Category Archives: Cabinet

by

Wirral Council writes off £11 million of bad debt by using £millions of financial reserves


Wirral Council writes off £11 million of bad debt by using £millions of financial reserves

Reading these two articles, Wirral Council social services in £27m ‘toxic debt’ shock (Wirral Globe) and Wirral council failed to collect £10m of debts (Daily Post) you may be a little confused about what the true financial situation is at Wirral Council.

I’ll deal first with the Wirral Globe article, the figure of £27 million for DASS (Department of Adult Social Services debt) seems to be incorrect. According to page 2 of the independent report and this table here, the figure for outstanding DASS debt was £24.7 million (not £27 million) on New Years Eve 2012 (the figure as of last month is £11.8 million).

This explains why the figures quoted in the article (14.8 million and “more than £10m” (which is £10.9 million) don’t add up to £27 million, but £25.7 million. There is also a discrepancy of a million pounds between this figure and the £24.7 million in the independent report as the figures for collectable debt (£14.8 million) and debt to be written off (£10.9 million) don’t add up to the figure given in the report (£24.7 million) but £25.7 million.

The independent report itself dated 15th March 2013 (ten days after the 2013/2014 Budget was agreed) states “The recent review concluded that only £14.8 million is collectable and recommended writing off £10.9 million of debt of which £4.8 million is already provided for in the financial accounts.” This reads to me that the 2013/14 Budget had a provision for writing off £4.8 million of debt which needs to be increased to £10.9 million (an increase of £6.1 million which would need to be found either from reserves and/or cuts to services).

However this report going to the same Cabinet meeting written by the Interim Director of Finance Peter Timmins states at 9.4 “There is a Bad Debt provision of £4.8m, against estimated bad debts of £10.9m. The further write-off of £6.1m was built into the 2013-14 budget, as part of the exceptional items that featured in the 2013-14 budget process.”

Now, seemingly they can’t both be right as they’re saying different things. How would a £10.9 million bad debt provision (which appeared in a report dated ten days after the Budget for 2013/2014 was agreed) be “built into the 2013-14 budget)? Of course it is possible that Wirral Council received earlier drafts of the report prior to March 5th hence why the report is entitled “Final report”.

So what figure was used for bad debt when this year’s budget was agreed?

This report to Budget Council entitled “Budget 2013/16 – Chief Officer Financial Statement” states at 7.3 in table 3 “Review of outstanding debts – potential write-off” “To be funded from reserves per the Revenue Monitoring report to Cabinet 24 January”.

This report, which was later revised does give a figure (both reports give the same figure) of £6.55 million of “unachieved income” in the Department of Adult Social Services. The report recommends using the £7.941 million in the “Debt Restructuring Fund” reserve to cover the shortfall in income. At the same meeting the Chief Executive estimates the bad debts to be £10 million, that their current provision for bad debts is £4 million, with the impact on the 2013/14 Budget as being £6 million. Interestingly he also states “Mr Sullivan had indicated that he would complete the investigation by mid February and his report would be available initially to the Cabinet and publicly shortly afterwards”. Mr. Sullivan’s final report is dated mid March and as to “his report would be available … publicly shortly afterwards”, a whole two months have passed between the date on his report and its publication in mid-May.

About these ads
by

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”


Continued from Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes “it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”

Council meeting Extraordinary 30th April 2013 Revisions to the constitution Cllr John Hale

Cllr Hale thanked Cllr Tom Harney for his kind remarks. He referred to the Chief Executive’s report to Cabinet of the 18th April, page 46 (page 8 on the file that’s linked to) and quoted from 5.3 “The views of the Democracy Working Party which has met on a number of occasions have helped inform these proposals.”

He considered it to be misleading as it could be read that there was general support for the proposals, in fact a majority of the Democracy Working Party were opposed to the proposals. The Democracy Working Party had only met on five or six occasions for one and a half hours at a time, although it did overrun by ten minutes at its last meeting. Cllr Hale said that this was to review a constitution of one hundred and ninety-nine pages. He said, “I don’t believe this to be anything else except a cynical exercise carried out in order to claim full cross-party consideration and consultation when nothing could be further from the truth.”

Cllr Hale said the result would be to give greater power to Cabinet and the Chief Officers. Fourteen months ago over 70% of councillors voted for a return to the committee system. He said even if they assumed that the new councillors were against a return to the committee system that there would still be a majority in favour of it. Cllr Hale said that this had been the result of a secret ballot.

