Councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee agreed to Chief Executive Eric Robinson serving shorter notice period and leaving in mid-July 2019

Councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee agreed to Chief Executive Eric Robinson serving shorter notice period and leaving in mid-July 2019

Councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee agreed to Chief Executive Eric Robinson serving shorter notice period and leaving in mid-July 2019

                                                 

Returning Officer for Wirral Council Eric Robinson 25th March 2019
Chief Executive for Wirral Council Eric Robinson who has recently resigned (25th March 2019)

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Employment and Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) 12th June 2019 Part 1 of 3 Appointment of Chair and Vice-Chair, Declarations of Interest, Appointment of Head of Paid Service

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Continue reading “Councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee agreed to Chief Executive Eric Robinson serving shorter notice period and leaving in mid-July 2019”

Liverpool City Council’s Chief Executive Ged Fitzgerald suspended

Liverpool City Council’s Chief Executive Ged Fitzgerald suspended

Liverpool City Council’s Chief Executive Ged Fitzgerald suspended

                                                                    

Ged Fitzgerald (Chief Executive, Liverpool City Council) tries to explain devolution to a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015
Ged Fitzgerald (Chief Executive, Liverpool City Council) at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015

Liverpool City Council’s Chief Executive Ged Fitzgerald (pictured above) has been suspended from his position as Chief Executive by Liverpool City Council.

He was arrested in May on suspicion of both conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice and witness intimidation as part of Lancashire Constabulary’s Operation Sheridan. Operation Sheridan is a corporate corruption investigation.

Since his arrest, Ged Fitzgerald has been bailed and rebailed a number of times.

Operation Sheridan is a long running police investigation into the Lancashire County Council’s former One Connect Ltd partnership with British Telecom. Ged Fitzgerald is a former Chief Executive of Lancashire County Council.

A number of other individuals were also arrested earlier this year as part of the same investigation.

Liverpool City Council councillors were informed of the suspension yesterday evening by email from Mayor Joe Anderson which included this statement,

“We can confirm that a meeting of the City Council’s Appointments and Disciplinary Panel met today to discuss the circumstances surrounding the Chief Executive, Ged Fitzgerald.

After deliberating carefully, the Panel took the decision to suspend him.

We must stress this is a neutral act to allow an independent investigation into issues, including potential reputational impacts on the City Council at the current time, to proceed.

It is important for the City Council, the Panel and the Chief Executive that the investigator is able to make an objective assessment and therefore we are not able to make any further comment at this stage.”

A public meeting of all Liverpool City Council’s councillors meets tomorrow evening starting at 5 pm at Liverpool Town Hall.

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What’s in a whistleblowing report about Wirral Council’s “dismal decade?”

What’s in a whistleblowing report about Wirral Council’s “dismal decade?”

What’s in a whistleblowing report about Wirral Council’s “dismal decade?”

                                 

ICO Information Commissioner's Office logo
ICO Information Commissioner’s Office logo

On the 5th August 2016 a former Wirral Council employee Martin Morton made a Freedom of Information request to Wirral Council for a copy of a report commissioned from Nick Warren on whistleblowing by former Wirral Council employees.

After Wirral Council had ignored his request for a month, Martin Morton requested an internal review on the 6th September 2016.

Wirral Council completed that internal review and communicated the results to Martin Morton on the 3rd October 2016 refusing to supply the report in its entirety.

The refusal was made by Wirral Council’s Monitoring Officer Surjit Tour on the basis that it would prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs (section 36).

Martin Morton then appealed Surjit Tour’s decision to the regulator ICO (the Information Commissioner’s Office).

During the course of ICO’s investigation, Wirral Council apologised for how long it had taken to reply to Martin Morton‘s request, but added an additional reason for refusing some of the information giving personal information (section 40) as a further reason.

On the 27th April 2017 ICO issued a decision notice (FS50649341). The decision notice required some of the information requested to be released to Martin Morton within 35 calendar days as ICO disagreed with Wirral Council and felt there were parts of the report to which neither section 36 nor section 40 applied.

