A TOWN council is being investigated over concerns stretching back more than a decade with some matters referred to the police.

Abertillery and Llanhilleth Community Council has “not been fit for purpose for a long period of time”, auditors have said.

The Wales Audit Office is looking into the council after they were contacted by council members and the public. The issues raised were “so serious” that the Wales Audit Office’s assistant auditor general, Anthony Barrett, attended an extraordinary meeting of the council on December 2.

According to the minutes of the meeting, Mr Barrett said there are some matters which the WAO said should be passed on to the police.

At the meeting the council was told of some of the issues raised which include poor member behaviour, poor financial management and record keeping and data protection issues such as councillors giving members of the public exempt and personal information.

Other issues raised include inadequate distinction between the roles of members and officers, lack of transparency in decision making, lack of clear council strategy, failure to achieve value for money and inappropriately excluding the public from meetings.

The minutes read: “It was stressed that it was for the police and not the WAO to conclude whether criminal acts have been committed and the WAO representatives were unable to respond to any questions in relation to matters referred to the police.Mr Barrett indicated that the WAO was available to support members and officers in making improvements and said he was pleased with the work already done by the clerk to implement improved governance arrangements.”

The WAO is now working to put together a report and the council is now in a three-month period of restricted activity due to staff shortages.

The council said it was unable to comment on the investigation.

Concerns were first raised by former councillor and resident Dave Rocke, who heard about allegations from a member of the public.

A Wales Audit Office spokesman told the Argus: “In response to correspondence from members of Abertillery and Llanhilleth Community Council and the public, the auditor general has been considering a number of matters as part of his audit of the 2014-15 accounts of the council. During the audit work a number of matters of concern were identified and some of these have been referred to the police. The auditor general will report on his audit of the 2014-15 accounts in due course.”

The WAO said the matters were passed to Gwent Police.