How did Liverpool City Council respond to the fire on the 31st December 2017 at the Liverpool Waterfront Car Park?

How did Liverpool City Council respond to the fire on the 31st December 2017 at the Liverpool Waterfront Car Park?

How did Liverpool City Council respond to the fire on the 31st December 2017 at the Liverpool Waterfront Car Park?

                                       

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

Liverpool City Council 24th January 2018 item 7 Mayor of Liverpool Announcements and Updates


Mayor Joe Anderson | 24th January 2018 | Mayor of Liverpool Announcements | Public meeting of Liverpool City Council
Mayor Joe Anderson | 24th January 2018 | Mayor of Liverpool Announcements | Public meeting of Liverpool City Council

At a meeting of Liverpool City Council last Wednesday evening, in item 7 Mayor of Liverpool Announcements and Updates Mayor Anderson (on his 60th birthday) after an update about the suspended Chief Executive Ged Fitzgerald, gave a brief update on what had happened following the fire at a Liverpool City Council run multi-storey car park (Liverpool Echo Arena car park) on Sunday 31st December 2017.

Mayor Anderson (who can be watched in the video above), thanked the fire service and the other emergency services in their role responding to the fire. He also thanked Liverpool City Council staff, specifically the seven members of staff on duty manning the car park who had been involved with the evacuation of the car park. Liverpool City Council staff had made sure that the emergency services were called and stopped people going back into the car park.

He went on to explain about how people affected by the fire were supplied with accommodation and how Liverpool City Council had worked with hoteliers to do so on a “wet and wild” night.

Mayor Anderson referred to thank yous about the support given. He thanked staff at the Arena and Convention Centre and the Pullman Hotel who had supported the city through difficult times. He had asked the Association of British Insurers to urge their members to deal with insurance claims quickly. In response he had received a letter back stating that 96% had already been met.

The discs in the CCTV in the car park had been “rescued” and been “enhanced”. Copies of the video footage had been given to insurance companies. The inside of the car park had also been safely filmed by drone. There had been a lot of questions asked and he said that “some people want to bring politics of course into this which is often the case”.

On the subject of whether the car park should have had sprinklers, he stated that the car park met the legal requirements and that “car parks are for parking your car”.

Continuing he stated that the fire had started on the 3rd floor, it had started in a 16 year old car, that looked like it had been converted to a different type of fuel.

Liverpool City Council’s insurers had been “cooperative” and Liverpool City Council was dealing with them. He expected that their “full costs would be met”. Liverpool City Council staff had been on site on the day of the fire and the next day. Work had been done in an urgent way with four weeks of work carried out in a week.

He said “things are in hand”, and he wanted to make it very clear “how privileged we are to have such dedicated, professional and responsible staff”.

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.

Wirral Council tries to ban filming of public meeting to award Freedom of the Borough to the 96 who died in Hillsborough!

Wirral Council tries to ban filming of public meeting to award Freedom of the Borough to the 96 who died in Hillsborough!

Wirral Council tries to ban filming of public meeting to award Freedom of the Borough to the 96 who died in Hillsborough!

                                                   

Councillor Bill Davies, Left (Chair, Licensing Act 2003 Committee (Wirral Council)) votes against a filming ban of a public meeting 26th October 2016
Councillor Bill Davies, Left (Chair, Licensing Act 2003 Committee (Wirral Council)) votes against a filming ban of a public meeting 26th October 2016

On Friday evening, at a public meeting of all Wirral Council’s councillors, freedom of the borough is expected to be awarded to the 96 that died in the Hillsborough disaster.

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

I filmed Liverpool City Council award freedom of the city of Liverpool to the 96 who died in Hillsborough last year (which can be viewed above), freedom of the borough for PC Dave Phillips last year and the award of freedom of the borough for 107 (Lancashire & Cheshire) Field Squadron Royal Engineers (Volunteers) and the 234 (Wirral) Transport Squadron Royal Logistic Corps (Volunteers) in 2012.

I was therefore surprised to receive the following email below from Kevin McCallum this afternoon. I have sent a response back asking Wirral Council’s Interim Monitoring Officer to provide advice to councillors as to whether this is lawful as Wirral Council are required to provide reasonable facilities for the purpose of filming the public meeting.