Wirral Council released that information yesterday which comprise paragraphs 1-8 of the report (although part of paragraph 4 is redacted) and paragraph 76. I’ve put in a line break between different pages and in the conversion from print to HTML there may be some minor formatting changes.

I include what has been released below yesterday as it is rather short. A series of XXXX represents the redacted bit. I’ve made two additions. The first is that I’ve linked the words “precise terms of reference” in paragraph 4 to the terms of reference as the report makes more sense when read together with the terms of reference. The second is that I’ve made it clearer that paragraphs 5-75 haven’t been released of the report.



Report


A. INTRODUCTION

  1. This review arises from events which formed part of a dismal decade for Wirral Borough Council (“Wirral”) culminating in a remarkable joint statement from the Leader of the Council and the then Chief Executive (CE) which have accepted a number of failings and recognised the need to improve Wirral’s corporate governance, culture and workforce policies.

  2. Part of the statement concerned the Highways and Engineering Services procurement exercise (“HESPE”). This work was put out to tender; there were bids from the private sector and an in house bid from the Wirral “DLO”. It is convenient to state here some important dates concerning HESPE.







    Dec 2007 Announcement in the Official EU Journal.
    13 March 2008 Qualifying bidders chosen
    2 July 2008 Bidders invited to tender according to a Bill of Quantities.
    4 Sept 2008
    (later extended to
    5 Sept 2008)
    Tender return date.
    16 Oct 2008 Contract formally awarded to COLAS.


  3. The DLO bid was therefore unsuccessful. This meant that the DLO staff would transfer to COLAS from April 2009.



  4. In November 2008 some employees of the DLO made a disclosure on the advice of their Trade Union to Wirral’s CE. I will refer to them collectively as “the Whistleblowers”. They had all worked for Wirral for many years. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX I have been asked to review the treatment of the Whistleblowers. It is not necessary to recite precise terms of reference.

  5. I have interviewed the Whistleblowers and other witnesses and have read a large number of documents provided by Wirral. I thank Wirral staff for the co-operation which I have received. I will not deal with all the evidence because I want to make my report as short and as readable as I can. If required, I can expand on or explore any individual issue.

  6. I have of course used hindsight. That is in the very nature of a review. There is nothing wrong with this provided I do not use it to criticise people or actions unfairly.

    B. WHAT THE WHISTLEBLOWERS HAVE DONE FOR WIRRAL


  7. It took Wirral about four months to respond to the Whistleblowers. They were dissatisfied and went to the Audit Commission. The Commission took the


    unusual step of issuing a public report identifying serious weakness in Wirral’s arrangements for:-

    (a) Declaration of Interests.
    (b) Internal Audit
    (c) Reporting to Elected Members
    (d) Dealing with Whistleblowers
    (e) Evaluating Tenders

  8. As a result Wirral has altered and improved its procedures in these important areas of work. It seems clear that the weaknesses would not have been exposed, nor would the improvements have come about, if the Whistleblowers had not had the courage to speak out. I am not aware that Wirral has acknowledged publicly or privately the contribution which the Whistleblowers thus made to our community.

    (Paragraphs 5-75 are redacted).

    L. CONCLUSION



  1. The Whistleblowers have not received sufficient credit for exposing poor practice within Wirral. The “informal” nature of the first investigation resulted


    in them having to work under great stress for several months. While they were still Wirral employees, their names were disclosed to their new employer as being in some way untrustworthy. Their health and their jobs were adversely affected over an extended period.

    Nicholas Warren 6th October 2015.


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Ged Fitzgerald arrested on suspicion of both conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and witness intimidation

Ged Fitzgerald arrested on suspicion of both conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and witness intimidation

Ged Fitzgerald arrested on suspicion of both conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and witness intimidation

                                   

Ged Fitzgerald (Chief Executive, Liverpool City Council) tries to explain devolution to a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015
Ged Fitzgerald (Chief Executive, Liverpool City Council) tries to explain devolution to a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015

Ged Fitzgerald (pictured above), Chief Executive of Liverpool City Council has been arrested on suspicion of both conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and witness intimidation.

He is also Chief Executive of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and was the Combined Authority Returning Officer (CARO) for the recent LCRCA Mayoral election.

