Carol Altmann – The Terrier

It’s 12 months since the Warrnambool City Council started a new chapter under a new CEO, but still it staggers under the weight of the old regime that is pulling the place apart.

As I write, I have just heard from solid sources that two high-level staff have taken leave amid allegations of bullying.

Other senior staff  have taken sick leave or unexplained leave, including the head of governance who has not been seen for months.

Over the past six months, staff have continued to resign, paying tribute to their workmates, but saying they can no longer deal with the workplace culture and a lack of leadership.

One senior staffer who left put it this way in a letter to colleagues: “I urge you to stick to your values, call out things that are not in line with the organisation’s values and most importantly, be kind to each other.”

The elected council, meanwhile, remains riven with deep rivalries that pit the Cr Gaston/Neoh faction against the Cr Hulin/Cassidy/sometimes Herbert faction, in a bitter struggle which is circular and exhausting.

To be frank, despite the polite smiles in the council chamber, most of the time they want to rip each other’s heads off.

Whistleblowers have been isolated and the CEO’s supposed “open-door” policy remains blocked by gatekeepers, so staff  are reluctant or unable to step through.

Even the CEO is kept in the dark, having allegedly not been briefed about the looming credit card scandal until June last year, which is when the scandal broke publicly.

In that environment, faith is broken and people learn to just shut up and get on with it.

Or they resign.

I say all this being fully aware – and grateful – that the council is full of decent, solid, hard-working, loyal people who give their absolute best to Warrnambool as true servants of the public and they make up the vast majority of council staff.

But the fact is the new CEO, Peter Schneider, inherited a shite sandwich which he has been unable to turn around.

Just three months before Mr Schneider started, the results of an independent staff survey leaked into the public domain and it was not a pretty picture.

It found that since 2014, the council had gone backward on every key measure, including leadership, people, customer focus, and strategy and planning.

Most telling was that while 71 per cent of all staff said they felt proud to work at the council, only 51 per cent said they looked forward to coming to work each day.

In one department, only 39 per cent enjoyed coming to work each day.

That is not a sign of a happy place, but a place where good people keep hanging in there, hoping things will get better.

They haven’t – I have seen resignation letters and spoken to some of those who have left – and they won’t until three things happen:

a full, open and independent assessment of the workplace culture with a commitment to act on the results;

an end to the bunker mentality by being open and honest with the public;

a changing of the guard at the next council elections in October.

 

Without these, I fear that the WCC will continue to lumber along like a bus on broken wheels, wondering why it’s losing all of its passengers.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I have been asking this question for several months now, but what has Lyndoch Living got to hide?

The latest act of apparent paranoia is a blanket rejection of everyone who recently applied to become members of Lyndoch.

Not one person, it seems, made the cut.

Let’s be honest, my application was never going to be accepted, despite my own personal connection with Lyndoch as someone who had a parent in its care for 10 years, because I have made it clear through The Terrier that I intend to dig deep into its priorities, direction and its care for staff and residents.

But others have been rejected too.

In fact, from what I am hearing, those who had their applications rejected include a local GP, a retired business journalist, a former high school maths teacher, a former international school librarian, a former small business owner…

According to the Lyndoch board, not one of these people was considered up to scratch.

I am not sure what selection process was used, as the board is under no obligation to give its reasons for saying ‘no’, but the fact every single application was rejected suggests that there was no process.

Instead, it was most likely based on whether the applicant knew me, or liked The Terrier on Facebook, or commented on a story, because Lyndoch doesn’t want anyone creeping into the tent who may make life uncomfortable by asking tricky questions, or, heaven forbid, stand for the board.

That would mean a loss of control, and control, in the current climate at Lyndoch, is everything.

What we should have is a fully transparent organisation with a broad cross section of members – the more, the merrier – because Lyndoch is owned by the local community.

I will say it again: the community owns Lyndoch, not the small group of people who are now refusing to let anybody else in the door unless, it seems, they are hand-picked.

As it stands, there are just 16 members of Lyndoch, including the nine-member board, the CEO, some senior executive staff and a couple of life members.

This might be perfectly acceptable if other platforms of scrutiny had not been removed as part of recent changes to how Lyndoch operates.

