Category Archives: Labour

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Merseytravel: Scrutiny Committee 3rd June 2013 “Fares Review” Cllr Steve Foulkes “where you can go on a bus and you hear people say, “What’s the cheapest deal today?” you know and that shouldn’t be the case”


Merseytravel: Scrutiny Committee 3rd June 2013 “Fares Review” Cllr Steve Foulkes “where you can go on a bus and you hear people say, “What’s the cheapest deal today?” you know and that shouldn’t be the case”

Unfortunately Standing Order 61 of Merseytravel’s rules in a section marked “Confidentiality” states “No record of the proceedings (or part of the proceedings) of a meeting may be taken to enable persons not present to see or hear any such proceedings without express permission” so sadly there won’t be any accompanying photos or video footage to this report. Perhaps Merseytravel didn’t get the letter from Bob O’Neill about this issue.

Attending the meeting were the Chair, Cllr Malcolm Sharp (Labour, Knowsley), Cllr Steve Foulkes (Labour, Wirral), Cllr Liam Robinson (ex-officio, Labour, Liverpool), Cllr Anthony Carr (Labour, Sefton), Cllr Joanne Calvert (Labour, Liverpool), Cllr Hayley Todd (Labour, Liverpool), Cllr John Dodd (Merseytravel Alliance Signals Good Governance (which is what the Lib Dem/Conservative coalition calls itself on Merseytravel although Cllr John Dodd is a Liberal Democrat), Sefton as well as various Merseytravel officers.

The Chair started by welcoming their new Chief Executive, David Brown to the meeting. David Brown replaces their former Chief Executive Neil Scales after a brief stint by their current Deputy Chief Executive Frank Rogers as Interim Chief Executive. Mr. Brown gets a salary of £149,000. As he [David Brown] was attending his first meeting, the Chair (of the Scrutiny Committee surely who’s very raison d’être would be to scrutinise Merseytravel officers’ decisions?) said that Mr. Brown, the new Chief Executive was there purely as an “observer” and not to ask him “any questions” or “put him on the spot”.

The meeting started with the Chair asking for any apologies for absence. Apologies were given for Cllr Pauline Walton (Labour, Liverpool). The Chair asked for any declarations of interest. Nobody gave any. He then asked if the minutes of the meeting held on the 27th April 2013 were agreed as a true record of the last meeting? They were agreed.

An officer referred to by the Chair as Liz introduced item 4 Fares Review which also had an enclosure. She referred to a decision at an earlier Scrutiny Committee meeting on their priorities for the coming year and that the first workshop had been held in May. Liz said it had been well attended by councillors, not just those on the Scrutiny Committee and the workshop had brought up two potential topics to be considered. After it had been discussed with the Chair [of the Scrutiny Committee] the first two items for scrutiny had been decided as a Fares Review and an Operator Interface Review. These would report back in September, the appendix detailed the aims of the Fares Review and the expert witnesses. She said that at 9b (of the report) it asked for councillors to be nominated to be involved in the Fares Review, instead of deciding now this would be done after the Annual Meeting of Merseytravel on the 27th June. The Chair asked for any comments.

Mr Worry from the Mr. Men
Mr. Worry (Mr. Men) from mrmen.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Worry

Cllr Steve Foulkes said, “Thanks Chair, I have no problem with the Terms of Reference, particularly whilst it talks about excluding us from the work that’s been going on around young people because I know that’s underway. There’s been a great deal of work on that. It would be very helpful to Scrutiny Committee for that report when that’s ready to come back to us as well as part of our overall look at fares and I think it’s an issue really that if we are in tune with the public, I think it’s something the public want us to do and I think a well documented and well thought out piece of work on scrutiny would not only be used within this organisation but be used further afield to make people recognise indeed some of the discrepancies that there are.

Certainly for the public it’s a very confusing picture outside, out there now for fares and that. I think about my own sort of various grievances I have, where you can go on a bus and you hear people say, “What’s the cheapest deal today?” you know and that shouldn’t be the case. If you’ve got an offer or there’s something that can save people money, it should be known automatically before people plan their journey. So I think we can be part of the bigger picture, I think it’s about going to areas to work on that are something that look, hopefully encourage Scrutiny [Committee] to do more pieces of work and I was thinking it’s a healthy start to our Executive/Scrutiny split so that’s what I wanted to say and thank you.”

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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.