I’ve also pointed out I’m quite happy to film from the Council Chamber, as I have done before for a public meeting of the Wirral Schools Forum. Filming from the Council Chamber was done by another media organisation during the freedom of borough meeting for PC Dave Phillips last year. I’ve removed Kevin’s mobile number from the email below as as far as I know it’s not made public. I’ve also not included the LGC Awards 2015 Most Improved Council logo and the boilerplate text at the end.



from: MacCallum, Kevin
to: John Brace <john@johnbrace.com>
date: 11 September 2017 at 14:29
subject: Freedom of the Borough council, Friday.

Hi John,

Just wanted to let you know in advance of Friday that unfortunately the public gallery will be off-limits for the Freedom of the Borough event, as it is being reserved for invited guests of the families.

We are filming the entire event and will be posting it onto our YouTube channel.

If you would still like to attend you, along with any other members of the public wishing to view the formal part of the event, will be asked to use one of the Committee Rooms on the ground floor, where sound will be played through from the Chamber.

Thanks
Kev

Kev MacCallum
Head of Communications
Communications & Marketing

T: 0151 691 8388
M: XXXXX XXX XXX
E: kevinmaccallum@wirral.gov.uk
W: www.wirral.gov.uk & www.wirralview.com


Updated 11.3.18 I finally found the footage of the meeting over 6 months later, it hadn’t been published on Wirral Council’s Youtube Channel as Kevin suggested, but the channel of Paul Frost on the 19th September 2017.

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.

Wirral Council asks for bids on £275,000 contract for broadcasting its public meetings

Wirral Council asks for bids on £275,000 contract for broadcasting its public meetings

Wirral Council asks for bids on £275,000 contract for broadcasting its public meetings

                                      

Cllr Phil Davies speaking about Labour's Budget (Budget Council, 6th March 2017)
Cllr Phil Davies speaking about Labour’s Budget (Budget Council, 6th March 2017)

At Wirral Council’s Budget meeting in March 2017, included in Labour‘s budget was £225,000 for a webcasting/audio/electronic voting replacement described as “webcasting for committee meetings”.

At the time, the Liberal Democrats opposed this. They stated in their Budget that they believed “that this item should be withdrawn until the costs have been fully investigated and the benefits have been fully assessed and justified.”

In August Wirral Council published two notices in the Official Journal of the European Union. The first notice was published on 23rd August 2017, followed by a change to accept variants. By this point the price had gone up to £275,000 (excluding VAT).

Wirral Council came up with a webcasting Invitation To Tender which asks for the submission of tenders by 12 noon on the 20th September 2017.

11.9.17 ED: Since this article was published, Wirral Council have extended the date for the submission of tenders to noon on the 4th October 2017.

25.9.17 ED: Since this article was published, Wirral Council have extended the date again for the submission of tenders to noon on the 3rd November 2017.

In Wirral Council’s invitation to tender it states, “it must also be fully compatible with the Mod Gov case management solution: http://www.moderngov.co.uk/.

According to the technical information on the Mod Gov case management solution, Public-i and Media on Demand are the only two video webcasting solutions integrated to it.

The contract also requests an electronic voting system for public meetings of all Wirral Council councillors in the Council Chamber. In response to a question, Wirral Council stated that the current system of counting votes by which councillors had their hands up was “unreliable”.

If Wirral Council accepts one of the bids, the contract is expected to start on April 1st 2018 and run for three years.

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.

In response to my petition 2 1/2 years ago what changes are now proposed to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority’s constitution?

In response to my petition 2 1/2 years ago what changes are now proposed to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority’s constitution?

In response to my petition 2 1/2 years ago what changes are now proposed to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority’s constitution?

                              

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority 25th May 2017 left Cllr Dave Hanratty (Chair) right Janet Henshaw (Clerk to the Authority)
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority 25th May 2017 left Cllr Dave Hanratty (Chair) right Janet Henshaw (Clerk to the Authority)

A long time ago (December 2014) I started a petition about Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority in relation to their policy and constitution on the matter of filming public meetings.

The petition started off just being myself and Leonora, but also attracted 7 online signatures (total 9, 7 online and 2 in paper form).

The petition called for a change to MFRA’s constitution and filming policy and went on the agenda of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meeting on the 16th of December 2014.

Due to a visit by royalty the time of that meeting was changed from 1.00 pm to 11.00 am. Although I was invited to speak at the meeting I wasn’t told formally of the change of time. So I wasn’t present as I didn’t know the meeting was starting 2 hours earlier than planned.

