Month: May 2011

What’s happening on Wirral Council? Views from Labour and the Tories

The national print media have finally picked up on the dilemma facing the Liberal Democrat councillors on Wirral Council ahead of next Monday evenings’ adjourned Council meeting to decide. So far all we know from part 1 on Monday evening is that the Mayor is Cllr Moira McLaughlin, the Deputy Mayor is Cllr Gerry Ellis … Continue reading “What’s happening on Wirral Council? Views from Labour and the Tories”

The national print media have finally picked up on the dilemma facing the Liberal Democrat councillors on Wirral Council ahead of next Monday evenings’ adjourned Council meeting to decide.

So far all we know from part 1 on Monday evening is that the Mayor is Cllr Moira McLaughlin, the Deputy Mayor is Cllr Gerry Ellis and that Cllrs Harney, Green and Foulkes will be Wirral Council’s representatives on the Merseyside Police Authority Appointments Committee. However this was all thoroughly predictable.

Certainly the defection of Cllr Niblock from Lib Dem to Labour will upset the careful calculations by officers as to committee allocations and outside body allocations for the Labour Group and the Lib Dem Group, which will have to be revised by Monday evening.

Cllr Niblock was only the Liberal Democrat councillor from Wirral on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority last year. I have been in touch with him in the past about solutions to the problems of deliberate grass fires on Bidston Hill. Since then the Community Patrol have been issued with packs to put out small grass fires. Cllr Niblock used to live in Bidston & St. James until the house he lived in was demolished (as many have been in the last few years). For many years until he moved he was the only Lib Dem councillor living in Bidston & St. James ward (representing Bromborough) and as we lived a few blocks away we used to sometime bump into each other at the bus stop outside the bus depot from time to time.

His mother was a critic of Cllr Foulkes (Labour’s leader) on both the local Area Forum for Bidston & St. James/Claughton ward (she served as the Older People’s Parliament representative) and if I recall correctly also the Local Strategic Partnership Assembly. When she retired I remember her saying to Cllr Foulkes that she thought he would be glad, due to her robust criticism of him during meetings and that she’d been “a thorn in his side”. She was well liked and many councillors attended her funeral.

I wish Cllr Niblock all the best in his new political group and I’m sure he will follow in her footsteps as he tends to be someone that like his mother speaks from experience and enthusiasm. This is in contrast to some councillors on Wirral Council who give long, hard to follow, dreary speeches which lead to the listeners and the speakers being more confused about the issue than when they’ve started.

In 2009/2010 he received an extra £14,660 for being on Merseyside Fire & Rescue Authority (and probably a similar amount in 2010/2011 in addition to the £9,094.58 he gets as a local councillor). However with the reduction in Liberal Democrat councillors, the four places representing Wirral Council on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority will go to two Tories and two Labour councillors, instead of two Tory, one Labour and one Lib Dem.

Clearly if Labour put Steve Niblock forward as one of their two representatives on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority he will face the same accusation that former Cllr. Denis Knowles did; that he is switching parties merely to do with a position on an outside body (which comes with a generous allowance). However in this case it would be Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority instead of Merseytravel.

If this is the case and he becomes one of Labour’s two representatives for Wirral Council on Merseyside Fire & Rescue Authority, had he stuck with the Lib Dems he would’ve seen a drop in his income as their allocation for Merseyside Fire & Rescue Authority was reduced from one to zero. We will see what happens on Monday.

More about Labour’s position including a quote from Cllr. Niblock is in this article in the Independent where it discusses the situation on Wirral.

Cllr. Jeff Green’s view (Leader of the Conservative Group) can be read in a blog post entitled “Random thoughts from the Twilight Zone”.

What happens next is anybody’s guess at this stage. Clearly after 103,162 people voted this year it comes down to nine Lib Dem councillors to decide. However with one in seven voting Lib Dem this year, over 14,000 Wirral residents, it is clear that with no party gaining a majority that the Wirral public wants parties to work together to solve Wirral’s problems over the coming year. The Lib Dems just have till next Monday evening to decide if that is Labour or the Conservatives.

What is known is that whatever party (or parties) are in control and in charge of drawing up a Budget for 2012/2013, more cuts are coming. The Budget projection given by the Council’s Director of Finance Ian Coleman on the 13th January shows that £26.5 million worth of savings need to be found by March 2012 based on the assumption that Council Tax next year will be frozen again. Around half this amount (£14.1 million) is due to a reduction in grant funding to Wirral Council by the Coalition government. The rest is due to increased requirements, such as a predicted rise in people claiming benefit (eg Housing Benefit), pay inflation, the amount to Merseytravel going up and similar items.

If Council Tax was increased next year by 5%, it would only help the Budget by £3 million due to the loss of a Council Tax Freeze Grant equivalent to a 2.5% Council Tax rise.

