Wirral Council’s Standards Committee agrees recommendation on changes to notices of motion procedural rules

Wirral Council’s Standards Committee agrees recommendation on changes to notices of motion procedural rules                                                              Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the … Continue reading “Wirral Council’s Standards Committee agrees recommendation on changes to notices of motion procedural rules”

Wirral Council’s Standards Committee agrees recommendation on changes to notices of motion procedural rules

                                                            

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Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee meeting held on the 23rd November 2015

Surjit Tour explains to councillors the effect of proposed changes to procedural rules at a meeting of Wirral Council's Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee 23rd November 2015
Surjit Tour explains to councillors the effect of proposed changes to procedural rules at a meeting of Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee 23rd November 2015

One of the changes agreed by councillors at last night’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee was a change to the protocol for dealing with referred notices of motion. Referred notices of motion are notices of motion that have been sent by Wirral Council’s Mayor to one of Wirral Council’s committees to debate instead of being debated at a Council meeting.

The changes to time limits on speeches for the proposer (5 minutes) and right of reply (3 minutes) were to bring the time limits in line with new time limits proposed for Council meetings.

However an extra category of speaker has been added. This is described in the new rules as "any other person" and they will have three minutes to speak. "Any other person" is described as "at the discretion of the Chairperson, other persons with expertise on the subject of the Motion may be invited to attend the meeting at which it is to be considered"

These new rules won’t apply to next week’s high-profile Notice of Motion Proposal for a fire station on green belt land in Saughall Massie to be discussed by councillors on Wirral Council’s Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee at a public meeting starting at 6.00pm on the 2nd December 2015 in Committee Room 1, Wallasey Town Hall. This is because the recommendation by the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee (if agreed by Council on the 14th December) won’t come into effect until the 15th December 2015. At a previous meeting of the Regeneration and Environment Committee councillors wanted to ask questions of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service officers about why they wanted to build a new fire station in Saughall Massie.

Instead the rules agreed earlier in the year by the Coordinating Committee will apply (the part on referred notices of motion starts at the top of page 6).

Hopefully this won’t cause a decision on the issue to be deferred yet again!

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Wirral’s councillors will tonight discuss changes to Council meetings, call ins and how decisions are made

Wirral’s councillors will tonight discuss changes to Council meetings, call ins and how decisions are made

                                                                      

Council (Wirral Council) 19th November 2015 One of the meetings that would change if proposals are agreed tonight
Council (Wirral Council) 19th November 2015 One of the meetings that would change if proposals are agreed tonight

Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee will discuss proposals tonight to change the way Wirral Council makes decisions.

If these proposals are agreed by councillors, then in future unless objections to traffic regulation orders reach a threshold of fifteen objections or a petition of twenty-five or more different households, then it won’t be discussed at a public meeting of the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel. However ward councillors for the area that the proposed traffic regulation order relates to, will be able to request that the matter is decided by councillors even if the number of objections don’t reach the threshold. If the objections don’t reach the new threshold and a ward councillor doesn’t ask that councillors on the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel make a recommendation on it, then the decision will instead be made by the Head of Service for Environment and Regulation after consulting with the Cabinet Member for Highways.

Changes are proposed to the way meetings to decide on call-ins of decisions are dealt with. Instead of a committee of fifteen councillors deciding on call-ins, there will be a panel of nine councillors (5 Labour councillors, 3 Conservative councillors and 1 Lib Dem councillor). An earlier start time of 4.00 pm for call in meetings is suggested. Adjournments will only be allowed for seven working days and if this is not possible the call-in will be re-heard from the beginning.

Proposals affecting Council meetings are also on the agenda. The start time will be brought forward to 6.00 pm and the guillotine put back to 9.15 pm. The time for questions to councillors who are chairs of committees or on the Cabinet will be reduced from an hour and a half to thirty minutes. This is to allow more time during Council meetings for councillors to debate notices of motion. Further details on the changes and the reasons behind them (including some I haven’t mentioned here) can be found on Wirral Council’s website. If agreed tonight, the changes will be recommended for approval at the Council meeting on the 14th December 2015.

