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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