With a Lib Dem/Tory government and Lib Dem/Tory council for this last year the influence that Bidston & St. James Labour councillors can bring to bear on the decision makers and holders of the purse strings is less than it was under a Labour government or Labour/Lib Dem council. However at the local level some amounts of money are being delegated to the Area Forum (which locally covers Bidston & St. James/Claughton), such as the Empty Shops funding and small amounts of other money too. As Labour councillors make the decisions at the Area Forum level and appoint their own party members to other positions on the Area Forum panel, they can decide on where some money is spent.

Wirral Council (Annual Meeting) Part 1 – Acceptance speech by Mayor Moira McLaughlin (HD)

Here’s the second part of the footage regarding the Annual Meeting, this time in HD.

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Here’s the last part of the footage containing the last bit of Mayor Moira McLaughlin’s speech and the installation of Cllr Gerry Ellis as Deputy Mayor.

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Council (Annual Meeting Part 1) – Civic Hall, Wallasey Town Hall

Yesterday evening the new Mayor was “installed”, in front of about two hundred and fifty people in the Civic Hall at Wallasey Town Hall. The annual meeting which decides the Mayor is always well attended as Wirral Council send out invites.

I took some photos (which unfortunately were rather blurred, I must start using a tripod) and video, the first half hour of which is below. Unfortunately I didn’t press the record button hard enough so I missed the first few minutes of Alan Jenning’s speech and the pun about filling up at a petrol station is lost. It is in low quality, as I didn’t know how long it’d last and am limited by battery life and memory card capacity. The rest of the footage is in HD (Mayor McLaughlin’s speech in two parts, the prayer of the chaplain and the installation of Cllr Ellis as Deputy Mayor). Sound quality is a little bad, but speakers such as Cllr Green could hardly be heard from the back row. There is a backup audio track recorded seperately on which the sound may be better quality.

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Humour is subjective, but I found Alan Jenning’s jokes better than the ones attempted by others who made speeches.

Wirral’s Young Poet Laureate also read out a poem, Cllr Moira McLaughlin was made Mayor, Cllr Gerry Ellis was made Deputy Mayor. Strangely (as they haven’t done it at previous meetings where they install the Mayor) the three party leaders were appointed to the Merseyside Police Authority Appointments Committee (probably because it meets on the 27th so they need to send agendas out soon). After the annual council meeting was adjourned there was a light buffet and drinks for guests.

The whole thing had the formality of a wedding.

Rubbish (shop on corner of Challis Street and Hoylake Road)

I will write briefly about this ongoing saga involving flytipping, previously mentioned on this blog.

In the days that Wrexham Signs Ltd owned this shop (they used to make money from the sign on the side) all it took was a letter and the rubbish here was cleared away.

Since then the shop has changed hands a few times. Most recently the owner was served with a notice to clear away the rubbish under the powers Wirral Council has to deal with vermin. The owner didn’t and the council’s contractor came to move the rubbish. Wirral Council then bill the owner.

However it’s just back to the way it was and frankly, while the efforts of Wirral Council are much appreciated, it’s not providing a longterm solution to the problem. In addition, the alleyway needs a good clean, this is also the responsibility of private landowners as it’s unadopted (the shops on Hoylake Road and the houses on Curlender Close that back onto it).

Most of the flytipping in Bidston & St. James ward falls into one of three categories:-

a) businesses cutting costs and corners by dumping commercial waste
b) residents either avoiding the ERIC charges (brought in by Labour!) or who don’t know they can take things for free to the tip at Bidston Moss (otherwise known as the materials recycling facility).
c) landlords clearing out a property after a tenant has left (often stuff dumped in an alleyway)

A) and C) should know better. The area would benefit if one or both of the following were changed:-

a) provide a reduced or nil scale of charges to families on means tested benefits or
b) landlords as part of their service provided bulky rubbish removal (eg unwanted furniture) to their tenants.

On the latter point, many charities and residents are happy to recycle what people don’t want. There are a number of charities that take furniture to sell in charity shops, who collect and others that give it to the needy.

The issue of midwives (NHS) – Is Labour telling the voters two different things on the NHS?

I read Frank Field’s well balanced piece on midwives in the Wirral News with interest. However it reminds me of this question posed by a voter to me on the way to my local polling station and this story in the Wirral Globe with a quote from Cllr Foulkes.

So what do these two senior Labour politicians make of it?

Cllr Foulkes (in an article the day before the election) – “privatisation by the back door” and “It is a very dangerous move and we should be given more information about it.”

Frank Field (less than a week after the election) – “The reports are that it is extremely popular.” and “Likewise, if a private company can provide a genuine one-to-one service with a single midwife that sees the family through the birth, what is stopping the NHS doing the same? The overall aim of the service is to increase the number of healthy babies who will be able to live fulfilling lives. To do this I believe both approaches need to be combined in a way that midwives feel they can manage.”

So I must admit I’m a little confused on what Labour Party policy is? Is it one story one week which scares people into voting Labour followed by Frank Field’s more measured tones that seems (at least by the tone of the piece) that he acknowledges that private companies can do some things in the NHS?

