What’s in the 370 page whistleblowing report on Wirral Council’s grants to businesses?

What’s in the 370 page whistleblowing report on Wirral Council’s grants to businesses?

What’s in the 370 page whistleblowing report on Wirral Council’s grants to businesses?

 

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

The BIG/ISUS whistleblowing issues have been already covered in extensive detail by this blog over the past few years. However the latest twist in this story was yesterday’s release of a 370 page 2012 internal audit report into the matter following ICO decision notice FS50559883.

Wirral Council have finally released an internal audit report dated 13th January 2012 that went to Bill Norman (then Monitoring Officer/Director of Law, HR and Asset Management at Wirral Council). Those with long memories will remember that Bill Norman was suspended later that year over the Colas matter, then in September 2012 councillors agreed he should receive £146k plus £5k legal expenses to leave.

Back to the BIG/ISUS matters and let’s just quickly recap the blog posts I’ve written on the many aspects of this matter as they provide some background. I’m sure there are one or two I may have left out (I remember I republished some of my earlier blog posts which contained the agreements for BIG/ISUS in the lead up to the special meeting of the Audit and Risk Management Committee last October).

So that’s a brief summary of developments so far? So what does the new information reveal? It’s a report by an auditor at Wirral Council which details the allegations the two whistleblowers made, the investigations into those allegations and the auditor’s opinion as to whether the whistleblowers were correct or not.

The executive summary runs from pages 9-16 and details the allegations made by the two whistleblowers and whether what was inspected during the investigation substantiated or refuted these claims. Pages 17-20 go through each of the allegations in detail as well as whether each allegation is correct or not and the implications that follow. Pages 21-45 are the main report which at the end contain 14 recommendations. Had some of these recommendations been implemented in 2012, some of the unanswered questions surrounding this matter would have been dealt with much earlier, such as the transfer of assets from Lockwood to Harbac.

At the special meeting of the Audit and Risk Management Committee in October 2014, councillors, officers and those speaking at the public meeting were warned not to refer to names of companies, yet the release of this 2012 audit report only removes the names of Wirral Council employees (and former employees). These matters are now out in the open (which should’ve happened before the Audit and Risk Management Committee met last year). Had this 2012 internal audit report been made available to councillors before that meeting the discussion may have been very different.

However it only came to light because of a FOI (Freedom of Information) request made by one of the whistleblowers and even then only after the Information Commissioner’s Office intervened with a decision notice. Certainly the whistleblowers must both feel vindicated by the conclusions reached in this detailed 2012 internal audit report.

The Liberal Democrat Group of councillors on Wirral Council plus the Green Party Councillor Pat Cleary have tabled the following Notice of Motion for the next Council meeting on the 12th October 2015 on the subject of FOI requests. It reads as follows:

OPEN GOVERNMENT ?

This Council recognises that the Information Commissioner’s Office, as the independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest and to promote openness by public bodies, upheld 13 complaints against Wirral Council in the past year.

Of the 18 notices issued between 29 September 2014 and 24 August 2015, the majority (72%) of complaints were upheld.

Council believes that this is a matter for concern, requiring an explanation to its Members.

Council requests that lessons should be learned and applied from these decisions and questions whether Officers have been excessively cautious or defensive in their interpretation of the legislation.

Council, therefore, requests that the legislation is approached with greater regard to the ‘public interest test’ so that the risk of further reputational damage to Wirral can be reduced.

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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.

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Police and Fire Collaboration Committee agree to joint review for collaboration between Merseyside Police & Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service

Police and Fire Collaboration Committee agree to joint review for collaboration between Merseyside Police & Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service

Police and Fire Collaboration Committee agree to joint review for collaboration between Merseyside Police & Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service

                                                           

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)

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Video of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority) meeting held on the 1st of September 2015.

The Police and Fire Collaboration Committee met for the first time on the 1st of September 2015. Papers for the meeting are on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority’s website.

The first meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee elected Councillor Dave Hanratty as Chair.

The other members of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee are:

Councillor Linda Maloney (Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority)
Councillor Leslie Byron (Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority)
Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside)
Sue Murphy (Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside)
 

The Police and Fire Collaboration Committee agreed the terms of reference.

Most of the rest of the meeting was discussion of the Fire and Police Collaboration Programme. There was a 5 page covering report and 8 page appendix detailing the “Collaboration/Shared Services Guiding Principles between Merseyside Police and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service.