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Council (Wirral Council) Budget Meeting 5th March 2013


The full Council meeting to decide the 2013/14 Budget was nothing if not predictable and the papers and reports for this meeting are here.

Two large petitions were submitted during the meeting, one was against closure of the Youth Centres, another of over 14,000 against closure of the Day Centres.

The Conservative Budget amendment was debated first and proposed saving the day centres and setting a 0% Council Tax rise which would’ve been achieved through savings (reducing amounts awarded to those taking redundancy, 5 days unpaid leave, “leaning Council bureaucracy” and reducing support to councillors.

Not unsurprisingly (despite Lib Dem support) the Conservative budget was defeated by Labour councillors.

The Lib Dem Budget went further and proposed saving a whole raft of services the day centres, youth centres, grants to voluntary groups, school crossing patrols, Birkenhead kennels and ruling out a charge for collection of garden waste. It also proposed keeping the Area Forums and reducing councillors to sixty. This would’ve been achieved through savings in agency workers, reductions in councillors allowances and senior management pay, capping the redundancy payouts, less glossy brochures, reduced audit fees and some other minor savings. This Budget also would’ve led to a 0% increase in Council Tax. The Lib Dem Budget was also rejected.

So the Budget that passed was the unamended Labour Cabinet’s budget recommendation of the 18th February 2013, this Budget will lead to an overall increase in 2% in Council Tax (any higher would trigger a referendum) and includes closure of one of the day centres, cancelling the Tranmere Rovers sponsorship, getting rid of Area Forums, a cut of £1.5 million to the budget for Childrens Centres/Surestart, a cut of £1 million to the Street cleaning budget, a cut of nearly £1 million to the Home Insulation scheme and various other cuts to Council services. For the full details of Labour’s budget you can read the papers on Wirral Council’s website.

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Pensby and Thingwall (Wirral Council) Byelection Result: Labour gain (Philip Brightmore)


On 28th February 2013 there was a by-election in the Pensby and Thingwall ward after the resignation of Conservative councillor Don McCubbin. The Labour candidate Philip Brightmore won. The full results (in alphabetical order) are below:

Candidate Party Votes
Philip Brightmore Labour 1,411
Allen John Burton Green 74
Sheila Lesley Clarke Conservative 868
Damien William Cummins Liberal Democrat 834
Jan Davison UK Independence 426
Neil Kenny English Democrats 53
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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.

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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.

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Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 28th January 2013 Council Tax and Chief Exec’s contract


Monday’s Council meeting started the usual way with prayers. Following the prayers the Mayor asked for apologies for absence. Apologies were given for Cllr Elderton and Cllr McLachlan. The Mayor said that Cllr Elderton had improved in hospital for two weeks and hoped they would have a wonderful evening. He also said he’d be stricter on keeping people to time limits on speaking as if they had been adhered to last time a further eight councillors would’ve spoken, with a warning that the Deputy Mayor said he would be much tougher during his time in office.

No declarations of interest were made.

The Mayor brought forward item 5 (by-election results) and asked for it to be noted. Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative leader) congratulated the two new Conservative councillors at being elected.

A number of petitions were submitted.
Cllr Patricia Glasman submitted a petition opposing planning application APP/12/01520 for a ‘One to One’ Birth Centre in New Brighton.
Cllr Kathy Hodson told of a petition of 690 signatures opposing the withdrawal of maintenance of the bowling greens.
Cllr Leah Fraser put forward a petition of 36 signatures opposing planning application DPP4/12/01491 for an extension to St Georges Primary School in Liscard.
Finally, Cllr Clements presented a petition of 118 signatures opposing withdrawing maintenance of a bowling green in Greasby.

The meeting moved onto approval of the Council Tax Support scheme. Cllr Phil Davies gave a brief speech, bemoaning the fact that their budget was being cut by 10% next year, but that pensioners and people with disabilities wouldn’t lose out. Cllr Gilchrist indicated his disagreement with the scheme and said there would be problems collecting money from people who hadn’t had to pay Council Tax before. Fifty-five councillors voted for the scheme (Conservative and Labour) with the seven Lib Dem councillors against it.

Cllr Phil Davies stating it was unfortunate that they didn’t have the right figures on the senior management restructure from the start, but that they’d had assurances it wouldn’t happen again. The changes were agreed unanimously.