I must admit having read both I am confused as to what Labour policy is or whether it was just hot air and posturing in the lead up to the elections. Comments from any political party members about their party’s policy on privatisation of the NHS welcome!

Myself and Leonora were two of the Lib Dems at the conference in Sheffield that voted (in the majority) against privatising the NHS, since then the Tory minister has had to have a rethink. Certainly Tory, privatisation and NHS aren’t vote winners. The policy motion finally agreed upon (which is now Lib Dem party policy) after two amendments and lines 9-15 being deleted is below:-

Conference believes that the NHS is an integral part of a liberal society, reflecting the social solidarity of shared access to collective healthcare, and a shared responsibility to use resources effectively to deliver better health.

Conference welcomes our Coalition Government’s commitment to the founding principles of the NHS: available to all, free at the point of use, and based on need, not the ability to pay.

Conference welcomes much of the vision for the NHS set out in the Government’s White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS which commits the Government to an NHS that:

i) Is genuinely centred on patients and carers.

ii) Achieves quality and outcomes that are among the best in the world.

iii) Refuses to tolerate unsafe and substandard care.

iv) Puts clinicians in the driving seat and sets hospitals and providers free to innovate, with stronger incentives to adopt best practice.

v) Is more transparent, with clearer accountabilities for quality and results.

vi) Is more efficient and dynamic, with a radically smaller national, regional and local bureaucracy.

vii) Gives citizens a greater say in how the NHS is run.

Conference particularly welcomes the proposals to introduce real democratic legitimacy and local accountability into the NHS for the first time in almost forty years by:

a) Extending the powers of local authorities to enable effective scrutiny of any provider of any taxpayer funded health services.

b) Giving local authorities the role of leading on improving the strategic coordination of commissioning across the NHS, social care, and related childrens’ and public health services through councillor led Health and Wellbeing Boards.

c) Creating Health Watch to act as a local consumer champion for patients and to ensure that local patients are heard on a national level.

d) Returning public health duty to local government by ensuring that the majority of public health services will now be commissioned by Local Authorities from their ring-fenced public health budget.

Conference recognises however that all of the above policies and aspirations can be achieved without adopting the damaging and unjustified market-based approach that is proposed.

Conference regrets that some of the proposed reforms have never been Liberal Democrat policy, did not feature in our manifesto or in the agreed Coalition Programme, which instead called for an end to large-scale top-down reorganisations.

Conference therefore calls on Liberal Democrats in Parliament to amend the Health Bill to provide for:

I) More democratically accountable commissioning.

II) A much greater degree of co-terminously between local authorities and commissioning areas.

III) No decision about the spending of NHS funds to be made in private and without proper consultation, as can take place by the proposed GP consortia.

IV) The complete ruling out of any competition based on price to prevent loss-leading corporate providers under-cutting NHS tariffs, and to ensure that healthcare providers ‘compete’ on quality of care.

V) New private providers to be allowed only where there is no risk of ‘cherry picking’ which would destabilise or undermine the existing NHS service relied upon for emergencies and complex cases, and where the needs of equity, research and training are met.

VI) NHS commissioning being retained as a public function in full compliance with the Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information laws, using the skills and experience of existing NHS staff rather than the sub-contracting of commissioning to private companies.

VII) The continued separation of the commissioning and provision of services to prevent conflicts of interests.

VIII) An NHS, responsive to patients’ needs, based on co-operation rather than competition, and which promotes quality and equity not the market.

Conferences calls:

  1. On the Government to uphold the NHS Constitution and publish an audit of how well organisations are living by its letter and spirit.

  2. On Liberal Democrats in local government to establish local Health and Wellbeing Boards and make progress developing the new collaborative ways of working necessary to provide joined up services that are personalised and local.

  3. The government to seize fully the opportunity to reverse the scandalous lack of accountability of publicly-funded local health services which has grown up under decades of Conservative and Labour governments, by:

a) Ensuring full scrutiny, including the power to require attendance, by elected local authorities of all organisations in the local health economy funded by public money, including Foundation Trusts and any external support for commissioning consortia; ensuring that all such organisations are subject to Freedom of Information requirements.

b) Ensuring Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) are a strong voice for accountable local people in setting the strategic direction for and co-ordinating provision of health and social care services locally by containing substantial representation from elected local councillors; and by requiring GP Commissioning Boards to construct their Annual Plans in conjunction with the HWBs; to monitor their implementation at meetings with the HWBs not less than once each quarter; and to review the implementation of the Annual Plan with the HWBs at the end of the year prior to the construction of the Annual Plan for the forthcoming year.

c) Ensuring commissioning of health services has some degree of accountability by requiring about half of the members of the board of commissioning consortia, alongside GPs, to be local councillors appointed as non-executive directors.

d) Offering additional freedoms only to Foundation Trusts that successfully engage substantial proportions of their local populations as active members.