Chief Fire Officer Dan Stephens presented the report, as did Sir Jon Murphy (Chief Constable, Merseyside Police). Chief Fire Officer Dan Stephens drew the Committee’s attention to the list of possible areas for shared services in the report at part 6. The areas detailed in the report are:

  • Human Resources
  • Occupational Health
  • Finance
  • Procurement
  • Vehicle Fleet Management
  • Estates/Facilities
  • Press Office
  • Communication and Marketing
  • Performance/Corporate Development
  • Legal Services
  • ICT

He gave an example of shared working in the shared estates area as the Joint Control Centre in the building where the public meeting was being held. Dan Stephens highlighted the staffing implications in the report (section 16-17 on page 10). He stated, “Just to reassure members of the Committee that a Communications Strategy is being developed to ensure that all of our staff can be fully informed. As you can appreciate there will be a fair degree of interest in the work as it progresses.” Dan Stephens also referred to the legal implications, financial implications and other implications in sections 18-24 in the report.

Chief Constable Sir John Murphy added, “Everything that the Chief has just laid out there has been drawn up in complete collaboration with ourselves”.

Jane Kennedy, Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside said “That’s a good and comprehensive list of potential quick gains. For knowing what I know of the potential cliff edge that the Force is facing in terms of its funding and the particular threat in particular to community policing, for me B Ways of Working is absolutely crucial to the future benefit to the community of our two services working together. I can’t, my waking nightmare is the loss of what we currently know of as community style policing.

If we lose community policing altogether then there would still be neighbourhood policing, but we are, we are very close to that now. There is potential gain from us working very closely together with your people and the Force’s people on the ground in communities which I think is probably the greatest benefit.”

Councillor Hanratty (Chair) said that they needed to have conversations with the North West Ambulance Service to see “how they could work better together with them”. He suggested inviting the Chief Executive and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the North West Ambulance Service to a future meeting. Cllr Hanratty suggested that when they got to the last agenda item adjourning the meeting.

Jane Kennedy agreed with Councillor Hanratty but that it had taken her six months to get a meeting with North West Ambulance Service but, “I completely agree with what you’re saying David”.

Cllr Hanratty referred to both Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and Merseyside Police’s independence. He commented that both organisations do “fantastic work”.

Chief Constable Sir John Murphy said, “Just to endorse what the Commissioner’s said there, the great strength of what we’re embarking on here is the MFRS [Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service] and Merseyside Police are under the same pressures, we share the same footprint and there’s a real joint will amongst the Chief Officer Teams and the people in this room to get things done.

Our experience with working with North West Ambulance and the North West is a problem to start with is that it’s not quite that straightforward and the experience of the JCC [Joint Control Centre] here and they’re in, they’re out, they’re in, they’re out, I would not like to see North West Ambulance Service get in the way of what we’re trying to achieve, but the principle of what you’re suggesting and the commenced approach towards that I agree.”

Councillor Leslie Byrom added, “I mean I agree with everything that’s been said, what we’re going to have in the next few months of business other than the budget stuff which is going to have a real major impact on how we’re going to plan for the future. This is the first step.

We’be got the overlay also that’s emerging of the Police Reform and Criminal Justice draft Bill. That mentions fire and police collaboration. It may mean that it’s more intended to affect non-metropolitan areas, there may be a separate solution anticipated for metropolitan areas but there is so much happening I think we are going to have to be fleet of foot for the next few months, adjourning this meeting is absolutely right.

Err, enabling us to call a meeting at you know legally short notice, errm and deal with changes that are being presented to us as they happen because you know we are on a bit of a roller coaster.

NWAS [North West Ambulance Service], obviously that’s another part, that’s another facet, another side of the entire blue light issue isn’t it? And I don’t think you know, I know we have difficulty sitting round and meeting with them, but actually I think we can’t leave that as an excuse can we?

We have to, they can not participate yes, but we have to be making the, giving leadership on this issue and showing that you know there is that overlay of blue light and the cross issues. Both the money and the way that they operate are quite different to us, I understand that, but we’re all in the area of public expenditure at this time.

So you know we just try our best with NWAS [North West Ambulance Service] to move things forward.”

The Chair thanked the officers for their work and referred to it as “a culture change for both of our organisations and the way they’ve worked together so far has been tremendous as well”

The recommendations contained within the report were agreed which are:

“That members:

a. Approve the draft Guiding Principles for the Collaboration Programme attached at Appendix A

b. Instruct the Chief Fire Officer (CFO) and Chief Constable (CC) to undertake a joint review of existing and potential opportunities for collaboration in line with the methodology detailed within the Guiding Principles.”

The Chair then agreed to adjourn the meeting, so that they could “call the meeting as and when required” but that the next meeting should be within the next couple of months.

