Expense claim form for Councillor Phil Davies (Wirral Council) 2013 (continued) £241.10 claimed in 1 week!

Councillor Phil Davies is a Labour councillor for Birkenhead and Tranmere ward. During the period covered he was Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Finance/Best Value. The first eight pages of his expense claims I published on this blog last month.

However the page below was only provided last Friday, which accounts for a further £241.10 claimed (October 2013).

This breaks down to:

1) Mersey Tunnel tolls Fast Tag (£1.30 * 10 (5 return trips on 17/10, 18/10, 21/10, 23/10 & 24/10)) = £13
2) Return train from Liverpool to London for LGA Workforce Board meeting (21st October 2013) = £220.80
3) London tube for LGA Workforce Board meeting (21st October 2013) = £7.30

Total (for 17/10/13 to 24/10/13): £241.10

These were for meetings to see an unspecified Police and Crime Commissioner (which could be Jane Kennedy), a meeting of the City Region Cabinet, a meeting of the LGA Workforce Board (in London), a meeting of NWIUF (spelt incorrectly) and the LEP (Local Enterprise Partnership presumable the Liverpool City Region one).

In fact NWIUF is an error on the expenses form and should instead be NWUIF (which is the North West Urban Investment Fund).

For four meetings that are not at Wallasey Town Hall (Police Commissioner, City Region, NWUIF and LEP) Cllr Phil Davies should have included the place he was going to on the form. However, as he claimed Mersey Tunnel tolls for going to these meetings, it is assumed they are all outside the Wirral and to the east.

Looking on the bright side though, Cllr Phil Davies’s expense form is typed, which makes it far easier to read than those councillors who fill them in by hand! The total of £241.10 seems to have originally been a different figure, but then tippexed out and replaced with £241.10. However it is to be expected that the Leader of Wirral Council has a busy schedule and diary.

Cllr Phil Davies expenses claim 2013 page 1 of 1

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Expense claim forms for Councillor George Davies (Wirral Council) 2013 (continued)

Wirral Council have provided a further four pages of expenses returns for Councillor George Davies. Cllr George Davies is a Labour councillor for Claughton ward. His expenses return are for car mileage, tunnel tolls (cash and Fast Tag), car parking and tickets. These four pages cover the period of 11th July 2013 to 13th November 2013.

The tunnel toll of £3.20 on 1st August 2013 is a return trip through the Mersey Tunnel using cash. However on 11th September 2013 (£2.60) and 18th September 2013 (£2.60) these other trips are return trips using a Fast Tag. Cash tolls were £1.60 (each way) during this period and Fast Tag was £1.30 (each way).

There is an entry for £2.50 for two tickets for the 29th October 2013 which relates to the Child Poverty Working Group. I’m not sure exactly what it’s for as it’s written in the “tolls and parking” group and appears to not relate to tunnel tolls.

On the mileage side thankfully Cllr George Davies has provided mileometer readings.

For example on a trip to visit Chief Officers on the 29th July 2013, his start mileage is 53960, his finish mileage is either 53970 or 53974 (as both figures were written here although it looks like 53974 is the later figure) and mileage claimed is 14 miles.

His four page claim consists of:

658 miles travelled @ £0.40/mile = £263.20
Tunnel toll (cash) @ £1.60 each * 2 = £3.20
Tunnel toll (fast tag) @ £1.30 each * 4 = £5.20
Parking (18/9/13) = £2.80
Tickets (29/10/13) (2) = £2.50
Unknown but probably parking (31/10/13) = £1

Total: £277.90

The rest of Cllr George Davies’ expenses claims for the 2013/2014 financial year, which were published on this blog last month can be read here.

Cllr George Davies expenses claim 2013 page 1 of 4

Cllr George Davies expenses claim 2013 page 2 of 4

Cllr George Davies expenses claim 2013 page 3 of 4

Cllr George Davies expenses claim 2013 page 4 of 4

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An update on what’s been happening at Wirral Council about Lyndale School (and other matters)

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith, Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts — Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services), Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts

It’s time for a brief round-up on latest developments on Lyndale School.