He said democracy was best served when all parties in proportion to their numbers were represented in the decision making process at all levels of the Council. Cllr Hale referred to the freedom that overview and scrutiny committees have and that no new powers were given to them, just their names were changed.

Cllr Hale said the coordinating committee would have ample opportunity to interfere with and constrain the overview and scrutiny committees. He felt the changes to the Council meeting procedures would reduce the time for opposition councillors whilst increasing the time for the majority party councillors. Cllr Hale said “any third world dictator would be proud” and that “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”.

Continued at Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Darren Dodd “this is what the people of Wirral have been asking for for a very long time”.

by

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes “it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”


Continued from Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Blakeley “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes “it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”

Cllr Foulkes thanked the Mayor for his introduction. He said “This is actually one of the times we’ll have a proper debate”. He said that the other two parties (Conservative and the Lib Dems) wanted effectively no change to the constitution. Cllr Foulkes said if they’d genuinely wanted to change the constitution they could’ve sat down with their mentors and brought forward proposals. He said the only person who’d done any work on it was the Council Leader [Cllr Phil Davies].

He said that Cllr Green had the audacity to talk about the brown bin tax, he [Cllr Green] had had the opportunity to move an objection at Budget Council but hadn’t do so. Cllr Foulkes said that Cllr Green had been in power along with Cllr Harney and he asked did they take the Council to Shrangri-La? He answered, “No they didn’t. They had their chance at the time, they had the opportunity, but did not do so.”

Cllr Foulkes said, “I’m going to get lectures tonight about getting rid of two committees, one of them is around Adult Social Services and adult safeguarding. We had a training session on Monday night on adult safeguarding, a very informative one, all about how the restructures, how the Council’s delivering it, the staff, the people, one event. Who turned up? How many Conservative Members [councillors] turned up to that training session? How many? Not one, not one, sadly I don’t know what’s going on within the Liberal Democrat Group, we’ve read the headlines about it, I don’t know what was going on there, but none of those turned up and sadly I have to say only five Members [councillors] turned up and well, gladly they were all Labour Members [councillors] who bothered to turn up. If that’s the measure of the all party contribution to learning about safeguarding then we still have some way to go.”

He continued, “It can be enshrined in the year’s work or the work program of the new committee that will take over that and there are lessons to be learnt for combining looking at children’s safeguarding and adult safeguarding. That is a lesson that was learnt from the past.”

Cllr Foulkes also said, “I will remind this Council though, it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report. It was the committee system that made that decision. If you think the committee system is foolproof it ain’t. If you think the Cabinet system is foolproof it isn’t.”

He said, “What I am shocked at is the lack of engagement by certain senior Members [councillors] in the process we have gone through. We’ve been to the Floral Pavillion and the atmosphere is better than in this Chamber.” … “We have a training mafia who are apparently monitoring us and making criticisms of us going to training sessions.” … “It maybe that we can have localised planning decisions, it maybe that we can have localised licensing decisions…”.

Continues at Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”.

by

What next for demolished Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory site (Joseph Proudman Building) on Bidston Hill?


What next for demolished Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory site (Joseph Proudman Building) on Bidston Hill?

Demolished Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Bidston Hill

First, a quick history of what’s been happening about this site. Last year in June, Wirral Council’s Cabinet received a report recommending demolition. People had asked the Cabinet about the effect of the Unitary Development Plan change in 2004 on a decision to demolish it, so as nobody seemed to know whether this was still in effect, a decision on it was deferred to the meeting on the 9th July 2012.

The Cabinet meeting on the 9th July 2012 was in postponed to the 10th July 2012 and was told that the bit of the Unitary Development Plan relating to Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory had been deleted in 2007. However between June and July an application had been made to English Heritage for listed status. A decision was then deferred again to Cabinet’s meeting of the 6th September (in the hope that English Heritage would’ve decided on listed status by then).

It wasn’t on the Cabinet agenda of the 6th September or the next meeting of the 27th September. By October a decision had been reached by English Heritage not to accept the application for listed building status and on the 8th October 2012 the Cabinet Member for Corporate Resources, Cllr Adrian Jones gave consent to demolition (effective from the 16th October) for the Joseph Proudman Building. Since then it has been demolished by Hunter Demolition.

Wirral Council owns the site of the former Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, but NERC (the Natural Environment Research Council) has a 99-year lease from 1973. Wirral Council receive £1,800 a year rent from NERC. However NERC have tried to sell their lease. Local residents are concerned that now the building has been demolished that there could a residential development on this site, especially as the Lighthouse Cottage and Bidston Observatory are now being used for this purpose.