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What questions did the public ask Jane Kennedy about antisocial behaviour in Birkenhead?

What questions did the public ask Jane Kennedy about antisocial behaviour in Birkenhead?

What questions did the public ask Jane Kennedy about antisocial behaviour in Birkenhead?

                                                              

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Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) answering questions from the public at a meeting of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee (Thursday 28th May 2015)
Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) answering questions from the public at a meeting of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee (Thursday 28th May 2015)

Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) answered questions from the public about antisocial behaviour in Birkenhead at a meeting of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee held in Birkenhead Town Hall last Thursday evening.

First to ask a question was Paul Haywood. He had seen police officers patrolling Birkenhead in pairs or in pairs of police community support officers but he asked why the two weren’t mixed together? He also asked what police specials were.

Jane Kennedy replied, "In years past, when PCSOs [police community support officers] were introduced, we had more of them and we had more officers in the workforce there would have been more resilience to be able to pair officers with PCSOs. The bare truth is that now that is no longer the case."

Mr Haywood added that pairing PSCOs with police officers would give the PSCOs the experience they need to become police specials.

The Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside answered, "First of all that route into the police is primarily the most successful route for candidates who are joining the force, although we just learned today a period of no recruitment as officers, we are still recruiting PCSOs and people who have had experience as specials, special constables or as PCSOs are usually most successful when it comes to applying to be a full constable.

So we’ve seen quite significant movement through into the force from PCSOs, so you’re right in the sense that having that experience helps, but what you have to hold in mind is that they are doing different jobs. Leaving aside the specials for the moment, police officers even working together in a neighbourhood team are performing slightly different roles to the PCSOs, whose primary focus is engagement and listening and communicating and gathering information. Arresting and responding to reports of crime is more well, they all do it but primarily that’s the job of these sworn officers.

I’m going to ask the Inspector if she would mind saying what the force policy is in terms of patrolling. I don’t think there’s a bar on them patrolling together, it’s just a matter of how they are together on a shift."

Inspector Georgina Minnery said, "The question did come to us and we provided a response. Effectively as the Neighbourhood Inspector I have no concerns with patrolling police officers with PCSOs, but as the Commissioner said they do perform different roles.

The PCSOs primarily are a visible role engaging with the community, listening to the community being out on foot whereas we have less police officers as I’m sure you’re aware and those police officers have to respond to incidents. Primarily they do tend to be in police cars, that’s not something I want for PCSOs and for my colleagues. PCSOs don’t go in vehicles as a rule, there are exceptions to that.

So PCSOs parade, sorry patrol on their own in singles or in pairs after a certain time. We tend to patrol in pairs after 6 o’clock in the evening and the police officers as I say they’re responding to incidents as a rule. The PCSOs are out there gathering intelligence and engaging with the community.

I don’t have a problem with them patrolling together if we had those resources available."

Answering the question about specials, Jane Kennedy answered, "It’s only just to say you’ve probably got a definition of what one is in the papers, primarily they are volunteers who come in but are fully trained and equipped to work as a fully sworn constable. So they do have powers of arrest, but they are volunteers, they are receiving expenses only for their work that they do, that’s right and you suggested PSCOs aren’t trained to the same level. PCSOs are trained, we invest heavily in making sure our staff are well trained, but they’re trained for a different role so we’ve already covered that really and I think we’re taking away the idea you suggested it’s common sense."

Mr Andrews from Bidston asked, "I live in the Bidston & St James ward and we’ve had a lot recently of antisocial behaviour from a particular gang of young lads who are aged between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. Now one of the requests that people keep on asking is why the police station in Laird Street was closed down? I know the answer’s going to be because of lack of funds, but when police officers have to come from the main station, here in Birkenhead when there’s a perfectly good facility there, why can that not be utilised at least for part of the day?"

Jane Kennedy said, "I think Laird Street has been has been affected. Certainly most police stations were closed to the public in terms of general enquiry desks some time ago, certainly before my time but Laird Street there was a long discussion at the Police Authority, I’m looking at Moira here, about how best to bring Laird Street back. I consulted on a strategy for police stations like Laird Street last October & November and the public supported the idea of disposing of the buildings like Laird Street which doesn’t lend itself to modern day policing.

Disposing of the building but find in the neighbourhood before we dispose of it a place where we could have a community police station where a regular surgery would be guaranteed to be held by the force and that’s the plan for Laird Street. It’s going to be quite some time before we do that and in the meantime the facilities at Laird Street I’m told are really very poor. So the force isn’t using it, it’s probably because it isn’t fit for them to use either. It’s not condemned or anything but I don’t think it’s a very comfortable place."