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EXCLUSIVE: Leaked minutes of Merseyside Pension Fund’s Investment Monitoring Working Party

EXCLUSIVE: Leaked minutes of Merseyside Pension Fund’s Investment Monitoring Working Party

                                                              

Pensions Committee (Merseyside Pension Fund) 16th November 2015 L to R Peter Wallach, Cllr Paul Doughty (Chair)
Pensions Committee (Merseyside Pension Fund) 16th November 2015 L to R Peter Wallach, Cllr Paul Doughty (Chair)

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The public meeting of Wirral Council’s Pensions Committee held on the 16th November 2015

I will start this piece by declaring that I have a close family relative paid a pension by the Merseyside Pension Fund.

Monday night’s public meeting of Wirral Council’s Pensions Committee (you can view the video above) chucked out the public for two agenda items (issues about the tender exercise for CB Richard Ellis Capital Advisers Ltd (CBRE) and the minutes of the Investment Monitoring Working Party meeting of the 17th September 2015 and the 8th October 2015.

Originally one of the governance policies agreed by councillors that run the Merseyside Pension Fund stated that minutes of the Investment Monitoring Working Party and Governance Working Party should be published. I did query a while back why they weren’t, which led to the situation now where the minutes are split on the agenda and the public gets to see which councillors turned up, who sent their apologies and what the declarations of interest are.

However the rest of the minutes of those meetings (despite it being councillors that sit on these committees), councillors decide to keep the rest of the minutes a secret (on the advice of Wirral Council officers).

As it states on Wirral Council’s website the law states “Information is exempt to the extent that, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information” and the reason given on Monday evening was “Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)”.

Strictly speaking politicians are supposed to carry out their own public interest test based on the above and I suppose I should kick up more of a fuss at this point of the meeting if they’re about to chuck us out for no reason.

The Merseyside Pension Fund is a large pension fund with billions of pounds invested. Of course as a member of the press I’m going to take a view that it’s wrong for the public sector to be engaging in these inappropriate levels of secrecy when the total number of people in the fund comes to over 100,000.

Actually persuading politicians to actually go against an officer recommendation on this though is probably beyond my powers of persuasion. So here is a leak instead of the Investment Monitoring Working Party minutes of 8th October 2015. Think of all the money I’ve saved Wirral Council by not making a FOI request for this (although no doubt they will now carry out another leak investigation!)

I’ve corrected Cllr Ann McLachlan’s name in section 1 which was misspelt as McLachalan.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
By virtue of paragraph(s) 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A
of the Local Government Act 1972.

EXEMPT APPENDIX 2

Minutes of the Investment Monitoring Working Party,

8 October 2015

In attendance:

Councillor Ann McLachlan (WBC) (Vice Chair) Peter Wallach (Head of MPF)
Councillor Geoffrey Watt (WBC) Joe Blott (Strategic Director Transformation and Resources
Councillor Treena Johnson (WBC) Noel Mills (Independent Adviser)
Rohan Worrall (Independent Adviser)
Councillor Paulette Lapin (SC) Louise-Paul Hill (Aon Hewitt)
Emma Jones (PA to Head of Pension Fund)
 

Apologies were received from:

Councillor Paul Doughty (WBC) Councillor Brian Kenny (WBC)
Councillor Cherry Povall (WBC) Councillor George Davies (WBC)
Councillor John Fulham (SHC) Councillor Adrian Jones (WBC)
 

Declarations of Interest

 

Councillor Geoffrey Watt declared an interest due to a relation being a beneficiary of the Merseyside Pension Fund.

1. Introduction

Cllr Ann McLachlan (AM) chaired the meeting on behalf of Cllr Paul Doughty.