In the evidence base (see page 112) for Wirral Council’s Strategic Housing Land Availablity Assessment 2012 it is listed as a site (it lists it as Bidston Observatory but the coordinates are for the Joseph Proudman Building) with a capacity for thirty-eight dwellings. This document gives it an achievability score of 3 (which means development of the site could be achieved in the next five years). It states in that document “Car park and other building require demolition/conversion” (which has already happened).

Any decision on new housing on the site of the Joseph Proudman Building would be first need planning permission and being a major development would be decided by Wirral Council’s Planning Committee. A future request for planning permission would attract opposition from local residents wanting to keep Bidston Hill as it is, its impact on the existing listed buildings (the Lighthouse and the Observatory) would also need to be considered. Until that happens the future of the site is up to NERC and Wirral Council.

Related articles
by

Cabinet (Wirral Council) Special Meeting 18th April 2013


Present:
Cllr Phil Davies
Cllr Brian Kenny
Cllr Ann McLachlan
Cllr Chris Meaden
Cllr Chris Jones
Cllr Pat Hackett
Cllr Tony Smith
Cllr George Davies
Cllr Adrian Jones

The Chair (Cllr Phil Davies) welcomed people to the special meeting of Cabinet and asked for any declarations of interest. No declarations of interest were made, but apologies were given for Cllr Harry Smith by Cllr Chris Meaden.

The minutes of the previous Cabinet meeting were agreed.

The Chair said he would ask the Cabinet Member for Improvement and Governance to talk to this report (on revisions to Wirral Council’s constitution) after he said a few words himself. He thanked Stephen Gerrard for his work on the report.

Cllr Davies said the changes to the Council’s Constitution were “a key issue with the Improvement Board”, a “key action area in the Improvement Plan” and “an issue the Corporate Peer Challenge raised with us last Autumn”.

He continued by saying, “I want to stress at the outset that the Administration intend to continue to operate the Cabinet and Leader model, that’s very clear. We are not persuaded that it is time to depart from that model and we’re certainly not persuaded to go back to the old Committee system and I know that’s an issue of contention with the Opposition, but I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that that is the Administration’s position for the avoidance of doubt and I do personally believe that the Cabinet and Leader model is the best model for us at present and actually will enable us to work in the most efficient and effective way in which we make decisions. So I think it’s important to put that on record.”

He talked about the aims behind the changes and how their “big hope is the new arrangements will lead to greater engagement by local residents”. Cllr Davies said the new procedure for Council meetings was “designed to focus on things we are actually responsible for rather than things we’re not responsible for” and “we need to move away from the kind of too often I think all of us have been guilty about engaging in the kind of Punch and Judy aspect of debating the issues in the Council Chamber”.

by

Leasowe, Saughall Massie and Moreton Area Forum 27th February 2013 Part 2 | Moreton Youth Club


Continued from Part 1.

Caroline Laing said that officers had been asked for savings [in the Youth and Play Service] of £1.2 million which had led to a report to the Cabinet meeting of the 18th February.

She continued by saying that the Budget option would consolidate the existing youth clubs into four youth hubs and would result in a reduction in the number of outreach teams and the closure of eleven satellite youth clubs. The proposals would be discussed and had been recommended to the Budget Council meeting of the 5th March. The Leasowe Youth Club was proposed to be closed with no recommendation to be saved, meetings had been held with Leasowe Community Homes and 7 Waves Community Radio over an exit strategy, there would be a locality manager to give advice and guidance to voluntary organisations and there would still be some outreach provision which would be focussed on more targeted activity.

Cllr Blakeley said that before he asked for questions about Moreton Youth Centre, he want to ask if Moreton Youth Club would stay open until the Birkenhead hub costing £1 million opened?

Caroline Laing said it was worded until but she didn’t know the answer.

Cllr Blakeley said it sounded like the Moreton Youth Club wouldn’t close until the super Hub was open and asked for any questions?

A member of the public asked what criteria were used to decide what youth centres closed and which stayed open?
Caroline Laing answered that the decision was made by Cabinet, but in relation to the Budget four would be retained.

A member of the public involved with a voluntary group that used a youth club said that they hadn’t been consulted on closure and knew of another voluntary group in the same position. Tracey Smith said that managers had been provided with the detail of the consultation. Cllr Lewis asked the member of the public to see him at the end so he could liaise between her and the locality manager. Caroline Laing pointed out that the locality manager appointment had not yet been made.

