Former Pembrokeshire County Council leader John Davies - John Cwmbettws - has launched a scathing attack on the way in which public services are being 'curtailed by bureaucratic strategies.'

His comments were made as thousands of paramedics walked out on their second day of industrial action in protest of the severe underfunding which is currently blighting the social care system.

“It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee, because time and lives are running out,” he said.

“After 24 years in local government, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the bureaucrats are choosing to make public services complicated because it keeps them in well paid jobs.

"But this is at the expense of the front-line workers and has resulted in the mess that the country is now in.

“As the politicians and the strategists hold summits and crisis meetings to find solutions to the crisis in the health service, the education service and most of our other public services, the answer is staring them in the face.

“Britain is now paying the price after decades of a growing obsession of placing process over outcomes.

“Too much money and emphasis is being placed on creating strategies and processes at the expense of funding those on the frontline.”

Independent councillor John Davies, who farms at Cwmbettws in Eglwyswrw and who represents the Cilgerran Ward on Pembrokeshire County Council, has long been admired for his direct and no-holds-barred approach to local government.

In 2008 he was named Welsh Politician of the Year.

His latest comments, therefore, must rank strongly with his colleagues in the public service network.

“It’s time to get rid of half of the administrators and use those savings to get beds back in the hospitals and to put more, better-paid nurses back in the wards," he said.

"This will then allow our ambulance service to do what it does best – respond to people in their hour of need.”

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"No more meetings, no more expensive strategies. The tax payers don’t want to see their hard-earned money being spent on regulators and their endless expensive inspection processes that state that X and Y are failing services. The public can tell them that themselves.

“It's time to start looking after the frontline of services and then the service will look after its pay master - the tax payer.”