Action Points

None

2. External Manager Presentation

2.1 M&G Investments

Matthew Vaight (MV), Fund Manager and Orla Haughey (OH), Client Director, presented their global Emerging Markets Mandate to IMWP. Their agenda covered their mandate, market overview, a re-cap on their process, performance and finally their funding positioning.

Merseyside Pension Fund current holdings are valued at £112.8m. They briefed members on their bottom-up stock picking style and currently hold 50-70 stocks on behalf of the Fund.

A discussion ensued with regard to the risk in developed markets compared to emerging markets but MV argued that although a portfolio could remain cautious there are improving fundamentals in countries such as Taiwan for example which still offer opportunities as markets on cheaper valuations.

Specific risks of stocks and value was examined and how specific risks can be stock specific rather than country specific. However the sharp currency devaluations in some markets such as Brazil and Russia over the past 12 months had hit the fund’s performance where stock fundamentals had been overridden by the market’s performance. Oil prices were discussed and how this affected the markets. To further mitigate risks M&G said they have also developed a framework to look at currency which will further aid stock selection.

Questions were raised with regard to governance and M&G clarified how they work with particular companies and examine management within the organisation closely.

Ethical investments were discussed and M&G clarified they have no exposure in tobacco products or defence. M&G explained their view is that good corporate governance is an indication of quality management and is a good indicator of how a company is run. It combined to make an attractive investment and is integral to their analysis of a company.

Action points

None.

3. External Manager Presentation part 2

3.1 Maple-Brown Abbott

Geoff Bazzan (GB), Head of Asia Pacific Equities, and Susan Douse (SD), European Marketing and Client Services, presented at IMWP an overview of their organisation. They spoke about their value style and investment process and philosophy. They looked at their total performance up to 31 August 2015 and the major contributors and detractors during that period.

A discussion ensued with regard to their cyclical turn down and the classic value trap over the long term. The Chinese economy was discussed and the fact that GB believes there is still opportunities in China but be wary of companies exposed to too much US debt.

Maple-Brown Abbott’s asset allocation and in particular their specific stock selection was debated and how this has impacted on performance. GB asserted that there has been a slight improvement in performance and hopes to see this improving in the future. GB expressed the view that exposure of Chinese stocks will improve.

Maple-Brown Abbott were asked about their ethical investments and it was asserted that restrictions are imposed on companies but in the broader portfolio they do not screen out but look at the sustainability over the long term and subsequently ethical questions come into play.

Action points

None.

External Manager Presentation part 3

4.1 Amundi

Mickaël Tricot (MT), Head of Emerging Markets Equities and Peter Brackets (PB) presented the Amundi Actions Emergent Team, Process and Portfolio Review to the IMWP. MT gave Merseyside’s portfolio’s investment summary and talked about the team structure and its resources. MT explained that they combined a top-down and bottom-up featured approach which supported a high quality stock selection process which was well suited for emerging markets with higher volatility.

Ethical investments were discussed and MT asserted this was very subjective but they coupled this with knowing the companies and looking carefully at aspects of the organisation thoroughly. MT explained that although aspects of ethical investments were not mandatory, companies were coming under pressure from the stock exchange to comply with guidelines. This was becoming very important and companies are finding it beneficial to conform.

The question of how the stock exchange can apply pressure was discussed and it was stressed that there was a common current exchange of disclosure and reporting which raises issues when concerns are expressed. It was also argued that collaboration and initiatives within global firms have a consistent framework which can put pressure on managers to comply. There are also the UN PRI principles which encourage disclosure.

Amundi’s exposure in Brazil and currencies was discussed and value versus growth was debated further. Amundi noted they were always looking at changing their approach to look at more complex valuations by using supplementary tools and databases to help with analysis.

Action points

None.

5.

5.1 Noting items

None

5.2 Action Points

None

5.3 Summary of Recommendations

None

5.4 Discussion Points (including any other business)

None

Date of Next Meeting

Thursday 10 December 2015 at 10.00 am, 6th floor, Cunard Building.