Councillor Moira McLaughlin (one of the representatives on the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel) added, "We do have long discussions, I think the issue that we discussed was that plans for closure went ahead before the alternative provision was located and I think that proved a difficulty certainly in Rock Ferry and I know in Laird Street so that was the issue really.

As the plan went forward these alternative provisions weren’t identified, from what I hear you say at the moment I think that’s still the case, is that right?"

Jane Kennedy responded, "Well I wasn’t aware that, I think that Laird Street was occasionally used by the Force but not to any extent. It has been closed to the public for quite some time and the proposal was always to try and find an alternative facility so we never found that. We’re doing it in a staged process over ten years so we don’t have too great a burden on the police budget in terms of capital investment."

Anna from the St James Centre added, "Just to reassure you we are exploring options for supporting the police to have some kind of base within the North End and the St James Centre at the moment. Very early stages but those conversations are happening. Just to reassure you."

Mr Andrews expressed concern that if the police were based in the St James Centre, then at the times the public needed them that the St James Centre wouldn’t be open. Jane Kennedy replied, "I think what we are looking to provide in a community police station is not a base that will be open every day and used by the force but a base where police officers or PCSOs will be guaranteed in an advertised surgery to be available for the public to come and talk to and the feedback I got from the public was that the fact that the force had closed all its general enquiry desks meant that the public felt the force had moved away from them in their locations.

Now what we don’t want is officers, few as they now are, whether they are PCSOs, general enquiry officers or police officers tied to buildings when we need them out working in the street with housing officers, social workers and all of the others who are working to reduce antisocial behaviour.

So what we’ve found in other areas when we have community police stations there would be a modern, in the window if it is finally agreed at the community centre, St James Centre, if that is the place that is decided upon what we intend to do is to have a modern, digital way of telling the public when the surgery is going to be, advertising it on a screen so that it will be regularly updated including information about recent crime trends when the public have been engaged with and asked for information. So that’s the model we’re going to be implementing. I haven’t got one I can show you yet on the Wirral, but we’re working hard to deliver it and as soon as we do we’ll invite you to come and have a look."

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Why did Mayor Anderson claim a councillor was “behaving like a child” for highlighting a cut of £42,000 to domestic violence charities?

Why did Mayor Anderson claim a councillor was “behaving like a child” for highlighting a cut of £42,000 to domestic violence charities?

Why did Mayor Anderson claim a councillor was “behaving like a child” for highlighting a cut of £42,000 to domestic violence charities?

                                                             

Just for a change I thought I would attend a public meeting of Liverpool City Council yesterday evening, which was their budget meeting.

Prior to the meeting starting, there were a lot of police outside Liverpool Town Hall and not just on foot, but going round on motorbikes and police vehicles. The High Street was closed off to traffic as you can see from the traffic cone to the right of the photo I took below:

Even before getting in to the Council Chamber, the City Watch (Liverpool City Council employees) were stop searching everyone from the press and public attending, supposedly for “whistles and banners”.

At the time this meeting happened (due to the similarity in uniforms between Liverpool City Council’s City Watch and Merseyside Police) I made a Freedom of Information Act request to Merseyside Police for further details. However it turned out that Merseyside Police had nothing to do with the stop searches.

However moving swiftly on to the meeting itself, you can read the papers for the meeting on Liverpool City Council’s website.

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Liverpool City Council Budget Meeting 4th March 2015 Part 1

Liverpool City Council (unlike Wirral Council) doesn’t have a public gallery a floor above the Council Chamber, so the public sit on chairs (or benches) around where the councillors sit. What was also interesting was that during the meeting a screen showed a live transcript of what was said.

On Wirral I know that during Council meetings there are two people providing sign language, however having what is being said during the meeting appear on a screen that everyone can see, benefits everyone with hearing difficulties in being able to follow what’s going on.

Liverpool City Council Budget Meeting 4th March 2015 showing the screen used for a live transcript of the meeting
Liverpool City Council Budget Meeting 4th March 2015 showing the screen used for a live transcript of the meeting

The Lord Mayor of Liverpool (who chairs meetings of Liverpool City Council) did refer to social media and filming of meetings at the start and said, "Can I remind those present that this is a meeting held in public and not a public meeting? I would also like to emphasise that this is a key public meeting, can I therefore request that everyone present, including the public treat this meeting accordingly which will enable the business to be dealt with effectively?

The use of social media and filming for reporting proceedings is permitted during Council meetings. This does not extend to filming of members of the public and anyone wishing to film the proceedings are also particularly directed to the very sensitive issue of filming children without the express permission of their parents."

