Update

We have had our first recorded message for Mark James via the petition. A lot of people signing from all over Carmarthenshire. Many thanks. All messages will be sent to all councillors, the Chief Executive and the council leader. Please continue to sign the petition. https://secure.jotformeu.com/form/40297272486361

Petition

Please sign and share.  Petition calling for resignation of Mark James and Kevin Madge https://secure.jotformeu.com/form/40297272486361

JOURNAL NEWS

Let's hope the Carmarthen Journal will now have the balls to publish the facts and the public reactions. They should now be beating on the door of every County Councillor asking questions. That is journalism.

PETITION

Please spare a few minutes of your time. You may have seen or heard the news today about the unlawful payments made to chief executive Mark James. The county has gone from bad to worse and it is the ordinary people who are suffering most.  I make this plea. Please fill in the form and submit. It will be forwarded to Carmarthenshire County Council and your County Councillor. https://secure.jotformeu.com/form/40297272486361

DISGRACEFUL

Two councils acted unlawfully by letting chief executives opt out of a pension scheme to avoid potential tax payments, the Wales Audit Office says.

Pembrokeshire's Bryn Parry Jones and Carmarthenshire's Mark James had been given cash payments in lieu of employer pension contributions.

Dyfed-Powys Police said the force was in discussions with the auditors.

Calls have been made for resignations or instant dismissals over the matter.

The councils have said they are considering the public spending watchdog report which said that both authorities had acted unlawfully to allow the chief executives to opt out of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) to avoid potential tax payments.

Continue reading the main story

Key facts

• Decision passed in Nov 2011 by Carmarthenshire's executive board, without it appearing on the agenda, to give Mr James first payment
• Mr James launches libel action against blogger Jacqui Thompson arrested after filming a council meeting on her mobile phone
• He won and Ms Thompson paid costs of £23,217
• Her own attempt to counter sue for libel was rejected
• Since 2012, Carmarthenshire has paid out more than £26,000 in external legal costs under decision to indemnify its chief executive
• In Sept 2013 the Welsh government was asked if it approved payments in lieu meanwhile the audit office refused to approve both councils accounts for 2012-13
• In Jan 2014, the audit office says both councils acted unlawfully by letting chief executives opt out of a pension scheme to avoid potential tax payments
• By March 2014, £51,011 will have been paid to Pembs chief Mr Jones and one other senior officer

Mr James was also unlawfully given an indemnity against potential libel costs.

Assistant auditor general Anthony Barrett said: "Carmarthenshire council has acted unlawfully on two fundamental issues, both of which the public need to be fully aware of.

"The authority has taken decisions and used taxpayers money in areas that they do not have the legal powers to do so."

Challenge In Education

If you look at the mind map you will see that the purpose of education to a certain degree is to produce well rounded, obedient, workers for industry and economic growth. We can safely say that on this level we are failing. The economy is in a terrible state and we are being overtaken by the rest of the world in industry.

Schools teach a curriculum and students are expected to arrive at a set of answers the culmination of which is standardised testing and grouping.

The top level may go on to university, the next level down may work in skilled jobs and the next level down may work in relatively unskilled work. There is another level, those of whom have been completely failed who drop out and lose hope. The news has been full of reports on such adolescents recently. These numbers appear to be on the increase. A report on the BBC news site yesterday stated that up to 80,000 children in the U.K are now classed as homeless.

These are the students who have been disempowered by this model of education. They are the ones who don't respond as well to testing or methods of teaching. So what can be done for them? Education today has produced a generation of dehumanised, impoverished young people. Faced with their lot some turn to drugs and crime but this is not to say that they all do and that they should all be labelled as such.

We have to look at this century in the same way as the industrialists looked at the beginning of the last century. We need an educational revolution. We have the people ready to deliver and already delivering in other countries, the same countries that are overtaking us in health, education, industry and technology. Just map the movements of Richard Gerver or Sir Ken Robinson or Dr. Steve Hughes  over the last 12 months. Brazil, China, Scandinavia amongst others visited. What does this tell us? It tells us that these countries are receptive to change and that they acknowledge the people making that change happen inviting them to the forefront of their efforts to change.

The education system in the U.K. has done its job well. We are indeed passive and obedient and patriotic people. It is difficult to see where a revolution will come from. I was lucky enough to travel to Romania after the fall of Ceaucescu. My mission was to take Montessori education to the children in the orphanages. That revolution came about because one man stood up to the regime. His assassination prompted mass rioting ending in a revolution in Bucharest. My welcome couldn't have been warmer. My skills and ideas were embraced by people hungry for change. I am proud to say that they are still in place in many of the colleges and schools of Romania.

Help us change education in Wales and join www.montessoricentrewales.ning.com

HELP THE YOUNG

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25559089 More needs to be done to support the young. Empty buildings owned by councils should be given over so that the young can network, get creative and start up. They also need tax breaks and funding to start these new businesses. When a hotel in Wales gets £300,000 of public money from the Welsh Assembly while youngsters in the town are jobless it stinks. It beggars belief how unimaginative and useless these politicians are. We need people like Andrew Mawson to come in and spell it out for them in black and white. The alternative is that the young fall further and society kicks them harder.