These changes, of course, were approved by the existing members. Most of us didn’t even know it was happening, yet the way Lyndoch had operated for decades would be no more:

As of last year, the Lyndoch annual reports are no longer available online.

As of last year, the Lyndoch annual meetings are no longer advertised to the general public.

As of last year, vacancies on the Lyndoch board no longer have to be advertised.

We don’t even know, until Lyndoch is compelled to report to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission later this month, whether it made a surplus or another deficit in 2019.

 

So much for being open and accountable to the community.

Inside the Lyndoch tent, the clamps are also coming down.

A new policy from the CEO Doreen Power prevents Lyndoch staff from approaching the board directly and declares all communication to the board must be made via the CEO.

Even then, staff can only talk to the board about policy matters.

Again, this might be fine except for when, hypothetically speaking, the problem is with the CEO.

What does a troubled staff member do then?

Well, they might come to The Terrier, where there is at least a place to be heard outside of the Lyndoch cabal.

As readers know, a lot of people concerned about Lyndoch have come to The Terrier to talk about all manner of things.

This includes the on-going shortage of staff – with one RN on night duty across the whole of Lyndoch – or the shortage of linen that saw staff cutting up old towels to use as face washers.

Or they have come with concerns around the huge number of staff that had left the organisation in the past four years – up to 80 people from right across Lyndoch, with many leaving distressed and disheartened.

Or they are worried about how Lyndoch could afford to buy two existing medical centres and have the funds to build and operate a brand new medical centre when, at the end of the day, it is supposed to be focussed solely on looking after the frail.

These are all good questions that deserve to be fully scrutinised and, with your help, that is exactly what I will continue to do in 2020.

Did you apply to become a member of Lyndoch? Send me a message to tell me how you fared. If you would like to apply, here is the form.

If you would like to help keep the Terrier typing, please throw something in the tip jar below. 

The Tip Jar

 

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

WORD has it that dozens of Lyndoch Living staff have filled out the recent staff survey with honesty and courage.

This is a huge step, and one taken despite fears of being identified.

The next step is for the full results of this survey to be presented to the Lyndoch board, not just a summary or extracts, but the full picture. The board must demand this be the case.

If Lyndoch plans to be fully transparent to the community, a summary of the survey results and any issues identified should also be made public.

As Dr Bernadette Northeast recently proved by taking on the Warrnambool City Council and going public as a whistleblower, the truth can only be fully revealed if all of the evidence is on the table. It takes people like Dr Northeast and brave Lyndoch workers and ex-workers to ensure this happens.

I have now written 14 stories on the complex and multiple concerns swirling around Lyndoch, having had contact with more than 60 sources from Warrnambool, Seymour and Plenty Valley.

Some of these stories are temporarily unavailable for viewing, and I will leave you to speculate as to why this is so.

What I can tell you is that the concerns around Lyndoch are very real.

People from right across our community, including many past and present Lyndoch staff, are genuinely worried about its new direction and its financial future if plans for a multi-million-dollar medical centre go ahead.

To put it bluntly, they fear Lyndoch could go broke.

Others are worried about staff morale, and the trickle-down affect on residents.

Many are outraged by Lyndoch’s ongoing spending on a horse race and a corporate marquee at the May Races.

I can assure you that I will continue to fight for the full facts on all of these issues to come out.

South-West MP Roma Britnell is also taking action.

Ms Britnell has responded in writing to those who have contacted her with their concerns, saying she is “taking these matters seriously” and has already had “several meetings and discussions on these matters” on behalf of her constituents.

Some people are organising meetings with Ms Britnell for early in the new year.

Others have now lodged applications to become members of Lyndoch, including me, with a decision to be made on these applications at the next board meeting.

Questions have also been put to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission on whether Lyndoch’s race sponsorship and building a medical clinic fits with its classification as a charity and Public Benevolent Institution.

The community is mobilised, it is energised and it is – once again – finding its voice.

Lyndoch workers are also finding theirs.

The only voice still missing is that of the Lyndoch board and CEO who, between them, could allay all of these concerns by simply being fully transparent.

What happens with the results of the Lyndoch staff survey, which closed last Thursday, will be the first test.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A blue-chip whistleblower on allegations of fraud, corruption and bullying within the Warrnambool City Council has gone public and, in so doing, exposed how broken the system has become.

