Wirral Council reveals it identified £1,256,823 of fraud and £409,311 of “irregularity” in the last year
Wirral Council reveals it identified £1,256,823 of fraud and £409,311 of “irregularity” in the last year
One of the advantages to the new transparency regime imposed on Wirral Council by national government regulations is that they’re being forced to publish more information about their activities by the deadline of 31st December 2014.
For example the information below is on their fraud investigating efforts. As I’m obliged to do so under the terms of the licence I will state “This contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.”
The regulations explicitly referred to came into effect until 6th April 2014, therefore couldn’t have actually been used at all by Wirral Council in the 13/14 financial year. Looking at the new regulations it’s about requesting information from such as banks on people suspected of housing fraud.
Total number (absolute and full-time equivalent) of employees undertaking investigations and prosecutions of fraud 7
Total number (absolute and full-time equivalent) of professionally accredited counter fraud specialists 7
Not quite sure whether these are a total of 14 employees or the same 7 in both categories.
Amount spent by the authority on the investigation and prosecution of fraud £159,000
Probably a combination of employee time, legal costs and external costs
Number of fraud cases investigated 507
So split between 7 FT employees, that’s an average of 72 each a year or 26 hours per a case.
Total number of occasions on which fraud was identified 71
Well I’d expect this number to be less than 507.
Total number of occasions on which irregularity was identified 436
In other words in every fraud case investigated where fraud wasn’t found, it was put down as irregularity.
Total monetary value of the fraud that was detected £1,256,823
Well I expected it would be something, but £1.2 million in a year (compared to the size of Wirral Council’s budget and financial transactions isn’t too bad I suppose. So each fraud was on average for an amount of £17,701, but cost on average £2,239 per identified fraud case to investigate.
Total monetary value of the irregularity that was detected £409,311
I still don’t fully understand what irregularity means but there you go! Maybe someone can leave a comment and explain that!
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8 Labour councillors on Wirral Council vote to close Lyndale School from 31st August 2016
8 Labour councillors on Wirral Council vote to close Lyndale School from 31st August 2016
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Yesterday (17th December 2014) Wirral Council’s Cabinet decided to close Lyndale School in Eastham on 31st August 2016. You can watch video of how the decision was reached in the above video, the item on Lyndale School starts at 50 seconds into the meeting. Two of the Cabinet (Cllr Stuart Whittingham and Cllr Chris Meaden) were absent at the Cabinet meeting when it was made.
The councillor who proposed closure of the Lyndale School was Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services). This was seconded by Cllr Ann McLachlan (Cabinet Member for Governance, Commissioning and Improvement).
The vote was as follows:
In favour of closing the Lyndale School from 31/8/16
Cllr Phil Davies (Labour, Birkenhead & Tranmere)
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School L to R Shirley Hudsepth Surjit Tour Cllr Phil Davies Graham Burgess
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour, Bidston & St James) * Note Seconder of motion
Cllr George Davies (Labour, Claughton)
Cllr Tony Smith (Labour, Upton) * Note Proposer of motion
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School closure L to R Cllr Tony Smith Cllr George Davies Cllr Ann McLachlan
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour, Seacombe)
Cllr Chris Jones (Labour, Seacombe)
Cllr Pat Hackett (Labour, New Brighton)
Cllr Bernie Mooney (Labour, Liscard)
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School closure L to R Cllr Bernie Mooney Cllr Pat Hackett Cllr Chris Jones Cllr Adrian Jones
Total 8
Voting Against closing the Lyndale School from 31/8/16
Total 0
Abstentions
Total 0
Therefore with eight votes for, none against and no abstentions, the motion was agreed.
It is possible that at some future point six (or more) councillors will request a call in of this decision. However the Coordinating Committee would decide such a call in and is now short of the two parent governor representatives required to hear a call in on such a matter, you can read this blog post about the questions I asked of Cllr Tony Smith earlier in the week about that.
The Coordinating Committee has 9 Labour councillors, 5 Conservative councillors, 1 Lib Dem, 2 parent governor representatives (although both positions are now vacant) as well as a representative of the Catholic Diocese. It should also have a representative from the Anglican Diocese of Shrewsbury, however the Anglicans have (to my knowledge) not chosen someone yet. That’s a committee of 19 people. However three positions are vacant.
Those associated with the Lyndale School will probably be asking their legal advisers to send a Letter before Claim in this format to Wirral Council’s Cabinet and Wirral Council’s legal department in the near future. Once Wirral Council has received such a letter, they usually have 14 days to respond to such a letter. If the response is not to the proposed Claimant/s’s satisfaction it is highly likely that a case will be filed promptly with the Administrative Court (part of the Royal Courts of Justice) requesting permission for judicial review of the decision to close the school.
If decision on permission for judicial review was granted by a High Court Judge, then it would proceed to a hearing. A decision on permission (if the case was filed in January 2015) would be expected within around three months. If permission is given, a decision on this matter by the court would be expected to be decided within a year (that is if the case if filed in January 2015 by around January 2016 or possibly sooner but certainly before 31st August 2016).
Two newspapers that cover the Wirral area have also written pieces about this decision which you may be interested in reading:
How did Councillor Tony Smith answer 2 questions about the Cabinet decision on closure of Lyndale School?
How did Councillor Tony Smith answer 2 questions about the Cabinet decision on closure of Lyndale School?
