Milford Haven News
Mole hunt underway at Pembrokeshire County Hall after leak of sensitive documents
8:50am Monday 6th February 2012
A mole hunt is underway at County Hall after sensitive documents were leaked to the press.
County Councillors have been asked to sign a declaration that they were not the source for leaked documents relating to the Pembrokeshire Ministerial Board (PMB).
The PMB was set up last year following the child safeguarding scandal that rocked Pembrokeshire County Council.
Stories about a confidential PMB report and a series of letters have recently been published in the Western Telegraph and another newspaper.
That led PCC monitoring officer Laurence Harding to email all members asking if they had disclosed the documents.
He has since asked all county councillors to sign a formal document confirming whether or not they disclosed the information.
In his report to today’s Corporate Governance Committee, Mr Harding says: "My experience is that the reporting of leaked documentation highlights the negative comments in all the documents and does not provide the context or positive conclusions."
Mr Harding said the council’s reputation could suffer "if it becomes tainted with an inability to guarantee its observance of its confidentiality obligation".
He added that businesses could become unwilling to discuss possible investment in Pembrokeshire if they felt their commercial dealings could be leaked.
The committee is recommended to ‘require’ all members to complete the declaration sent to them by Mr Harding and that the Monitoring Officer is given "all reasonable assistance" to investigate the leaks.