What new right does the Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Act 2017 give to journalists?

What new right does the Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Act 2017 give to journalists?

What new right does the Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Act 2017 give to journalists?

                                       

Six Pump Court invoice £2400 Liverpool City Council David Hercock thumbnail
Six Pump Court invoice £2400 Liverpool City Council David Hercock thumbnail | Above is a £2,400 invoice to Liverpool City Council from David Hercock of Six Pump Court for a brief on an appeal involving Tharmathevy Thanabalasingam of Kenny Food and Wine. This invoice went to P (which stands for Paul) Merriman. The matter was an appeal of a decision made by councillors. Clicking on the thumbnail will load an easier to read version.

Despite the fact there is a byelection of a councillor for Claughton (as well as the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Mayor) on Thursday another election (the snap general election) has led to this blog post I am writing.

When a general election is called, some legislation goes through the wash-up and gets passed in the last few days of a Parliament before MPs cease to be MPs (just for information Parliament dissolves on the 3rd May 2017).

There are a number that received Royal Asset recently that effect local government, such as the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act 2017, Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Act 2017, Bus Services Act 2017, Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017, Children and Social Work Act 2017 and Parking Places (Variation of Charges) Act 2017.

However I wanted to write about the Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Act 2017.

Since Victorian times there has been a period each year when the public can inspect and make copies of accounting records relating to the previous financial year. Copies can be made by the person doing the inspection (or more usually requested from the public body concerned).

These are connected to rights of local government electors to make objections about whether money is lawfully spent and related matters.

The legislation since Victorian times has given this right to “persons interested” which has been interpreted over the years by the courts as applying to those registered to vote for the area concerned, bodies that pay business rates in that area and those who are representatives of those two classes (such as an accountant acting on behalf of a local government elector).

This means for example I that didn’t previously have a legal right to ask to look at the financial records for Liverpool City Council. In fact back then I asked to do so, you can find some of those invoices here, but when I rather stupidly told them I didn’t live in Liverpool, it all got a bit (and I paraphrase) “these are local council financial records for local people – there’s nothing for wools like you to see here” and they politely told me the rest of my request was refused.

Liverpool City Council for example in this 17-18 financial year have agreed to spend:

Revenue (net base budget): £399.6 million
Capital: £131.6 million

The change made by the Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Act 2017 means that in 2 months time the definition will be “persons interested or any journalist”.

“journalist” is defined as any person who produces for publication journalistic material (whether paid to do so or otherwise).

So it covers those who do for a living such as myself, unpaid bloggers and a wide variety of other people too.

The Act received Royal Assent on the 27th April 2017, so 27th April 2017 plus 2 months means it’ll come into force (although please correct me if I’m a day or two out) 29th June 2017. It applies only to public bodies based in England or Wales.

There are three classes of public bodies (Category 1, Category 2 and Category 2 with exempt status).

Category 1 are those with a yearly expenditure or income of over £6.5 million a year, or smaller bodies that have decided to have a full audit.

Category 2 are the ones with a spend or income of less than £6.5 million a year.

Category 2 with exempt status have to be bodies with income or expenditure of less than £25,000 a year, are not less than 3 years old and with no concerns raised by the auditors (or courts) in the preceding financial year.

When the 30 day period starts and ends is a decision to be made by the public body, but cover specific dates*:-

*I’m assuming at this point that the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 still sets this.

Category 1 – the first ten working days in June following the end of the financial year
Category 2 – the first ten working days in July following the end of the financial year

So this means for journalists, the new legal right (which will come into force near the end of June) will only cover part of the inspection period this year.

Example

30 working day period runs from 1.6.17 to 12.7.17

“persons interested” from 1.6.17 to 12.7.17
“journalists” from 29.6.17 to 12.7.17

It effectively compresses the inspection period for journalists to a fortnight for Category 1 authorities (although it is to be noted the old inspection period used to be only four weeks).

The chief financial officer for category 1 and category 2 authorities are required by law to publish a public notice on their website alerting the public to this 30 working day inspection period before it starts.

Last year, locally both Merseytravel and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority failed to achieve this somewhat basic step within the required timescales.