Both bodies have public meetings this week (Liverpool City Council meets on Wednesday and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meets on Friday).

Those who are regular readers of this blog will know Ged Fitzgerald from two earlier stories this month when he blocked a request for copies of the nomination papers in the Mayoral election and along with Wirral Council’s Local Returning Officer Eric Robinson classed us as not a “bona fide” media organisation and therefore barred from the Count.

The arrest of Ged Fitzgerald was made as part of Operation Sheridan.

Operation Sheridan is a long-running Lancashire Constabulary corporate corruption investigation.

Matters relating to the Operation Sheridan investigation have been raised at two different Liverpool City Council public meetings.

Each time democratic debate on the issue has been curtailed.

Apologies for stopping comments on this blog post, but it is unknown at this point if Ged Fitzgerald has or will be charged.

Due to Ged Fitzgerald being a high-profile individual, it is believed that the Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division of the Crown Prosecution Service will be working with the Lancashire Constabulary on this matter.

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Why is Wirral Council’s draft 2015/16 statement of accounts to be amended following concerns by myself and their external auditor?

Why is Wirral Council’s draft 2015/16 statement of accounts to be amended following concerns by myself and their external auditor?

Why is Wirral Council’s draft 2015/16 statement of accounts to be amended following concerns by myself and their external auditor?

                              

Tom Sault (Acting Section 151 Officer) Wirral Council at the Audit and Risk Management Committee on the 13th June 2016
Tom Sault (Acting Section 151 Officer) Wirral Council at the Audit and Risk Management Committee on the 13th June 2016

I’d perhaps better start by declaring the interest that I’m the person the letter below is to, in response to a letter I wrote to Robin Baker.

In an update to Why am I objecting to Wirral Council’s draft statement of accounts for the 2015/16 financial year? published on the 11th July 2016, I have today received a further reply (that you can read below) from Wirral Council’s auditors Grant Thornton dated 19th July 2016 which I quote from below. I’ve linked to the legislation referred to and the page of the statement of accounts that’s the issue. It seems they agree with me (although curiously don’t address the issue of bonuses too in their letter). I’ve left out some of the bits of their headed notepaper which I summarise in brackets ().

Please note the below letter I quote from was written by Robin Baker of Grant Thornton UK LLP (not myself).


Our Ref RJB/SB
Mr J Brace
Jenmaleo
134 Boundary Road
Bidston
WIRRAL
CH43 7PH

(Grant Thornton’s mailing address, telephone number, fax number and website address)

19 July 2016

Dear Mr Brace

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council
Thank you for your letter of 10 July 2016 to me, which also includes a copy of your letter of the same date to Mr Tom Sault.

I note from your letter that you wish to raise an objection to the accounts of Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council. You identify that the draft accounts included on the Council”s website does not comply with the requirements contained within the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015. Specifically for Category 1 authorities there is a requirements under Regulation 2(1)(a) that for employees who salary is more than £150,000 per year, that the name of the employee is included within the Senior employee remuneration table. You highlight the Council’s Chief Executive is on a salary in excess of £150,000 yet he is not named in the table at note 32 of the draft accounts. You ask us to let you know whether we will consider this objection.

As part of our audit process I have reviewed the draft financial statements prepared by the Council. My review also highlighted the omission of the name of the Chief Executive from note 32 to the draft financial statements and I asked my team to raise the matter with the Council. The Council has acknowledged that the failure to name the Chief Executive in the draft financial statements is an oversight that will be corrected in the revised financial statements that will be published before 30 September 2016.

Thank you for raising this matter with me. Given the Council acknowledges the failure to name the Chief Executive is an oversight and will be corrected, we do not consider there is a need to treat this matter as a formal objection to the accounts. The failure to comply with the regulations will be corrected and there will be no continuing breach that would require us to consider whether the accounts are contrary to law.

If you do not agree with this view, please let me know as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

(signature)

Robin Baker
Director
For Grant Thornton UK LLP

(bit at the bottom about how they’re Chartered Accounts, a LLP registered in England and Wales, registered office details, list of members available, regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, member firm of Grant Thornton International (GTIL) etc)


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