The councillors at that meeting resolved:

“a) The petition be noted;

b) The Authority’s awareness of the protocol and procedure developed following the introduction of the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014, and its publication on the website for anyone wishing to attend or record proceedings be noted; and,

c) The Clerk be instructed to include any amendments to The Constitution, including revision of what is acceptable to the Authority as a petition, as part of the annual review, and provide with a covering report to the Annual Meeting 11th June 2015.”

Two years later, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service have proposed to councillors a new draft constitution which includes a minimum number of five signatures on petitions.

I might point out that (c) was agreed by councillors to prevent a petition of two signatures being on the agenda. It seems to have ignored the fact that their constitution requires 7 working days notice before the meeting, so in those 7 working days the number on a petition can change!

So in the end my petition is likely to have caused a constitutional change (2 and a half years later), just not to the bit of the constitution that myself and the petitioners requested changed!

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this result with other people.

First Merseyside Police disciplinary hearing held in public starts today

First Merseyside Police disciplinary hearing held in public starts today

First Merseyside Police disciplinary hearing held in public starts today

                                                 

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Police and Fire Collaboration Committee 1st September 2015 Left Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) Right Sir John Murphy (Chief Constable, Merseyside Police)
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Police and Fire Collaboration Committee 1st September 2015 Left Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) Right Sir John Murphy (Chief Constable, Merseyside Police)

I read an interesting article in the Liverpool Echo this morning. The article refers to a police disciplinary hearing for four police officers that’s being held in public (starting today) for four days. By the time this blog post is published the hearing will have started.

This is the first one held in Merseyside since the Home Secretary changed the regulations earlier this year that govern police disciplinary hearings so that they’re in public and not in private.

As mentioned in the Liverpool Echo article, there’s a notice linked from this page on Merseyside Police’s website detailing the hearing information for the four-day hearing starting on 21st September 2015. That last link links to a copy of the three page notice on this blog in case Merseyside Police remove it from their website after the hearing has finished.

The government press release about the changes to the regulations issued about six weeks before the 2015 General Election can be read here.

However there were some parts of the Merseyside Police notice about the hearing that I wanted to quote. These are matters not referred to in the Liverpool Echo article.

Pages one to two of the notice about the hearing deal with the reasons why it is being held, but it is last bit that is interesting (which I will quote in full here, then comment on).

There will be limited seating for members of the press and public. To facilitate your attendance, you must apply by emailing the Merseyside Police Professional Standards Department at:
Professional.Standards.Department.PSD@merseyside.pnn.police.uk, with the following details: Name, Date of birth, Address, Email address, Phone number.

When attending a hearing you will be expected to produce photographic ID. These measures are in place to ensure compliance with Health & Safety legislation and security protocols. You are expected to arrive at least 30 minutes before the start of proceedings to enable staff to complete the administrative process and guide you to the seating area.

No recording or filming of these proceedings is allowed and attendees may be searched prior to entry.

Please note there are no parking or refreshment facilities available at the venue.

The premises are wheelchair accessible and a member of Merseyside Police staff will facilitate the signing in process.

This is a ‘No Smoking Building’.

No food or pets are allowed in the building, other than guide dogs.

So in other words, Merseyside Police want to know exactly who is at the hearing (held in public for the first time) and not only that but they want the dates of birth, address, email address and phone number of everyone from the press and public there.

They expect anyone from the press to show photo ID (not hard for the press as the press will have press cards or photo ID from their employer) but also the public too!

Merseyside Police don’t want any recording or filming of the hearing (presumably this won’t stop people sending tweets about the hearing from their mobile phones during the hearing) and to possibly search people attending.

There won’t be "refreshment facilities" (presumably that means no tea/coffee machine) and for a four-day hearing you’re not even allowed to bring a packed lunch.

Plus they want you to email in advance to say you’re coming!

For a public hearing (or to paraphrase what some councillors would say not a "public hearing" but a "hearing held in public") Merseyside Police would seem to be trying to deter people from going and to gather intelligence on the press and public attending.

Sadly, however interesting it sounds, with Wavertree being a ten-mile trip there and ten miles back from the Wirral we can’t spare someone for the four days of the hearing. I do hope the newspapers send someone though, so there is some record of what happens in this new age of openness and transparency.

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.