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6 month freedom of information battle almost over as government releases correspondence on Wirral View (Wirral Council’s controversial newspaper)

6 month freedom of information battle almost over as government releases correspondence on Wirral View (Wirral Council’s controversial newspaper)

6 month freedom of information battle almost over as government releases correspondence on Wirral View (Wirral Council’s controversial newspaper)

                            

Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative Leader) on the right speaking at the Extraordinary Meeting of Wirral Council to discuss Girtrell Court 4th April 2016
Cllr Jeff Green (right) (Conservative Leader) 4th April 2016 who has been lobbying the Conservative government about Wirral Council’s Wirral View publication

This story has been a 6 month freedom of information battle involving myself, the regulator ICO and the Department of Communities and Local Government involving correspondence between councillors on Wirral Council and MPs involving the controversial Wirral View publication published by Wirral Council.

Just for clarity, Wirral View is opposed by Conservative councillors, Liberal Democrat councillors and the Wirral Globe.

The ruling Labour Group on Wirral Council however supports the spending of taxpayers’ money on the project. Although it has to be pointed out that they have recently performed a U-turn and axed the issue that was scheduled to go out during the election period.

There have been repeated calls from the Labour Group on Wirral Council for the Conservative councillors to lobby the Conservative government. Although ironically they appear opposed to this sort of lobbying and have gone as far as to refer to this lobbying at at least one public meeting as inciting the government to take legal action against Wirral Council.

A series of recent decision notices issued by the regulator ICO (FS50646655, FS50646730, FS50651166) have dealt with information requests made to Wirral Council for copies of the legal advice they received on this matter.

Here are details of what has been released today. I will point out that some of the factual accuracy of what is in some of this correspondence is disputed.

However as editor I feel it is important that the voting public see what goes on “behind the scenes” on a politically sensitive issue in the lead up to a series of elections related to it (Claughton byelection, general election and Mayoral election).

An earlier name for the project was Wirral Today and its referred to that name in the email chain rather than Wirral View.

Document 1 – Wirral 1.pdf
Letter from Marcus Jones MP to Cllr Phil Davies (undated)
Metadata: created 28/6/16 modified 20/12/16

Document 2 – Wirral 2.pdf
Letter from Marcus Jones MP to Cllr Phillip Davies
(undated) but stamped 05 DEC 2016
Metadata: created 5/12/16 modified 20/12/16

Document 3 – Wirral 3.pdf
Letter from Cllr Phillip L Davies to Marcus Jones MP dated 28th July 2016
Metadata: created 1/8/16 modified 20/12/16

Document 4 – Wirral 4.pdf
Letter from Cllr Jeff Green to the Rt. Hon. Sajid Javid MP dated 1/8/16
Metadata: created 1/8/16 modified 20/12/16

Document 5 – Wirral 5.pdf
Letter from Marcus Jones MP to Cllr Jeff Green stamped 23 AUG 2016
Metadata: created 23/8/16 modified 20/12/16

Document 6 – Wirral 6.pdf
Letter (sent by email) from Marcus Jones MP to Cllr Jeff Green stamped 20 OCT 2016
Metadata: created 20/10/16 modified 20/12/16

Document 7 – Wirral 7 R.pdf
Letter from Cllr Jeff Green to Marcus Jones MP dated 4/11/2016 stamped 07 NOV 2016
Metadata: created modified

Redactions (note numbering is from top to bottom)

Page 1
Block 1 –
Block 2 –

Page 2
Block 3 –
Block 4 –
Block 5 –

Document 8 – Wirral 8.pdf
Letter from Marcus Jones MP to Cllr Jeff Green stamped 06 DEC 2016
Metadata Created 20/12/16 Modified 20/12/16

Document 9 – Wirral 9.pdf
Letter from Cllr Phil Davies to Marcus Jones MP dated 28th July 2016
Metadata Created 1/8/16 Modified 20/12/16

Note: this appears to be a redacted version of document 3.

Document 9a- Wirral 9a.pdf
Emails (various dates)

There have also been reported problems with distribution to Wirral residents of the first five editions of Wirral View (October 2016, November 2016, December 2016, January 2017 and February 2017).

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Will 9 councillors tonight recommend better scrutiny of Wirral Council?

Will 9 councillors tonight recommend better scrutiny of Wirral Council?

Will 9 councillors tonight recommend better scrutiny of Wirral Council?