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What do Snowden, Schrems and the end of Safe Harbour have in common? A tale of international espionage, blogging and data protection

What do Snowden, Schrems and the end of Safe Harbour have in common? A tale of international espionage, blogging and data protection

                                            

The Cookie Monster from American TV show Sesame Street
The Cookie Monster from American TV show Sesame Street

The reason for the lack of blog posts on this blog since 9th November 2015 is a bit of a saga involving international espionage, the whistleblower Snowden and a legal case.

Five years ago when this blog was started in October 2010, it was set up as a free blog and hosted by an American company in America that runs WordPress called Automattic Inc. At this point in time in 2010 that was the best place to have it.

UK libel law at the time meant that is was better to have it hosted in a country with better protections for freedom of speech, however since 2010 libel laws have changed here.

Blogs process some personal information (for example if somebody leaves their name and email address to write a comment or for other reasons).

In order to protect the privacy of EU citizens, this data was covered by an international agreement between the EU and the American companies called the Safe Harbour Decision. Back in 2000 the European Commission had agreed that meant that the United State’s principles complied with European Union Law on this matter and the relevant EU directive.

However, then Snowden blew the whistle and the public and media became aware of the activities of the US intelligence community. An Austrian citizen called Maximillian Schrems was concerned about the activities of Facebook and as Facebook’s European headquarters is across the Irish Sea in Ireland complained to the Irish equivalent of what is in the UK called the Information Commissioner’s Office.

In his complaint he stated "in the light of the revelations made in 2013 by Edward Snowden concerning the activities of the United States intelligence services (in particular the National Security Agency (‘the NSA’)), the law and practice of the United States do not offer sufficient protection against surveillance by the public authorities".

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner responded to Schrems by (and I’m summarising here) rejecting his complaint in part because of the Safe Harbour agreement. Schrems asked the Irish court to review whether the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s response to his complaint had been legal. However as the Safe Harbour decision had been made at the European level, it was referred to the European Court of Justice to decide.

The European Court of Justice agreed with Schrems and found the Safe Harbour agreement was invalid. The various European data protection authorities (such as the Information Commissioner’s Office here in the UK) have given organisations affected a grace period before the possibility of enforcement action.

In the UK this grace period runs to the end of January 2016 and so organisations affected can deal with the implications.

Although some of what Schrems complained about (for example no legal right for EU citizens in America to sue the Americans for unlawful disclosure of personal information) is being addressed by a law going through the American political system called the Judicial Redress Act 2015 and there is hope in some quarters that there may be a successor to the Safe Harbour agreement, what will happen next is rather unclear.

As data protection lead, my considered opinion was this. Since the Schrems case rendered the Safe Harbour agreement invalid, the only option I was looking at that didn’t involve having a crystal ball involved switching where this blog is hosted from America to within the European Union.

Last year this blog made more money in advertising than its running costs (unusual for a blog I know) and just under a month ago I had paid £68 to Automatic Inc for an extra 10 gigabytes of space so I could write some "big data" journalism stories as previously there was a 3 gigabyte cap.

As a result of the Schrems decision that £68 has been refunded, but the files used over the 3 gigabyte cap had to be transferred to the new host for the blog.

The comments and posts also had to be transferred over. As there were five years worth of these, for some reason the transfer process didn’t work doing it all as one go, so I had to do it in five files of about a year at a time.

The internal links to the old blog before I registered the johnbrace.com domain name in 2012 I also updated manually.

Then I had to make sure the blog at its new host was compliant with another piece of EU legislation (hence the picture above of the Cookie Monster from the American TV show Sesame Street) that got transposed into UK law that referred to cookies.

So, that’s why there haven’t been any blog posts for a while, because my time has been occupied dealing with compliance issues.

Next on my list of things to do as part of this project will be setting up email addresses for this blog (that is email addresses in the format @johnbrace.com ).

