Month: September 2011

Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 3

Bill Norman said he accepted the timescales were unacceptable, however the scale of resources that Legal & Member Services had been modest. He had come from the authority of Torbay in Devon. Torbay had half the population of Wirral, but more solicitors. This was a part explanation, but it didn’t justify the delay. The revised … Continue reading “Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 3”

Bill Norman said he accepted the timescales were unacceptable, however the scale of resources that Legal & Member Services had been modest. He had come from the authority of Torbay in Devon. Torbay had half the population of Wirral, but more solicitors. This was a part explanation, but it didn’t justify the delay. The revised protocol (if endorsed) detailed timescales. They couldn’t undo the past, but he will do better and could be held to account to the timescales. He referred to the Localism Bill and changes to future changes to the standards regime. He thought it was best to suggest formal performance targets. There would then be standards of performance.

Cllr Les Rowlands mentioned the Standards Board for England.

Somebody arrived and started talking to Bill Norman.

Cllr Les Rowlands said it was “not a good excuse” that they had “not enough staff”. He asked why there hadn’t been a report to Standards Committee on this and why he had not said it in the past. He said they should stick to the times even if they haven’t got enough staff. He agreed with Cllr Chris Blakeley that it was appalling and the money that had been spent on this. He used the word failure and said it was a “horrendous amount of money”. He said it left a bad taste and they were supposed to be in the 21st century. He said they had been a long, long time trying to tackle this and said it was a failing of Bill Norman.

Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 2

Cllr Chris Blakeley said the summary tells its own story and the “deploring way” in which there’d been delays, costs which he said “absolutely appalls me”. He said they don’t know the date of a complaint. A second complaint had taken twelve months, another had taken ten months, a third had taken sixteen months. He said a complaint submitted on the 4th November had been dealt with at an Initial Assessment Panel on the 25th January, which was 11 weeks! He asked why. Another had taken 12 months with a £6000 cost. He said another complaint made on the 30th March had gone to an IAP on the 29th July taking 4 months, with no final hearing date which he considered “unbelievable”.

He referred to another complaint with an Initial Assessment Panel of the 8th October. Cllr Blakeley said from the date of complaint this was 10 months, followed by another Initial Assessment Panel 12 months later. He said there was an Initial Assessment Panel on the 25th August and that there had been a “litany of failure”, an “absolute litany of failure” by the “Head of Law” [Bill Norman].

The Chair, Brian Cummings said that the figures speak for themselves and the cost and timetable was alarming.

Cllr Gerry Ellis said he was going to say the same thing, it was “staggering”. He wanted an explanation and asked “why”?

The Chair, Brian Cummings pointed out at 3.2 there was a recommendation for proper timescales and a monitoring regime.

Cllr Chris Blakeley said the “time for explanations and excuses was over”.

Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 1

Present on the Standards Committee:

Independent Members
Brian Cummings (Chair),
Ken Harrison (Vice-Chair),
Stella Elliott

Conservative councillors

Cllr Chris Blakeley

Deputy Mayor Cllr Gerry Ellis

Cllr Les Rowlands
Labour councillors

Cllr John Salter

Cllr Denise Roberts

Cllr Bill Davies
Liberal Democrat councillors

Cllr Bob Wilkins

Cllr Mrs Pat Williams

Cllr Dave Mitchell deputising for Cllr Ann Bridson

Officers present

Mr. Bill Norman (Monitoring Officer)

Mr. Surjit Tour (Deputy Monitoring Officer, Head of Legal and Member Services)

Mr. Malcolm Flanagan (Head of Revenues, Benefits and Customer Services)

Mrs. Shirley Hudspeth (committee clerk)

The Chair welcomed people to the meeting and thanked them for their attendance. He asked for any declaraions of interest (item 1 on the agenda). None were declared.

He asked those present if they accepted the minutes of the last meeting held on the 4th July 2011. These were accepted.

Surjit Tour, Deputy Monitoring Officer introduced item 3 on the agenda entitled summary of complaints made under Member’s Code of Conduct. He said the code had been in effect since 2008, information had been redacted over confidentiality reasons. There had been problems over delay. In June further details had been requested as to how complaints were progressed. A summary was provided in Appendix 1. The required information had been updated and a draft protocol had been written for approval (Appendix 2).

Audit & Risk Management Committee 28/9/2011 Part 4

Mike Thomas continued by saying there were a range of issues on pages 38 to 42 which relate to earlier years, which needed to be attended to. There was a recommendation on page 42. There were weaknesses in internal control. He asked the committee to check the quality of the financial statements as there were a significant number of amendments. Project management could be better and the Quality Review dealt with the Value for Money conclusions.

The appendices detailed the changes to the draft, included the unadjusted misstatement of £6 million. There was also a glossary and an Action Plan.

Tom Sault said there was an updated letter of representation with one amendment which was Appendix 6.

Cllr Green asked which one and said he had questions.

Mike Thomas said the appendix replaced page 36, which was drafted on 6th September. The addendum was answering the outstanding questions, the major one outstanding was issue 6.

Cllr Green referred to the qualified Value for Money conclusion. He asked about the £6 million and why it had not been project managed to completion. Which pages were changed he asked?

Mike Thomas said the update was to page 36. The other was to do with appendix 1 of the draft auditor’s report. On the 6th September it changed.

Cllr Green said it had got to be signed off and agreed by Friday and he had only been told on Monday.

Mike Thomas said they were still receiving information. The £6 million was complex and required unwinding to correctly analyse. The amendments wer late, they had worked with council officers to do this by the deadline but timescales had slipped.

Audit & Risk Management Committee 28/9/2011 Part 3

He said this had caused the issue of the deadline for approval not being met, there needed to be improvements to working papers and in non-current assets. However the impact had not changed the General Fund balance. The last stages would be there by Friday along with the £6 million change.

However the £6 million change could have an impact on many other figures. This wouldn’t lead to the accounts being qualified but was still an issue. He said there were Value for Money weaknesses in internal control. The opinion was unqualified except for certain items. Wirral Council had to prove value for money on the HESPE contract, there were governance issues at the Department for Adult Social Services, governance issues at the Technical Services Department and whistleblowing needed to be improved.

He confirmed that the son of someone on his audit team works for Wirral Council and that another team member had a relative who had dealings with Wirral Council with respect to buildings, planning and land.

He referred to page 35 and issues to consider and agree as well as page 36. The £6 million was still an issue. Item 2 referred to final adjustments. The amended statements would be agreed tomorrow. The Annual Governance Statement was to be considered by Internal Audit.

Paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 detailed the £6 million which had originally been £9.5 million. However out of the £15.975 million they had reanalysed £10 million. The Value for Money conclusion, letter of representation, opinion and Value for Money statement unless there were outstanding objections, they would need to review before the certificate and before they close things done. Changes had to be made before final approval.