Dr Bernadette Northeast, who has the sort of credentials and governance experience that most councils would grab with both hands, recently resigned as Volunteer Coordinator from the WCC, having been shafted by the very process meant to encourage people to speak up.

Boy, we live in dark times when this is considered acceptable.

Dr Northeast told me she had compiled a dossier of evidence with the input of six other people – each of whom initially approached her – detailing serious claims of fraud, corruption and bullying within certain sections of council. #notallstaff

The whistleblowers not only detailed claims of wrong doing, but alleged particular senior council staff were fully aware of the allegations and did nothing.

In other words, there was a deliberate cover up.

If you were an investigator looking into a council, this sort of stuff is red hot.

 

Dr Northeast and five of the six other whistleblowers all spoke to the independent investigator hired by the council CEO Peter Schneider to get to the bottom of the scandal, but despite this incredibly brave step, they have heard nothing since.

In the meantime, wait for it, Dr Northeast was put under investigation by the same independent investigator.

Her “crime” was accessing documents she used as part of her evidence gathering, for which she found herself accused of serious gross misconduct.

This is despite the documents apparently being accessible to any council staff member via the intranet.

Dr Northeast, who worked for the council for seven years, was put on paid leave during the investigation, after which she resigned for another job.

During the investigation of Dr Northeast’s conduct and in the months since, she says, there has been no significant action as a result of the whistleblowers coming forward.

Each person identified by the whistleblowers, apart from former tourism chief David McMahon, has remained in their job.

As Dr Northeast says, it appears the investigation has been less focussed on the claims of fraud, corruption and bullying that were allegedly reported to senior staff, and more intent on finding out “who dobbed on us?”

By the way, the allegations not only include the now infamous misuse and abuse of some council corporate credit cards, but also claims of misuse of council accommodation at Flagstaff Hill, misuse of council contracts, purchase of equipment (including air conditioning units) which cannot be traced, and large alcohol purchases via direct invoice.

The whistleblowers also raised concerns about a personal relationship between two council staff members that allegedly led to “tip offs” about the focus of some Freedom of Information applications.

Others expressed their concern at a “boozy” boys’ club culture, summed up by a toga party held at the house of a senior staff member, to which select staff were invited and attended, and talked about for days.

This cosy boys’ club culture is what the vast majority of hard-working and ethical staff at WCC have been struggling with for years.

 

It reminds me of the WCC Christmas party at the Warrnambool racecourse last year, where two employees dropped their pants and ran naked past the finish line in what was apparently some sort of weird WCC tradition. It wasn’t repeated this year.

This sense of entitlement among certain parts of council is what we believed Mr Schneider would blow right open and, to do so, Dr Northeast is exactly the sort of person he should be listening to.

Her CV includes 17 years as an SES volunteer, a Director of South West Healthcare, Chair of Australian Institute of Company Directors Great South Coast Committee, and Deputy Chair of the Victorian Fisheries Authority. Good governance is her bent.

Yet Mr Schneider has not spoken to Dr Northeast about any of these allegations.

Mayor Tony Herbert, who has previously urged staff with any allegations to contact Mr Schneider, apparently told Dr Northeast that he would arrange a meeting with the CEO. She didn’t hear another word. (I have asked Cr Herbert to confirm this).

Dr Northeast then attempted to set up a meeting with Mr Schneider herself, without success, and says even now she remains open to a frank conversation with the CEO.

But Dr Northeast is no longer with the council, having been effectively the target of a concerted push to find any leakers.

A couple of other staff are also on unexplained leave, for what I believe are similar misconduct allegations connected to them attempting to reveal what is going on, not to hide it.

Other experienced staff have resigned in sheer frustration while waiting for a cultural change that never seems to come.

 

If this is how it works at the WCC, something is terribly broken.

This gets to the nub of why Dr Northeast has gone public, because she says the vast majority of council staff who are hard-working, ethical and honest people, are being unfairly maligned by the alleged actions of a few.

“For the sake of the vast majority of all the good people working at the council, this needs to be addressed promptly and openly. Yet we have heard nothing more,” she says.