The draft minutes of the call in on Lyndale School held on the 2nd October 2014 were published a few days ago and come to twenty-nine pages long. The meeting itself was about five hours long with a short adjournment part way through which explains the length of the minutes. They make for interesting reading.

The draft minutes of the call in meeting on 2nd October 2014 about Lyndale School go to tonight’s Council meeting to be approved (agenda item 10 (Matters Referred from Policy and Performance Committees)).

There are also many different minority reports tabled to do with recent call ins that have been heard. The minority report from the Conservative Group about Lyndale School is here.

In addition to the minority report on Lyndale School there are a further three minority reports about matters unconnected to Lyndale School:

Lib Dem Group (about the call in to do with concessions for the Armed Forces at leisure centres) proposed by Cllr Phil Gilchrist.
Conservative Group (about the call in to do with concessions for the Armed Forces at leisure centres) proposed by Cllrs Chris Blakeley, Wendy Clements, Mike Hornby, Steve Williams and Gerry Ellis.

Lib Dem Group (Health Homes/Forest Schools call in) proposed by Cllr Stuart Kelly.

So because of the minority report submitted by the Conservative Group there will be a further vote of all councillors on Lyndale School tonight. Whether the report will trigger a debate or not I’m unsure.

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Which 7 councillors will recommend Wirral Council’s new Chief Executive?

Who will choose Wirral Council’s new Chief Executive?

One of the bigger stories on this blog recently has been the news that the current Chief Executive for Wirral Council Graham Burgess has handed in his notice and will retire at the end of the year.

So as Wirral Council has the Chief Executive’s three-month notice period (30th September 2014 to 31st December 2014) to find his replacement, what’s happened so far?

Well because the Chief Executive is a political appointment of councillors, the politicians have to decide. So a meeting of the Employment and Appointments Committee has been set up for the 27th October 2014. Graham Burgess is also currently Returning Officer (many people reading this may also know what a Returning Officer is but in simple terms it’s the head person at Wirral Council for elections), Electoral Registration Officer (another role to do with elections) and Head of Paid Service.

So what’s the timetable for picking a new Chief Executive and will one be in post by 1st January 2014? According to the draft timetable it won’t so temporary appointments will have to be made! The proposed timetable means the job advertisement will be advertised around the start of December 2014, which will give people until nearly a week after Graham Burgess leaves to apply for his job.

It is proposed that Penna PLC be paid about £15,000 for helping find a new Chief Executive and a further about £15,000 for finding a new Head of Specialist Services (who is also leaving in December 2014).

However paying out about £15k to Penna PLC to aid Wirral Council’s Human Resources department is not enough! No a “professional adviser” from the Local Government Association will also be advising the Appointments Panel.

This in fact has always struck me as a bit of an anomaly. Penna PLC and the LGA aren’t officers or councillors at Wirral Council. In the past though, they’ve remained in the meeting room after the press and public were excluded from the public meeting.

So who is the Appointments Panel going to be and what will it do? It will consist of seven councillors who will make a recommendation for the post of Chief Executive to the sixty-six councillors. It will probably be four Labour councillors, two Conservative councillors and one Lib Dem councillor. I have some guesses now below about who will make up this appointment panel for the Chief Executive. It hasn’t yet been decided yet which councillors will be on it, but below are my names along with my reasons:

Labour (4 councillors)
Cllr Adrian Jones * reason is already Chair of Employment and Appointments Committee
Cllr Phil Davies * reason is already Vice-Chair of Employment and Appointments Committee & Leader of the Council
Cllr George Davies * reason is Deputy Leader of Wirral Council, Cabinet Member and Labour councillor on Employment and Appointments Committee
Cllr Ann McLachlan * reason is Deputy Leader of Wirral Council, Cabinet Member and Labour councillor on Employment and Appointments Committee

