Month: November 2011

Cllr Harry Smith Goes Back To School – S P E E D I N G

I’m always interested what my local councillor, Cllr Harry Smith is up to. According to a Wirral Council press release he’s been photographed at Greasby Junior School in an event run by Merseyside Police and Wirral Council. Cllr Harry Smith was there to learn about speeding outside Greasby Junior School. A group of adults speeding … Continue reading “Cllr Harry Smith Goes Back To School – S P E E D I N G”

Harry Smith goes back to school

I’m always interested what my local councillor, Cllr Harry Smith is up to. According to a Wirral Council press release he’s been photographed at Greasby Junior School in an event run by Merseyside Police and Wirral Council.

Cllr Harry Smith was there to learn about speeding outside Greasby Junior School. A group of adults speeding past the school were invited in to be grilled by schoolchildren. Each adult was talked to by the children for an average of twenty minutes each (nine in total). This was part of Road Safety Week. Three other adults received three penalty points and a £60 fine. Cllr Harry Smith was there in his capacity as a councillor, he was not one of the adults who’d been speeding.

John Brace said, “I have campaigned on many road safety campaigns over the years and am always pleased when the issue of speeding is highlighted. Children are more vulnerable to speeding traffic than adults and it is irresponsible of drivers to speed past schools. The road outside a local primary school, Gautby Road outside Gautby Road Primary School is in a 20 miles per an hour zone. So are many other local schools.

However, it requires greater enforcement by Merseyside Police of the existing laws if a few careless motorists will be deterred from their risky behaviour. As the Labour-led Merseyside Police Authority has cut the police budget this year by many millions of pounds, it will become increasingly hard for local police to respond to resident’s concerns in this matter.”

Employment & Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) 23/11/2011 Part 2 Minutes, Delivering the Investment Strategy

Chris Hyams was going to respond but Cllr Jeff Green carried on talking. He asking if he would be hearing soon and referred to comments made at a previous meeting by Jim Wilkie, Chief Executive that they would be moving ahead with the timetable.

Cllr Adrian Jones asked if they were ok and happy for him to sign the minutes? The committee were, and Cllr Adrian Jones signed the minutes of the meeting of the 29th September 2011 and the minutes of the meeting held on the 13th October 2011.

Cllr Adrian Jones moved the meeting to agenda item 3 – Delivering the Investment Strategy but referred to the red pen he had used to sign the minutes.

Kevin Adderley went into the detail of the report and how the title of the post had changed. It had been funded on a temporary basis since April 2010, but was “vital for the Enterprise Zone, offshore wind farm and Peel Holdings”.

Cllr Adrian Jones asked if there were any questions.
Cllr Jeff Green said he had missed the briefing, was it in the Budget?
Cllr Steve Foulkes mentioned a report on structure that had gone to Cabinet.

Kevin Adderley said yes, resources were available in the current allocation.

Cllr Jeff Green asked about the role of the person, specifically what would be the role in terms of a series of successful environmental businesses? He said these were now cottage industries, but if they were linked as an area it would encourage more investment.

Employment & Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) 23/11/2011 Part 1, Declarations of Interest, Minutes

Present:
Cllr Jeff Green
Cllr Lesley Rennie
Cllr Peter Kearney
Cllr Mark Johnston
Cllr Paul Hayes
Cllr Adrian Jones (Chair)
Cllr George Davies
Cllr Steve Foulkes
Cllr Phil Davies

Officers present:
Chris Hyams
Andrew Mossop (Committee Clerk)
Tony Williams
Kevin Adderley
Others

Cllr Adrian Jones (Chair) said “Good evening” and asked for declarations of interest. Cllr Steve Foulkes declared a personal interest in item 8 (Appeals Sub-Committee Minutes) as the solicitor named was known to him.

Cllr Adrian Jones (Chair) moved the meeting on to the minutes of the meetings held on the 29th September 2011 and the 13th October 2011.

Cllr Jeff Green asked a question about page eight of the minutes in respect of the interim management arrangements. He asked for an update about “where we are”? He asked about the arrangements for the Policy Unit, which he had not been contacted about.

Chris Hyams updated Cllr Green on where the process was up to. However she said any discussion would affect staff in the room but they were completing the procurement process. She said the Policy Unit was the remit of the Corporate Governance Cabinet Committee.

Cllr Foulkes said it was one of the Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOE).

Cllr Jeff Green said he was conscious that everything was sequential, but could it be done in tandem? Did the procurement exercise have to be finished?

Chris Hyams said it absolutely had to finish and that was the intention, to meet the timescale.

Cllr Jeff Green said from the 29th September they were getting to the end of November, and asked if it would take a further six months?