Ultimately it’s considered best practice for a blog to be hosted (that is where it is physically based in the world) as near as possible to most of its users. For example another website I run that caters to a North American audience is hosted in Canada (thankfully unaffected by the Safe Harbour agreement).

As you’d expect from a hyperlocal blog, 91% of the visitors to this blog are from the United Kingdom. It therefore makes sense for it to be hosted in the UK as it will now in theory be quicker for those visiting it from the UK.

So hopefully this gives an explanation as to why I haven’t been writing as much. There is still ~3Gb of data to transfer, email addresses to set up etc. I may take a break in updating this blog over Christmas 2015 and do that in the holidays.

So what’s the Wirral Council angle to all this? It boils down to my attitude towards the "rule of law". As an investigative journalist I often write about the public sector’s non-compliance with legislation.

However there’s an unwritten rule I’ve had in force since 2012 (that although if I did I could use internal resources to do so which seem to match those of say a local council) that I don’t go down the Schrems route and start challenging the decisions of public sector bodies through the courts.

Ultimately I’m one for political solutions rather than legal ones. Writing about a public sector body not complying with the law is one thing, but (don’t try to laugh too hard at this point) I’ve developed a policy of generally not interfering in the internal affairs of the public sector here.

The public sector as a result don’t interfere in my life much* (*to give one example telling Biffa to stop collecting the rubbish each week).

My job is to report on matters. I haven’t been a member of a political party for three years and I believe to do so would damage my independence considering my day job.

My role now, is not political activism or to overthrow governments (yes I did a fair bit of that in my more radical youth peacefully I might point out through the ballot box and political means), but to just do my job.

Ten years ago I went for a long walk from South Fulton, Georgia, across the state line to South Fulton, Tennessee and had a long think about what I wanted to do with my life. Many of the people I’d grown up with on the Wirral (the very people who if they’d stayed could have made it a much better place) had left the Wirral and for various reasons (for example career) lived elsewhere.

I knew at the time Merseyside had problems* (*yes an understatement but this was before the 2008 financial crash) and I made a choice then that altered the course of my life over the last ten years. I decided that morally from an ethical perspective that I should return and do my best to make the world a slightly better place, rather than do what many of the people I’d grown up with do and leave.

Just like Schrems was influenced in his lawsuit by time spent working in America, the time I spent in America probably influenced me in the battles I’ve had over the past few years over the issue of filming public meetings.

Freedom of speech and the diversity of media that exists in the UK are a precious matter. This blog for example allows for political speech and discourse to happen. Without such a pressure valve for society, so people can express their opinion, very bad things would happen.

Part of my formal university education (something I don’t often refer to on this blog and my days in student union politics) was about terrorism, counter-terrorism, political struggles etc and I’m sure no-one following the news will be unaware of the recent sad events that happened in France.

International politics (although I could probably write another few thousand words on the subject) is probably a little beyond the scope of this blog post. Ultimately some local politicians here on Merseyside can at times be parochial in their outlook.

I however have to take a global perspective on matters. Blogging is not just about the person writing the blog, but the community that reads the blog. Although I’m under no obligation to be open and transparent about such matters I feel considering the rumours that start going round when I stop blogging for a bit it was better to set the record straight.

I will end by making a point that’ll probably only make sense to data protection professionals or those with an interest in this area. There are protections written in to the data protection legislation to cover journalism. Ultimately the 8th data protection principle which states "Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data" doesn’t apply to journalism.

However the seventh data protection principle does apply which states "Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data".

There’s nothing I can do really to prevent the intelligence community taking an interest in this blog. In turn the intelligence community would argue and have argued that what they do is lawful. Even if this blog is hosted in the UK, GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) could quite happily spy on it without me knowing. Under the Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement they could share this signals intelligence with other countries such as the NSA in America. So just be aware of what you put online as privacy died a death a long time ago. It is a trivial matter for the intelligence community to access the deep web (for example email accounts and parts of websites that aren’t available to the public).