* Note although Cllr Moira McLaughlin is a possibility, she’s unlikely for the reasons listed above

Conservative (2 councillors)
Cllr Jeff Green * reason there are only 2 Conservative councillors (apart from deputies) on Employment and Appointments Committee
Cllr Lesley Rennie * reason there are only 2 Conservative councillors (apart from deputies) on Employment and Appointments Committee

Lib Dem (1 councillor)
Cllr Phil Gilchrist * reason only Lib Dem (apart from deputies) on Employment and Appointments Committee

The seven councillors on the Appointments Panel will all be from the Employment and Appointments Committee and due to the high-profile nature of the appointment unlikely to be deputies. The Employment and Appointments Committee has eight councillors on it (plus twenty-one deputies). So the seven will come from those twenty-nine.

The Appointments Panel doesn’t actually choose the Chief Executive though. They just recommend who the Chief Executive should be to a meeting of all sixty-six councillors at Wirral Council.

From a practical perspective though, as Labour have a majority of councillors on the Appointments Panel and Wirral Council it will be down to the Labour councillors to decide who the next Chief Executive/Returning Officer/Electoral Registration Officer/Head of Paid Service is. As the process will probably be going on after Graham Burgess leaves and it’s a legal requirement to have somebody appointed to some of these roles, temporary people will have to be found before a permanent appointment is made.

Looking back to July 2012 when Graham Burgess was appointed as Chief Executive by Council, he then had to serve his period of notice before starting in post in September 2012.

If the new Chief Executive has to also serve out a period of notice, it could be as late as May 2015 before he or she starts (which if it is after General Election and local elections it will make the election side of their job easier).

So here’s the proposed job description & person specification for the Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service/Returning Officer/Electoral Registration Officer.

Certainly it will be interesting to see who the politicians eventually recommend for this key post at Wirral Council! If anyone wishes to leave a comment comparing the appointment of Wirral Council’s Chief Executive to the complicated process of appointing a Doge of Venice, feel free.

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The 6 “missing” pages of Cllr Tony Smith’s expenses claims shed more light on Lyndale School matters

As part of the 2013/14 audit of Wirral Council, I exercised a legal right to a copy of the councillors’ expenses forms. I have published what I received last month (which attracted much public interest), but a lot of pages were still not provided at that point. You can read the earlier nine pages for Councillor Tony Smith here.

The internal processes seem to be that the finance side of Wirral Council ask for these from Human Resources. Human Resources then ask for legal advice. The legal side of Wirral Council then recommend to redact officer names, registration numbers of councillors’ cars, payroll numbers, signatures and other information on these forms. Quite why that whole process takes over two months I’m not quite sure.

As many readers of this blog will know there was a call in of the Cabinet decision of September 4th on Lyndale School which happened during a five-hour public meeting on the evening of October 2nd 2014. The six pages of the Cabinet Member for Education’s expenses (Cllr Tony Smith) I requested in August 2014 but were only supplied to me this morning (17th October 2014).

It shows some meetings which may be of interest to the continuing public debate on Lyndale School. The last meeting with Alison McGovern MP is education related due to its location, however whether it is connected to Lyndale School or a different education matter I am unsure at this point. I include the original six pages below.

Wirral Council also provided me today with a further dozen or so pages of councillors expenses for other councillors that had also been missing from what I had been supplied with. I plan to publish these in the near future.

17.5.13 | Visits to Foxfield and Elleray Park School – in role of Cabinet Member | Home | | 10 | 0.40p
9.8.13 | Meeting re Lyndale School with Director + Officers / Hamilton Building | Home | Hamilton | 10 | 0.40p
13.9.13 | Meeting ?? ?? M.P. Alison McGovern and officers / Hamilton | Home | Hamilton | 10 | 0.40p