Sadly although the public were well-behaved during the meeting, the Lord Mayor’s plea to councillors to behave fell on deaf ears (but more of that later). Once the items such as declarations of interest and minutes of the last meeting were dealt with, the Lord Mayor suggested that Mayor Anderson had twenty minutes to speak to Labour’s budget, the mover of an amendment or right to reply ten minutes and all other speakers allowed five minutes and with the permission of Council a two-minute extension.

Mayor Anderson started his speech at 5 minutes 36 seconds into the video clip above and finished it at 45 minutes 48 seconds (a total of forty minutes 12 seconds) which was double the twenty minutes he’d been given.

Liverpool City Council Budget Meeting 4th March 2015 Mayor Joe Anderson speaks on Labour's budget
Liverpool City Council Budget Meeting 4th March 2015 Mayor Joe Anderson speaks on Labour’s budget

It’s hard to summarise such a massively long speech although I will try. He said, “we’ve faced an onslaught by this government in terms of financial cuts” and referred to the Green Party as “no more than militant in sandals, the phrase I coined but it is true and absolutely true”.

He went on to criticise the Green Party’s budget amendment for raising Council Tax by 6% (whilst conveniently failing to mention that his own party’s budget would also raise Council Tax by 1.99%) and asked if the Greens wanted to “return us back to the [19]80s”?

Mayor Anderson referred to Cllr Kemp (Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group) as “caustic Kemp” and then went on to say about Cllr Kemp “it’s another smear and it’s another insult and that’s all we get from you so either put up or shut up, that’s my advice to you”. He then went on to refer to Cllr Kemp as “Mr 3% who spends more time jetting off around the world telling people how important he is, instead of spending more time with the Deputy Prime Minister telling him about the damage that is being done to our city on a daily basis”.

Mayor Anderson also stated that he wanted people who worked in Liverpool to live there so that Liverpool City Council would receive council tax from them. He also said (if I heard it correctly) that next week he was going to MIPIM (Le marché international des professionnels de l’immobilier which is an international property event held in Cannes, France), although the screen displayed it as Mickham but that this was “not a jolly”.

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Liverpool City Council Budget Meeting 4th March 2015 Part 1

Liverpool City Council Budget Meeting 5th March 2015 Cllr Jake Morrison tries to move an amendment
Liverpool City Council Budget Meeting 4th March 2015 Cllr Jake Morrison tries to move an amendment

After his speech and the applause from the Labour benches had died down, Cllr Jake Morrison (independent) tried to move an amendment to the budget. He said that the chief financial officer had looked at it and said it was legal, but that the Chief Executive [Ged Fitzgerald] had decided “not to allow it tonight” so he was asking the Lord Mayor whether he could move it.

The Chief Executive Ged Fitzgerald then gave a rather long-winded response stating that it shouldn’t be accepted as it hadn’t been submitted in time and that it would set a bad “precedent”. The Lord Mayor asked Cllr Morrison if there was a reason why he hadn’t been able to move the amendment.

Cllr Morrison said that the Council summons hadn’t informed him of the consequences of submitting a late amendment and that his budget amendment related to a cut of £42,000 to domestic violence charities which he only found out about the day before.

The Lord Mayor asked if he could speak to the main motion and ask for his amendment to be accepted rather than as an amendment? She then detailed how she had planned the meeting to go.

Cllr Morrison said “I will stand up until I can move this amendment”. Everyone started speaking at once and the Lord Mayor said (to Cllr Morrison), “sit down or I will ask you to leave the Chamber! Would you leave the Chamber Councillor Morrison? Could you leave the Chamber please thank you? Could you leave the Chamber please Councillor Morrison? Would you leave the Chamber?”

Throughout this Councillor Morrison carried on talking to his amendment.

The Lord Mayor then said, “If you don’t leave the chamber, I will adjourn the meeting for ten minutes!”

Mayor Anderson then intervened and referred to Cllr Morrison’s behaviour as “behaving like a child, you can stand up there and get thrown out. That’s what you might want for your leaflets or whatever”. He asked if Cllr Morrison wanted an answer to his amendment or to “spit your dummy out?” and that he felt he’d “wasted the last twenty-five minutes on you”.

Cllr Morrison said, “Can I respond to that?” to which the Lord Mayor replied, “No. Cllr Morrison, I’m sorry no, Councillor Morrison either you’re quiet or you leave. You really are being grossly disrespectful.”

Cllr Morrison said, “I want to move that amendment.”

The Lord Mayor banged her gavel and said, “This meeting’s adjourned for ten minutes.”

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