A member of the public called Steve said that the youth club had been known as Cadburys Youth Club and that he’d been one of the first to go it many decades ago. It had been built for the people of Moreton, but had since gone to Wirral Council. He said it was scandalous that now people would not have anywhere to go to at night, that there would be more people hanging around if they removed provision and questioned how people would be able to afford the bus fare to Birkenhead and back finally saying it was “not right”.

Continued at Part 3.

by

Cabinet (Wirral Council) 18th February 2013 Budget Meeting


Above is video of the well attended Cabinet meeting of 18th February 2013 which discussed the Labour Budget recommendation to Council (which will meet on the 5th March). The agenda, reports, draft minutes etc can be found by following the link.

It was another well attended meeting in the Civic Hall, prior to it was a march and protest outside the Town Hall.

Every agenda item (apart from declarations of interest and minutes) was a recommendation to Council on the 5th March, as the Labour Group could change their mind between now and then on their budget, I’ll save commenting in detail on Labour’s Budget until after the Budget Council meeting on the 5th March.

by

Council Meeting (Wirral Council) (11th February 2013) Kate Wood made Honorary Alderman, Debates on Taxes and Spending


Above is the first 2 1/4 hours of the Wirral Councill meeting of 11th February 2013.

Unfortunately the day this finally uploaded, someone rang up my ISP pretending to be the bill payer (my wife) and cancelled the ADSL line (which took a week to set up with another provider).

Prior to the main meeting there was a short (well by Council standards fifteen minutes is short) Extraordinary Meeting to make Kate Wood an Honorary Alderman. As a slight legal footnote for the last two and a half years Wirral Council could also confer the title of Honorary Alderwomen as the last Labour government changed the legislation in 2010. The papers and minutes for that meeting can be found on Wirral Council’s website.

The main meeting that night was much longer.

The first controversial point (at least if you’re a Conservative councillor) was the recommendation from Cabinet for approval by Council that Cllr Steve Foulkes be the Deputy Mayor for 2013/14. However to avoid any long drawn out debate on the merits of Cllr Foulkes as Deputy Mayor, the matter was simply noted on the basis that it’ll be decided at the Annual Council meeting of the 13th May 2013.

As usual only three notices of motion were debated, the first being Labour’s entitled Unfair Cuts in Local Government Funding, along with a Lib Dem amendment.

The second notice was a Conservative motion entitled Council Tax Referendum along with a Labour amendment and Lib Dem amendment.

Around this point I ran out of battery as the meeting was by now two and a quarter hours long.

The last notice of motion debated was a Lib Dem motion entitled Council Finances along with a Labour amendment.

A few of the motions not debated were unanimously agreed (well unanimous except for the abstention of the Mayor) (Vascular Services Review (about moving vascular services from Arrowe Park to the Countess of Chester), “Health Homes” and the Case for Selective Licensing of the Private Rented Sector and Construction Industry Blacklists).

For the rest of the motions and objections there were splits in the vote among party political lines. The first was “Attack on Democracy in Wirral” – a Conservative motion against the move to four yearly elections from 2015/6, the second was “The Empty Rhetoric of Localism” – a Labour motion about Council Tax Benefit, Crisis Loans and Community Care Grants, the third a Conservative objection against abolishing Area Forums and calling for consultation, the fourth a Lib Dem objection to abolishing Area Forums calling for it to be referred to a group of councillors to make recommendations on, the fifth a Labour motion entitled “Cuts to Tax Credits” (as well as a Conservative amendment and Lib Dem amendment), the sixth a Labour motion on “Payday Loans” (as well as a Conservative amendment and Lib Dem amendment), the seventh a Lib Dem motion on “Tax Avoidance and Public Sector Contracts” (as well as a Labour amendment) and the eighth a Lib Dem motion on “Universal Credit” as well as a Labour amendment.

The meeting finished with a number of changes agreed to committee places, after the recent by elections and resignation.

by

Cabinet 24th January 2013 (Wirral Council): Adult Social Services: The Bad Debt Saga continues


Following the revelation just before Christmas that Wirral Council’s Adult Social Services had £5 million of “previously unnoticed bad debt” Graham Burgess, Wirral Council’s Chief Executive had this to say to last Thursday’s Cabinet on the subject.

He said, “I’ll summarise the comments in a formal email which I’ll send out to all ward councillors. Three actions have been taken in relation to this matter, one is in order to change the system essentially of debt recoverage so we’ve stopped the leakage due to bad debt, and we are following up bad debt as fast as we can. So we’ve stopped the previous practice which led to the situation.