                                       

Tonight, it’s a special meeting of Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee (yes Wirral Council and standards in the same sentence does cause most people to smile). So what’s it about?

Surjit Tour (Monitoring Officer (Wirral Council)) at the Coordinating Committee held on 15th June 2016
Surjit Tour (Monitoring Officer (Wirral Council)) at the Coordinating Committee (which was one of the scrutiny committees abolished last year) held on 15th June 2016

Well last year, Wirral Council decided to save money by having less scrutiny (reducing the scrutiny committees by one). Considering the £millions extra that had to be spent to put a sticking plaster on matters as a result of poor scrutiny and the OFSTED report (which amplified some milder criticisms in the peer review), one wonders with hindsight whether it was both a false economy and a lost opportunity to move towards a better system of scrutiny.

As it states in Surjit Tour’s witness statement (I’ve altered it to the past tense), “the Council had four Policy and Performance Committees that discharge the Council’s overview and scrutiny function.” even though by the time I cross-examined him we both agreed that Wirral Council councillors (albeit bitterly opposed by opposition councillors) had by then recommended to scrap one and have three.

Interestingly the result of that First-tier Tribunal was that the judiciary decided there that Mr. Tour’s decision-making was flawed.

If you read that decision and the OFSTED report together, I wonder if the outcome of the First-tier Tribunal hearing would’ve been different had I had the benefit of that OFSTED report at the time.

Tonight’s meeting, the papers are on Wirral Council website tries to remedy a theme that runs through that First-tier Tribunal decision, the OFSTED report and that that was raised by opposition councillors last year when Labour proposed and then decided on less scrutiny.

I will also make an educated guess that the Improvement Board (which doesn’t appear to meet in public or publish its minutes as far as I can see) decided that the issues expensively identified by Anna Klonowski Associates have never been addressed in any sort of permanent way.

In fact it’s telling that the parting recommendation of the previous Improvement Board (a recommendation endorsed by many of Wirral Council’s committees) for more independent scrutiny, was then vetoed by Cllr Phil Davies. Interestingly his rationale was that Wirral Council would have a combined audit & auditor panel committee, then… yes you’ve guessed it for cost reasons councillors decided later not to!

If I remember correctly, the government are making it a legal requirement that the Combined Authority Scrutiny Committee is chaired by a councillor from a different party, yet Wirral Council has for a number of years considered that scrutiny of Labour councillors is best done by committees chaired by yes it doesn’t take much guessing Labour councillors.

So what is tonight really about?

Well the decision taken last year by Labour councillors is now seen as flawed in light of the OFSTED report.

Labour now propose doing a U-turn and splitting the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee into two new committees. The two new committees will be the Adult Care and Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee and the Children and Families Overview & Scrutiny Committee.

It looks likely that the Children Sub Committee and Health & Care Performance Panel will both be scrapped.

Whether the new scrutiny arrangements will work or whether I’ll be writing next year about a further change to Wirral Council’s scrutiny arrangements who knows?

In the great tradition of Wirral Council, councillors will meet and make no decision tonight, only a recommendation (effectively to all councillors) to then make a decision next month.

Which means nothing will change for at least a further 3-4 weeks.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

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Incredible: how many more people will die early from air pollution as politicians delay?

Incredible: how many more people will die early from air pollution as politicians delay?

Incredible: how many more people will die early from air pollution as politicians delay?

                                    

Mayor Joe Anderson Chair at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st April 2017
Mayor Joe Anderson Chair at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st April 2017

Air quality is an issue that affects everybody and is a cross-cutting theme that covers both the Combined Authority Mayoral election and the General Election.

The story so far is that the judiciary ruled that the government was not doing enough to combat air pollution. Air pollution was causing an estimated 40,000 early deaths a year.

The judgement published in November 2016 ([2016] EWHC 2740 (Admin)) pointed out that the 2015 Air Quality Plan had to be quashed and the government was required to come up with a new Air Quality Plan.

Despite having 5 months to come up with a new plan, now they want to delay matters by at least a further 2 months because of the General Election (followed by a consultation).

As a result of the court case, the government were required to publish a new Air Quality Plan by 4 pm yesterday (but didn’t), instead they have made an application to the court for an extension.