The changes to delegation on employment matters were more controversial. Cllr Phil Davies said that following the feedback from the peer challenge review, which recommended clarifying roles to ensure councillors did “not get overly involved in operational matters”. He asked for a quarterly report to the Employment and Appointments Committee on the gradings, grievances and disciplinary action decisions.

Cllr Jeff Green said they would be supporting it.

Cllr Pat Williams said that poor working practices had been brought to councillor’s attention during these meetings and that they had often found in the employee’s favour. She said that they would not know about these issues if it was taken out of their hands.

The Labour and Conservative councillors voted for (55), the Lib Dem councillors voted against (7).

Item D (Collection Fund 2012/2013, Council Tax Discounts (Annual Review) and Council Tax Base) was agreed unanimously.

Item E (The Employment Contract of the Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service) attracted more disagreement. Cllr Phil Davies said that it was “important to make the change now”, whereas Cllr Green didn’t understand the sudden urgency or why there shouldn’t be an open and transparent process instead. He said it was disappointing as the Chief Executive should have the full support of councillors.

Cllr Harney said he couldn’t understand why the issue of a permanent contract couldn’t be linked to the performance appraisal of the Interim Chief Executive. He said he hoped it was not a precursor to employment practices that had “bedevilled the Council”. Cllr Pat Williams said that Labour had created division which was “unnecessary and insensitive” and referred to adverse and avoidable press publicity. Cllr Mark Johnston said during his time as councillor he had seen three political leaders, four Chief Executives and damning reports on poor governance. Cllr Gilchrist referred to the peer review.

Cllr Davies responded to the comments made and referred to a conversation with Cllr Green in December, Cllr Green disputed how Cllr Davies portrayed this. He said he was more than happy to show the public proof that this was incorrect. He said, “To suggest anything else is not only inaccurate, but it actually puts at risk any sort of trust we can have in terms of when we actually have a meeting, whether those views will be accurately represented or not.”

Cllr Davies (Phil) said that it was his recollection of the meeting and said the “business of the Council must go on” and taunting Cllr Green by saying, “this is why Jeff is no longer Leader of the Council”. He said “I believe this is the right thing to do” and said he was “showing leadership” and that it was “the right thing to do”.

A card vote was called for. Conservative councillors voted against, Labour councillors voted for. Lib Dem councillors voted for and against. The final vote was 36 in favour, 26 against.

Item 4 was noted and Item 6 was agreed. The meeting then finished.

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Leasowe and Moreton East By-election Result (Wirral Council) Ian Lewis (Conservative) returned


Having lost his seat last May to Labour’s Anita Leech (with a majority of 318), after the death of Cllr Ann McArdle, Ian Lewis (Conservative) overturned Labour’s majority into a majority of 265 in the by-election.

The result doesn’t change the balance of power on Wirral Council, but does reduce Labour’s majority from nine to seven. Meanwhile in the Heswall by-election held on the same day Kathryn Anne Hodson (Conservative) was predictably returned with a comfortable majority of 794.

Candidate Party Votes
Ian LEWIS Conservative 1620
Pauline Ann DANIELS Labour 1355
Susan Jane WHITHAM U.K. Independence 148
Mark HALLIGAN Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts 31
Jim MCGINLEY Green Party 28
Daniel CLEIN Liberal Democrat 28
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Cabinet (Wirral Council) 20th December 2012 Part 1: Trade Unions Protest Over Budget Cuts Proposals


Prior to the Cabinet (which was rearranged from Committee Room 1 to the Civic Hall) there was a union protest outside the Town Hall and many of the hundreds of people stayed on for the meeting itself which lasted about an hour. When the Cabinet Members arrived they were booed.

No Cabinet Members declared any interests. The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed and Cllr Phil Davies asked the Interim Chief Executive Graham Burgess to talk about the proposals on the Council’s Budget from 2013 to 2016. Graham Burgess spoke for about five minutes about the issues.

Joe Taylor (the branch secretary of the local Wirral UNISON branch) then was asked to speak to the meeting. Before Mr. Taylor had even sat down, he received loud applause as well as whistling and cheering which continued even after he sat down. He started off by thanking Cllr Phil Davies for the opportunity to make a number of points. He said he would try to keep within the five minutes but not to hold him to that (he actually ended up speaking for eleven minutes).

