A request will be made to full council to investigate further how changes to council tenant rent and service charges were dealt with in 2016.

The “de-pooling” of the housing revenue account (HRA) service charges and potential “injustice” of how it was carried out by the previous council administration has been raised on a number of occasions by Clr. Mike Stoddart.

At Pembrokeshire County Council’s governance and audit committee meeting on Monday (September 27) he, and Clr. Jacob Williams, again raised concerns about the procedure with a call for further investigation made.

Committee chairman Clr. Tony Baron also raised the possibility of asking full council for its opinion on whether legal advice should be sought, with an estimated initial cost of £1,750 minimum, he said.

He read an email from Audit Wales manager Jeremy Saunders in response to a request made at July’s committee stating “in essence” what had been said, which added it could be seen as service charges not being removed from de-pooling “from one angle.”

The email adds that a service charge element included as part of rent the prior year “would not be deducted for the coming year but absorbed into increases of base rent going forward,” added Clr. Baron.

He did “not believe that tenants are paying twice” read Clr. Baron.

This was disputed by Clr. Stoddart, who added that an exact figure should have been provided to tenants if costs had been absorbed into base rents.

“This is such a complicated matter, I’m not sure that this committee is the place that it can be resolved,” said Clr. Stoddart, adding it was “most unsatisfactory.”

The committee resolved to request that full council sets up a politically balanced working group to consider the de-pooling exercise, its implementation and the fairness to council house tenants.