“How long does this have to go on without direct rectification?”

It is a very good question and here are three more:

Where is the independent investigation up to?

Has the information from Dr Northeast and the six whistleblowers all been passed to the Ombudsman for her separate investigation?

And does the council even still have 81 corporate credit cards in action?

 

I am putting all of this to Mr Schneider for a response which I will run in full.

I have set up a Foxy Fighting Fund. If you would like to be make a small contribution, you can do so below.

The Foxy Fighting Fund

 

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Picking up from last night, this is a story of a company, complaints, and potential conflicts of interest, all swirling around Lyndoch Living’s plan to build a multi-million-dollar medical clinic.

Let me start with the company, which leads neatly into the complaints.

As I wrote last night, Lyndoch Living Ltd last year set up a company called Lyndoch Healthcare Pty Ltd to oversee the building, running and managing of a medical clinic that is part of a $100 million masterplan being rolled out on Hopkins Road.

What you may not know is that the three directors of this company are Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power and two Lyndoch board members, Warrnambool City Councillor Sue Cassidy, and WCC manager City Growth, Andrew Paton.

 

It also has a company secretary, Lyanne Vinecombe, who was the executive assistant to Ms Power and former Lyndoch CEO Rhys Boyle before retiring earlier this year.

(As an aside, both Ms Power and Ms Vinecombe have Melbourne home addresses listed on documents from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.)

The shares in this company are worth a grand total of $12.

To be absolutely clear, I am not suggesting for one micro second that the company directors or secretary are doing anything improper – the company set up is common and perfectly normal.

What this arrangement does raise, however, are concerns around potential or perceived conflicts of interest between Lyndoch Living and Lyndoch Healthcare Pty Ltd, with the three company directors all wearing two hats.

 

On one hand, the directors are responsible for making sure the medical clinic is not only built, but is sustainable, and on the other, they have to make sure Lyndoch Living delivers on looking after our aged and infirm.

In terms of seeking funding and allocating finances, which will be a priority?

This question is one of several concerns that has been raised with federal authorities over Lyndoch’s grand plan to expand into a medical clinic.

I am aware of at least three complaints being forwarded to the Australian Charities and Not For Profits Commission (ACNC), including two complaints lodged before my investigations in Lyndoch began.

Another has been lodged since.

On top of the questions around potential conflicts of interest, concerns have also been raised about whether a multi-million dollar medical centre fits with Lyndoch’s core business that saw it granted charity status many years ago.

As well as being a registered charity, Lyndoch has long been classified as a Public Benevolent Institution (PBI) and both attract significant tax concessions and other benefits.

To be a PBI, the main purpose of the charity must be to “relieve poverty and distress”.

Does building and running a medical centre fit with this?

And does it fit with Lyndoch originally being classed as a charity?

The ACNC will have to decide.

 

As we now know, Lyndoch last year changed its structure and its constitution to include a new core purpose, which is to “build, manage, maintain and/or otherwise be involved in multi-disciplinary health care facility” in Warrnambool.

In plain speak, this means building the medical clinic.

It is a massive undertaking and a major change for Lyndoch which, for more than 60 years, has been focussed entirely on aged care.

As to why the board decided to go this way, we may never fully know. (My questions to chair Kerry Nelson and Ms Power for this story went unanswered).

But is the ACNC fully aware of this dramatic shift?

Lyndoch has lodged its new constitution with the ACNC, but with about 56,000 charities to monitor, the ACNC relies heavily on the public to raise concerns.

This has now happened.

I spoke to the ACNC and they are, unfortunately, bound by laws which prevent them from talking about a particular case, or even confirming whether a complaint has been received.

What they did say, however, is that they take concerns over charitable and PBI status very seriously and, if they decide a complaint is worthy of pursuit, it will be investigated fully.

All of this, because of the ACNC confidentiality laws, happens behind closed doors.

 

We shall just have to sit tight to see what, if anything, emerges.

In the meantime, I have two more stories on this whole Lyndoch saga to come, hopefully both within a week, before we pause  paws for Christmas.

In the meantime, I am starting a Foxy Fighting Fund for reasons which I can’t yet explain. If you would like to be part of it, you can do so below.

The Foxy Fighting Fund