He said after the Cabinet meeting of the 8th November the Labour Group had agreed to extend the consultation on the terms and conditions [of employment] which was welcomed, however he made it clear that UNISON was against any reduction in pay as a result of changed terms and conditions. He said it had been rumoured that the unions had agreed some savings, but that no savings had been agreed between the trade unions and Wirral Council.

Mr. Taylor said that during the ninety day consultation period they would work with the Authority [Wirral Council] to find alternatives. He said that they also welcomed the extension of the consultation on the voluntary redundancy scheme. He said that if Wirral Council did go for compulsory redundancies that UNISON and UNITE would ballot their members.

Joe Taylor then referred to the proposed senior management restructure and the budget consultation. He said they’d asked a national union officer to come down from London on the 16th January 2013 to go through the books so that the unions could come up with alternatives.

He said there should be no compulsory redundancies, but he said that the officer’s proposed savings “devastate services to the people of the Wirral”. Joe Taylor then said that the service losses would lead to job losses, that he didn’t want services to be slashed and asked the Labour Group to work with the trade unions and get something “viable for this Authority”. He told the Labour councillors “don’t smash the communities and the people who voted you in”.

The next items Mr. Taylor referred to were the special Scrutiny Committee meetings specifically the Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting [of the 5th December]. He said, “I was appalled, I was appalled and I was alarmed. I was alarmed on the basis that the person who came forward couldn’t quote some of the factual information that affects our members”, he went on to give three examples. The first job referred was a part-time receptionist which he claimed would lose out on £3,163 if the new terms and conditions were agreed which he said would equate to a 34% loss of pay. This prompted heckling from the audience.

The next job he referred to was an Emergency Duty Team Social Worker on £40,234, who would lose out on £8,098 if the revised terms and conditions were agreed followed by a part-time cleaner on £6,256 who he claimed would lose out on £4,175 under the revised terms and conditions. He said that those were the real facts that should be quoted and scrutinised by councillors and asked councillors to “delve into the detail”.

He said that if the revised terms and conditions were accepted that it would equate to a pay cut over the next three years. He next referred to the statement that changes to the essential car allowance in other authorities had caused a short disruption. He said, “If that’s the type of consultation that you study other authorities about car allowances and how much the disruption will be for the Authority, I can tell you now, we met with our Members, we’ve had six general meetings around the Borough and they were packed to the rafters. Packed to the rafters and they were quite clearly telling us they won’t use their cars. Social workers were saying they won’t use their cars.”

13:50

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Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 21st November 2012 Labour councillors ban filming (again)


Well, in what is becoming a rather predictable saga and in a repeat of what happened at the start of Pensions Committee on Tuesday evening, Labour councillors once again voted that filming be stopped of this public meeting of Wirral Council’s Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday evening.

The Conservative councillors (except for the Chair who abstained) and sole Liberal Democrat councillor voted against banning filming but were outnumbered by the Labour councillors.

When asked by Cllr Fraser what the reasons were for banning filming the proposer of the motion Labour councillor Jerry Williams responded as follows:-

“Well, we’ve had clear guidance on this issue, here we are, on the other hand ostentatiously filming and recording events from the gallery could be regarded as disorderly and disruptive or otherwise. It is secondly unsettling to point a camera at someone at issue, significantly Members would know as they were being filmed, we have no control over way the film is taken, edited or even produced. I think that’s quite clear.”

Cllr Dave Mitchell, Liberal Democrat spokesperson said, “I’m in no rush, but I want my say in the end. In relation to that particular note, the passages that you’ve read out, what was the final recommendation to Cabinet or to the Council when that was actually dealt with? I’m just reminded while you’re looking it up, if you look behind it your good selves you will see there are Cabinet here, and for eighteen months every Planning Committee was filmed by the local authority. Did I interrupt you guys? Again it goes back to the comments [Cllr] Leah [Fraser] made before, it was stopped for financial reasons. I don’t see anything wrong with it being filmed because I know I’ve got nothing to hide.”

There were many items on the agenda that I’m sure the Wirral public would’ve liked to see (and hear) their local councillors’ views on which included domestic homicides, pavement and grass verge parking, parks modernisation and the Arrowe Park hospital travel plan.

Ironically (and causing much laughter) in the first main item after filming was banned (an item on domestic homicides) the Labour councillor Mike Sullivan, who had earlier seconded the motion banning filming, spoke of his regret that it was “not on the record” followed up with the barbed insult of “people this side [Labour] know the rules, Members opposite don’t”.

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