Patrick Commissioners has been found guilty of failing to properly manage drainage and street sweeping, weeds and highway verges, as well.
Tynwald Commissioner for Administration Paul Beckett found that the authority failed adequately to discharge its responsibilities as regards gully emptying and found its response to a complaint and subsequent refusal to investigate that complaint was evidence of maladministration.
Mr Beckett was dealing with a complaint from a resident who moved into a home in Patrick in March 2020 and found that it’s biggest flooding risk came not from the river at the back, but the road at the front.
The man said: “Since then, I have dug out about 100 yards of the verge by hand on the opposite side of the road myself, exposing not one but three buried and blocked gully pots and cleared another two on our side of the road.”
Commissioners
The man then made several attempts to have the local authority resolve the issue, it shares responsibility for the gullies under its delegated responsibilities.
Having sent emails, attended meetings and handed in written statements to the authority, the man resolved to call the DoI when flooding issues began to arise, saying the department had resolved them when asked to.
The vast majority of these exchanges were with the previous clerk and chairman, both have no left the authority.
The man told Mr Beckett that he was “at a loss at what more I can do other than look to your office to investigate complaints of incompetence and neglect in public office, creating an avoidable delay in providing essential services”.
Mr Beckett said: “In summary, the Complainant complains that over a considerable period of time, and notwithstanding extensive correspondence between the complainant and Patrick Parish Commissioners and between the complainant and the Department of Infrastructure, drainage of the road on which the complainant’s house is situated is inadequate to the point of presenting a flood risk to the complainant’s property; an inadequacy allegedly caused by the commissioners and the department each failing to provide services for which they are responsible, each allegedly excusing shortcomings by asserting that action (or inaction) on the part of the other is the root cause of the problem.”
Findings
He concluded that the “failure on the part of the Commissioners to respond to the complainant and/or responding by the briefest of replies evidences inattention, discourtesy and lack of respect, and therefore constitutes maladministration”.
However, he found that not to keep verbatim minutes “does not evidence maladministration”.
Mr Beckett added: “The Clerk gave misleading advice to the complainant and, misunderstanding the operation of the delegated functions, incorrectly and ineptly sought to place on the complainant the responsibility for obtaining remediation from the department. This constitutes maladministration.”
He also found that the way the authority responded to the complaints “constitutes at best inattention and at worst a refusal to answer reasonable questions; and evidences maladministration on the part of the Commissioner”.
Mr Beckett also found that the decision by the new board and its chair not to investigate what had gone on before, was “incorrect and constitutes misleading or inadequate advice leading to a failure to follow correct investigation procedures and a refusal to answer reasonable question”.
He finished his report by saying: “On the evidence presented to the TCA the Commissioners have failed adequately to discharge their responsibilities as regards street sweeping, the removal of weeds and the maintenance of highway verges.”
You can find the full report here.
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