There are also plenty of companies that for public relations purposes monitor blogs and social media. Despite the current concerns over the relatively minor costs to the public sector in responding to FOI (Freedom of Information) requests, untold £millions of your money is spent by the UK public sector on public relations. Plenty of parts of the public sector (even locally here on Merseyside) have commercial subscriptions to such services to find out what is being written about them. For every one John Brace there are an estimated four to five people working in public relations.

I exist in a world of embarrassing information that powerful people and organisations would probably prefer me not to publish. So apologies for the lack of responses to comments and emails over the last fortnight.

I will finish my last sentence with a bit of free public relations advice (unlike the public sector who pays £650+VAT for this sort of advice), never cheese off the press.

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Wirral Council consult on £1.1 million scheme to change Birkenhead’s Hamilton Square

Wirral Council consult on £1.1 million scheme to change Birkenhead’s Hamilton Square

Wirral Council consult on £1.1 million scheme to change Birkenhead’s Hamilton Square

                                                

Remembrance Day 2012 outside Birkenhead Town Hall. If the traffic scheme goes ahead then this area outside Birkenhead Town Hall won't be solely for pedestrians but will be open to two-way road traffic
Remembrance Day 2012 outside Birkenhead Town Hall. If the traffic scheme goes ahead then this area outside Birkenhead Town Hall won’t be solely for pedestrians but will be open to two-way road traffic

Councillor Pat Cleary (Green Party for Birkenhead and Tranmere ward) writes on his blog about a current consultation by Wirral Council proposing changes to Hamilton Square and the surrounding area.

If agreed the changes (you can view a plan of the proposals on the Wirral Green Party’s website it would mean:

  • The removal of the taxi rank outside Hamilton Square train station in Hamilton Street. The reason would be so there could be a puffin crossing outside Hamilton Square train station. This taxi rank would be relocated to two sections of Bridge Street (one for four taxis, one for five taxis).
  • A bus stop in Bridge Street would be relocated to Hamilton Street.
  • The existing bus stop outside Hamilton Square train station would be moved further down Hamilton Street.
  • The area in front of Birkenhead Town Hall which is now closed to road traffic, solely for pedestrians and protected by bollards would become part of the road and open to traffic.
  • The mini roundabout at the Hamilton Square/Hamilton Street junction (to the North-East of Birkenhead Town Hall) would be removed and replaced with a Give Way junction instead.
  • The mini roundabout at the Hamilton Square/Hamilton Street junction (to the South-West of Birkenhead Town Hall) would be removed and replaced with a Give Way junction.
  • The closure at this junction which prevents traffic going to Hamilton Square from the South-West along Hamilton Street would be removed.
  • Hinson Street (now one-way) would be made two-way between Hamilton Street and Henry Street.
  • Hamilton Street (now one-way between Hamilton Square and Conway Street) would be made two-way between Hamilton Square and Conway Street.
  • Conway Street will be closed at its junction with William Street.
  • Alterations to the traffic signals at the Bridge Street/Hamilton Street junction.

The deadline to respond to this consultation is Friday 13th November 2015.

You can respond to the consultation online by visiting this link to Wirral Council’s website (then click on “Comments and objections about new traffic schemes“).

Click Next.

Then enter your contact details and email address (twice).

Click Next again.

The Scheme name/details to enter on the next page are “Hamilton Square re-design“.

The Scheme number is “DC-STEP-1516-2

If you wish to comment or ask a question on the scheme select Comment/ask a question about the scheme from the drop down menu.

If you wish to object to the scheme select Object to the scheme and enter your reasons in the box below.

If you wish to do both select All of the above and enter your comments and objections separately.

Then click Next, followed by Submit.

There was a drop in session on Tuesday November 10th 2015 at Birkenhead Town Hall, Hamilton St, Birkenhead CH41 5EU, between 3pm and 7pm so people could view the plans.

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