Secondly, we’ve got a small team staff that are actively pursuing the bad debts to bring back to the Council as much as they can of the money which is owed to the Council. As I said some of it is actually more than six years old, some of it more than five years old, more difficult to bring back to the Council, nevertheless we have to be pursuing that now.

Thirdly, simply asking to undertake a review or investigation of this matter to establish how we got in this situation and to learn lessons from it. To this end I have commissioned Eugene Sullivan who until a few weeks ago was the Chair of the national Audit Commission to undertake this investigation, to give some independence to this review.

Eugene Sullivan has started the work, is interviewing some councillors who are still here, is going through records in some depth, is speaking to the District Auditor who has a role in this process and is expected to bring a written report to Members sometime in mid-February where we’ll bring the report back to Cabinet at that stage.”

So yet more bad news on the way for Wirral Council.

by

Cabinet (Wirral Council) 24th January 2012 Financial Monitoring (Revenue Overspend), SIGOMA report and Come Together campaign/petition Part 1


Present:
Cllr Phil Davies
Cllr Tony Smith
Cllr Adrian Jones
Cllr Harry Smith
Cllr Brian Kenny
Cllr Pat Hackett
Cllr Chris Jones
Cllr Chris Meaden
Cllr George Davies
Cllr Ann McLachlan

Cllr Phil Davies welcomed people present and commented that the meeting was less noisy than the previous Cabinet meeting. He welcome Joe Blott, the new Strategic Director for Transformation and Resources. No declarations of interest were made.

The minutes of the meeting held on 20th December 2012 were agreed.

Cllr Phil Davies said they’d take agenda item 3 (response to alcohol consultation) as an item of Any Other Business as they needed to agree their response to the consultation in time to meet the deadline, so the first main item was Financial Monitoring – Revenue (this is the original report), which was the subject of a revised report in the supplementary agenda.

Cllr Phil Davies asked Peter Timmins to introduce the report. Peter Timmins said that the position on the overspend had improved by a £million, he referred councillors to 2.15 on page 7, talked about the earmarked reserves and referred to table 6 at 3.2 on page 10. He said that the underlying problems had been masked by one-off solutions this year.

Cllr Davies thanked Mr. Timmins for the report and said he wanted to make a few comments. He said it was pleasing to see the overspend this year down, however he said they still had additional pressures such as the bad debts issue in Adult Social Services which there would be a verbal report on later and the Social Services care home fees consultation.

He said they were waiting for a “clear steer from government” in response to the meeting they [the three party leaders] had with the Minister a few weeks ago about flexibility about capitalisation and the way the levies operate. There would be a further meeting with civil servants on Tuesday [29th January] and that they were working hard on the budget options consultation which would end at the end of the month. Following the consultation there would be a report to the Cabinet meeting of the 18th February (where they would also decide on a new three-year Corporate Plan).

Cllr Davies said he wanted to add to the recommendations (which are below):

Add the following to the recommendations in the report:-

1. Cabinet believes that the Government’s austerity policy is proving to be profoundly unfair. Authorities with the highest levels of poverty and deprivation are facing the biggest cuts. At the same time, wealthy areas with the lowest levels of poverty pay less.

2. Wirral is losing £151 per head in cuts. Liverpool is losing £252, Manchester is losing £209, Newcastle is losing £162, Birmingham is losing £166, and Sheffield is losing £140 per head.

3. Milton Keynes is losing just £38 per head. Central Bedfordshire is losing £18 per head. And people in North Dorset are losing just £2 per head.

4. Cabinet also notes that a recent report by SIGOMA (Special Interest Group of Metropolitan Authorities Outside London) indicates that out of the 47 SIGOMA authorities Wirral has had the largest cut in its funding from central government (2.62% cut in revenue spending power 2013-14). This compares with the SIGOMA average of -1.78% and the average for Shire Districts of -1.37%.

5. Cabinet supports the ‘Come Together’ Campaign launched by the Mayor of Liverpool on the 18th January when the Leaders of Core Cities, Merseyside Districts and Faith Leaders met to discuss the impact of the Government’s austerity policy.

6. Cabinet supports the on-line petition which has been launched at www.come-together.co.uk. This calls on the Government to urgently re-think its policy and to apply the cuts more fairly across the country, protecting those most in need, and making sure those in wealthy parts of the country pay their fair share. We urge all residents to sign this petition.

This was seconded by Cllr McLachlan and agreed by the Cabinet.