I include below what was said in the House of Commons yesterday on this matter which contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0
Continue reading “Incredible: how many more people will die early from air pollution as politicians delay?”

What are 6 powers the new Liverpool City Region Mayor will have?

What are 6 powers the new Liverpool City Region Mayor will have?

What are 6 powers the new Liverpool City Region Mayor will have?

                                    

Mayor Joe Anderson Chair at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st April 2017
Mayor Joe Anderson (Chair) at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st April 2017

As there is some interest in what a Metro Mayor (or Liverpool City Region Mayor) will do I thought, despite the fact that everyone registered to vote will have received a booklet (or should shortly receive one) I’d answer some questions.

There are however some errors in the booklet I’d like to point out here. The booklet also omits that the Mayor will end up being paid £77,500 a year (a decision made last Friday by Cllr Phil Davies, Mayor Joe Anderson and others).

In the booklet it states the City Region Mayor “will not be responsible for … setting Council Tax.”

(Another decision made on Friday was to hire a temporary Comms/Engagement person for 3-6 months).

First, I’d better describe the current arrangements. The executive arm of the Combined Authority (Merseytravel) levies each of the district councils (based on population) in addition to money it receives from other sources (such as Mersey Tunnel tolls).

The model on which the Combined Authority will work in future is based on the London model. As it states in this briefing note for MPs “Elected mayors will be able to raise a precept on constituent authorities’ council tax bills”.

I presume (if the Mayor decides to go down this route) it’ll be an extra line on everyone’s council tax bill like the lines for police (decided by the Police and Crime Commissioner and Police and Crime Panel) and fire (decided by the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority) at the moment.

So yes, the Combined Authority (although this will almost certainly go up next year) for example this year has a budget of £139.371 million of capital spending and £255.5 million of revenue. (Predictions are of a underspend in the revenue budget at year-end of £81.2 million (I feel obliged to point out that Labour councillors repeatedly state they’re not given enough money)).

The bit where there’s an answer to the question about whether the Liverpool City Region Mayor will made decisions over my local council/ the services they provide? is in my opinion also wrong. I’ve already written a detailed blog post about What are the new powers of the Metro Mayor to decide on planning applications?.

However, for a taste of one of the matters the new Mayor will be doing (chairing Liverpool City Region Combined Authority public meetings) you can watch my video below of the 15 minute meeting (there are about one of these a month).

So that’s 3-4 hours a year of work (probably more if the meetings are longer).

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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st April 2017

Unlike in London, where there are 25 elected London Assembly Members to scrutinise the Mayor this won’t happen in the Liverpool City Region.

There will still be a Scrutiny Committee, but it’ll be made up of councillors nominated by the district councils as before. At the moment there are 14 councillors on that Committee (12 Labour, 1 Lib Dem and 1 Green).

On the opposition front, out of the last three Scrutiny Committee meetings in public, the Lib Dem councillor has sent her apologies for two of them, the Conservative councillor (from Wirral) resigned years ago and no-one else was appointed instead and the sole Green councillor (Liverpool would normally under proportionality rules nominate all Labour councillors but Liverpool decided they wanted at least some opposition) has been to the last three meetings. He’s also the Green Party candidate in the election.

There will be some decisions made solely* by the newly elected Mayor which I will summarise below:

a) matters devolved from the Homes and Communities Agency around land and infrastructure such as housing, regeneration, infrastructure, powers about burial grounds and consecrated land, powers in relation to statutory undertakers,

b) deciding on grants to the local councils in the LCR region,

c) reviewing the local transport plan (at least every five years),

d*) planning applications (of “potential strategic importance”)

*interestingly decisions on these planning applications will also require the consent of the member of the Combined Authority for the area the application for planning permission was made,

e) matters relating to the spatial development strategy and

f) matters to do with Mayoral development areas.

Originally I know the plan had been was for the Combined Authority to combine Merseyside-wide authorities such as the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority to give two examples (similar to old Merseyside County Council).

Even when just talked about, these sorts of proposed changes caused so much resistance from certain existing Labour councillors (who angrily and vocally were against any such changes) that as far as I can tell such plans at the present time were dropped by the negotiating team and the government.

Polling day for over a million people in the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority area (Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral) is on 4th May 2017 (although postal voters may receive their ballot paper before this date).

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