Licensing Act 2003 Sub-Committee 22/11/2011 (Four Seasons, 265-267 Seabank Road, Wallasey)

The Licensing Committee due to take place today to review the Four Seasons premises licence in New Brighton ward did not take place as planned.

The following councillors did however turn up:-

Cllr Denise Roberts
Cllr John Salter
Cllr Mike Hornby

Officers:
David Abraham (Legal adviser)
Margaret Calvert (Licensing Team Leader)
Committee Clerk: Unknown

Others:
A Merseyside Police officer
Solicitor for those holding the premises licence at the Four Seasons which was Andrew Church-Taylor of Farleys Solicitors LLP
People holding the premises licence for the Four Seasons
A number of other people (at least two) plus myself and another member of the public.

However the meeting was not held, for possibly multiple reasons. There was a combination of the reasons outlined here about a mistake in the agenda in my letter here which related to the desire of Merseyside Police and Wirral Council to hold the committee in private without the public present and the complexity of the case meaning that starting at 2pm, you can’t do such a complex case justice. Things have to be done at such meetings according to the
Licensing Act 2003 (Hearings) Regulations 2005 No.44 which were amended by the Licensing Act 2003 (Hearings) (Amendment) Regulations 2005 No.78.

There was also talk in the lobby of a councillor being late because he arrives by public transport, but I’m not sure which councillor Margaret Calvert was referring to. As councillors are drawn from a panel of fifteen councillors (three of which were there) it doesn’t narrow it down much, although it may have been the Chair of the previous meeting.

The decision to hold it in private had been made at a previous meeting whose minutes for this meeting have (not at the time of writing on the 22nd November) been published and the committee clerk who wrote the draft minutes wasn’t present. The main error was writing “Licensing Act 2003” instead of “The Licensing Act 2003 (Hearings) Regulations 2005”, which in itself was a minor error, but as it had been made at a previous meeting on the 21st October complicates things further.

As the public representations made during Licensing Act 2003 subcommittee meetings can affect the decision made, excluding the public based on a law that was the wrong one could open the decision up to appeal in the Magistrate’s Court if the public were excluded unlawfully.

If it was Wirral Council’s error and they lost they’d have to pay the legal costs of the other party which could end up being considerable. There is some case-law on the subject of licensing appeals, the police, the Magistrates Court (which my father used to work for) and the High Courts of Justice but it’s too late to go into here and this blog post is too long already. It’s a very complex area of law.

My Dad commented that he felt things were dealt better when the Magistrate’s Court used to deal with licensing issues before it got switched to the local authority (Wirral Council). His view was that a court knows the law better than a local authority does as they have experienced staff that deal with providing legal advice to magistrates (as he used to). Wirral Council does have legally qualified staff to deal with legal matters, such as David Abraham and at least seventeen others (plus external legal advisors on an ad hoc basis).

The problem is the agendas aren’t put together by lawyers, they’re put together by committee clerks who don’t need to have a legal qualification and have to rely on the advice given to them by the legal department about what is legal.

Pensions Committee (Wirral Council) 21st November 2011 Part 1, Declarations of interest, minutes (Pension Committee 19/9/2011, Investment Monitoring Working Party (12/10/2011)), Local Government Pension Scheme Update, Public Service Pensions (HM Treasury)

Present:
Cllr Geoffrey Watt (Chair)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (spokesperson)
Cllr Tom Harney (spokesperson)
Cllr Peter Johnston
Cllr Paul Doughty
Cllr George Davies
Cllr Adrian Jones
Various other councillors and co-optees

The Chair Cllr Geoffrey Watt welcomed people to the meeting of the Pensions Committee.

He asked if members of the committee had any personal or prejudicial interests in agenda items to declare.

Cllr George Davies declared a personal interest by virtue of his wife’s employment in a school.
Cllr Paul Doughty declared a personal interest by virtue of his wife’s employment in a school.
Cllr Geoffrey Watt declared an interest because of his father-in-law.
It is possible others declared interests too but as they didn’t use their microphones, I couldn’t hear them.

The Chair, Cllr Geoffrey Watt then asked if they agreed the minutes of the Pension Committee meeting held on the 19th September 2011. He asked if could sign them as a true record. The committee agreed that he could. He said that they were signed.

1:50

The Chair, Cllr Geoffrey Watt then moved to item 3, which was the Investment Monitoring Working Party minutes of the 12th October 2011. He referred committee members to the exempt appendix too. He asked committee members to note those. The committee noted them.

2:15
The Chair, Cllr Geoffrey Watt moved the committee to item 4 which was the Local Government Pension Scheme Update and two reports. He said he would take this with item 11 (Any Other Urgent Business – Public Service Pensions – HM Treasury on the supplementary agenda.

2:21