brought before Vale of Glamorgan Council’s standards committee a lot sooner.

Mr Hendicott added: “As a standards committee… we should have dealt with this a long time ago.

“Really, this was too long and, I would have thought, too expensive.”