Interim Chief Executive (Wirral Council) Graham Burgess

As regular readers of this blog will know the previous permanent Chief Executive of Wirral Council Jim Wilkie retired early on the 7th July 2012. Since then to great fanfare a Graham Burgess was appointed to the role of Interim Chief Executive on Monday evening 16th July 2012 (although technically until he signs an employment … Continue reading “Interim Chief Executive (Wirral Council) Graham Burgess”

Graham Burgess As regular readers of this blog will know the previous permanent Chief Executive of Wirral Council Jim Wilkie retired early on the 7th July 2012. Since then to great fanfare a Graham Burgess was appointed to the role of Interim Chief Executive on Monday evening 16th July 2012 (although technically until he signs an employment contract he’s just a member of the public).

Fine you may say, for once things are running “smoothly” at Wirral Council and they’re not spending around a year trying to recruit someone? Well not exactly, as the plan is that Graham Burgess won’t be stepping down as Chief Executive of Blackburn with Darwen Council and NHS Blackburn with Darwen Care Trust Plus for another three months (which takes us to October 2012 September 2012). He’ll be the fourth Chief Executive Wirral Council has had this calendar year. All these Chief Executives (as Wirral’s constitution reserves this power to them) have been appointed by Wirral Council councillors.

Council (16th July 2012) Parts 1 to 7

I’ve finally uploaded the video footage from last Monday’s well attended Council to Youtube. Links to each part are below with part 7 being in HD.

Part 1 00:00 to 04:07
Part 2 04:08 to 06:34
Part 3 06:35 to 50:49
Part 4 50:50 to 53:43
Part 5 53:44 to 130:37
Part 6 130:38 to 136:00
Part 7 136:00 to 169:33

A playlist of all seven parts is below.

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Cabinet (Wirral Council) 10th July 2012 Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory saved from demolition

Well due to an application made to English Heritage for listed status for the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory Wirral Council’s Cabinet decided not to demolish it. This decision had already been deferred from an earlier meeting.

Cabinet also approved an amended Corporate Plan and a consultation on corporate and business planning.

Guest Post: Leonora Brace tells her life story (Part 1)

Guest Post: Leonora Brace tells her life story (Part 1)

                             

Declarations of interest: This is a guest post written by Leonora Brace but edited by John Brace. Leonora and John Brace are married to each other.

I have now been married to John, for four years, but John’s mother, also his brother, don’t want us to be together. I have gone out of my way to be there for him, but his mother said I should not stand by him if he wants to help the people with their problems. I should tell him to say “No!” Why, when he loves helping them?

Also, he loves writing, for his paper on the laptop. She said no, no, but he loves to write the truth. Also she does not want him to be happy as he is with me. She likes to treat him like a small child, but he is a grown man in his thirties.

Also, because I am not English born, she does not like me. Also, as she hit me in my face on the 27th December 2011 and made me have a black eye. Then a few days later, when I was at home having a transient ischaemic attack (TIA), and I dialled 999 for help. The ambulance came, but also the police came first and they demanded to take John away, because as I still had a blackened eye, which his mother had given me, they took John away.

I did not go with the ambulance to the hospital, but stayed behind. I waited an hour to make sure I could drive and went to the Custody Suite after ringing up. His mother had phoned the Custody Suite and did not contradict that he gave me the black eye when it was her who gave it to me. After I got there, one and half hours passed before he was allowed to come away with me.

We decided to have nothing to do with his mother or any member of that branch of the family. On the 10th May this year 2012, John and I had gone to bed. We have a cat called Stranger, a black cat, whom he loves very much.

During the night, or early morning, Stranger started to cry. He got out of the bed to see what the matter was, but unfortunately fell down the stairs. He banged his head and broke his arm.

Once again I informed the ambulance and we went off to the hospital. They couldn’t see to his arm there and then, but on the 12th May we were called back in again where they operated and plastered him up. Late afternoon they allowed him to go home.

A few days later, he was having a bit of a problem with the pain in his arm, and I was not feeling very well, so I dialled 999 to call an ambulance for myself. Once again the police came and they had been informed that I had pushed him down the stairs, but I had not pushed him down the stairs.

Going by what she had said to the police previously, even though I was having a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) they put me into handcuffs and dragged me away to the Custody Suite, for six and a half hours. They did not allow John to travel to the hospital with me. They dragged me down and up the steps causing injury. When John got to the Custody Suite, after having first gone to the hospital and missing me by five minutes, she stated to the officers not to let me out. Eventually they let me out after six and a half hours with no charge.

She is now stating that I don’t look after her son. She has informed Social Services of this fact, she desperately wants to break us up and for John to move away, so that she can keep him like a little boy for eternity.

© John Brace and Leonora Brace 2012

Standards Committee (Wirral Council) 3/7/2012 Part 2 (2) Minutes, (3) Declarations of Interest

Standards Committee 3rd July 2012

Photo caption: From Left to Right
Cllr Steve Williams (Conservative), Cllr Chris Blakeley (Conservative), Cllr Les Rowlands (Conservative), Shirley Hudspeth (Officer – Committee Clerk), Surjit Tour (Legal Adviser), Malcolm Flanagan (Report author agenda item 5 & item 6), Unknown Labour councillor (1), Unknown Labour councillor (2)

This is continued from part 1.

Agenda Item 2 – Minutes 11:35 to 12:22

Agenda Item 3 – Declarations of Interest 12:22 to 20:29

Cllr Chris Blakeley declared an interest on Agenda Item 7 (Standards Complaints – Monitoring (Under the Old Standards Regime)) in relation to complaint SfE 2011/03 as he was one of the councillors complained about.
Cllr Ron Abbey asked for clarity.
The Chair asked the legal adviser for advice.
Cllr Ron Abbey said he was not privy to past cases he hadn’t been involved with, then asked a question.
Surjit Tour said a finding of “No Further Action” had been found and the regulations obliged them to issue a notice or press release unless the councillors concerned objected. He said this decision was on the public record.
Cllr Ron Abbey said he was happy with the process, but concerned.
Cllr Chris Blakeley said he wished to talk as he had some concerns and it would still be a matter of public record.
Surjit Tour reminded him not to reveal confidential information subject to caveats.
The Chair asked people to remember there were deputies here tonight and referred to the training of deputies and how the deputies should be trained.
Cllr John Salter said he was part of a complaint although he was unsure where it is. He asked Surjit for advice on whether he had to declare?
Surjit Tour said he didn’t have to as he couldn’t be identified.
Cllr Chris Blakeley said he’d been quite specific as to which one.
Cllr Bill Davies said something about legal advice
Cllr Les Rowlands asked for clarification, he said he had sat on some of these panels and made decisions. He asked if it was necessary to declare an interest? 18:00
Surjit Tour said, “The difficulty here is it depends on what is said … and this is a bit of a chicken and egg situation.” He didn’t want an inappropriate statement made. He went on to mention the question of confidentiality in place at the time. Any commentary would have to be factual. He said the press notice, would indicate the detail the nature of the complaint, parts of the Code [of Conduct] questioned, ultimately the decision of the panel and be very factual as opposed to comments.
Cllr Les Rowlands declared an interest of all the panels he sat on.
Surjit Tour said the difficulty was he was not able to determine which. The critical issue was other than fact he felt there should be no other comments made, any comments limited to within public notice which was governed by confidentiality rules.
Cllr Bill Davies declared an interest as he himself had been on many assessment panels so he was in the same position.