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Council (Wirral Council) 15th December 2014
Council 15th December 2014 Agenda item 4 Public Question Time John Brace asks a question of Cllr Tony Smith on Lyndale School
In light of the fact that Wirral Council’s Cabinet meets tonight to make a decision about Lyndale School (amongst other matters), I thought this transcript of the public question time that includes two questions I asked Cllr Tony Smith about the upcoming decision on Lyndale School at the public meeting of Council on Monday 15th December might be of interest to some people. It starts at 31:46 in the video above.
The first question is a written question from Mr John Brace to Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) submitted on the 4th December 2014. The second is one Cllr Tony Smith doesn’t get advance warning of until he heard it on Monday evening.
JOHN BRACE: Wirral Council recently had a four-week consultation on the closure of the Lyndale School in Eastham and there will be a special Cabinet meeting later this month on the 17th December 2014.
Can you please answer:
(a) how many responses were received by Wirral Council to the latest four-week consultation on closure of the Lyndale School,
(b) whether the text of the responses to the latest four-week consultation will be published in full (rather than a summary in a Cabinet report) and if so when,
(c) whether all Cabinet Members making a decision on the 17th December 2014 will in advance of making a decision at the meeting of the 17th December 2014 have read all the written consultation responses to the four week consultation on closure prior to making their decision on the 17th December 2014
and
(d) whether all Cabinet Members making a decision on the 17th December 2014 will in advance of making a decision at the meeting of the 17th December 2014 have read the statutory guidance for decision makers on this matter issued earlier this year by the government which is available online?
Thank you.
CLLR TONY SMITH: Thank you Mr. Brace, thank you Mr Brace.
Errm, right on question a, errm in accordance with statutory guidance there was a four-week consultation period and during that time any person could make comments or objections to the proposal to close the school, to close the school and there are twenty-one representations received.
Six from the Lyndale School, one from Stanley School and fourteen others who were mainly Members, twenty were received by email and one letter was received.
So question b, errm an acknowledgement has been given to all those who made representations. The whole set of redacted copies of the representations has been provided as appendix 4 to the Cabinet report and a full set of unredacted copies has been provided to members of the Cabinet prior to their meeting on the 17th December to inform the decision-making. The unredacted copies have been sent to Cabinet Members on a disc.
Err question c, all, as I said earlier, every Member of the Cabinet have received a disc, which contains copies of the representations, that are unredacted and which will be read prior to their meeting on the 17th December and the question d, yes is the answer.
The full guidance produced by the Department for Education, in December, or the Department for Education in 2014 called School Organisation for Maintained Schools: Guidance for proposals and decision makers has been provided at appendix 3 of the Cabinet report. The Cabinet, as the decision-maker, will have regard to the factors it will need to take into account and this is outlined in paragraph 4 onwards in the Cabinet report.
JOHN BRACE: Thank you.
MAYOR OF WIRRAL: OK, err we normally ask if you if you want a supplementary question? Have you got one? OK?
JOHN BRACE: Thank you Councillor Tony Smith for answering my first question. I do have a supplementary.
Earlier this year, a further decision about Lyndale School was made by Cabinet on the 16th January. This decision was called in.
The Coordinating Committee couldn’t decide on the call in until Council in February had added two parent governors with voting rights to the Committee.
That was because it was a legal requirement to have at least two parent governors with voting rights on the committee.
Now, the Coordinating Committee has met many times over the last six months and I’ve not seen either one of the two parent governors at any public meeting, nor have the minutes reflected that they sent their apologies.
Therefore it seems logical to conclude that it doesn’t have the required two parent governor representatives.
As any decision on the future of Lyndale School could be called in, to the Coordinating Committee, how do you propose as Cabinet Member including the voice of parent governors in the current decision and to remedy that situation?
CLLR TONY SMITH: OK, thank you Mr. Brace. I think errm I will probably have to give you a written report on that regarding the detail of your question. I’ll give you a written report.
JOHN BRACE: OK, thank you.
MAYOR OF WIRRAL: OK, thank you Mr. Brace. That was the only public question that we had to deal with. I’m moving on to item 5, which is Leader’s, Executive Member’s and Chair’s reports.
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Usually meetings of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority start at 1.00pm and this had been down originally scheduled as starting at that time. However because a member of the Royal Family is coming to open the building today, the time of this meeting starting was changed in the very recent past at some point to 11.00am. Unfortunately the letter (see below) inviting me to the meeting didn’t mention the changed time (or indeed the time the meeting was supposed to start at all) and despite this being mentioned at least once at a recent public meeting of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority neither of us changed the original time was starting in our diary (1.00pm) when we got back or received formal notification of the changed time!
letter from Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority about filming petition received 6th December 2014
So I only realised the meeting was starting at 11.00am at around 11.00am this morning when I looked at MFRA’s website and was about to leave (for a meeting I thought started at 1.00pm) leaving no time to get there at all as by the time I get there it will be finished! So apologies to the petition signatories in that I won’t be able to speak for five minutes at today’s meeting or film it as originally planned!
“The petition (and accompanying letter) should be in people’s agenda packs at agenda item 3 (pages 7-8). In addition to the two on the paper petition included there, there are a further seven signatories on an online version of the same petition, however the lead signatory signed both versions making a total of eight individuals.
On the 18th November 2014 Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority published on its website as a library item a seven page document titled MFRA Meeting Reporting Protocol and Procedure. This didn’t formally go on the agenda of a public meeting of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority to be agreed but was published as a library item.
The issue of filming meetings was discussed at a meeting of the Policy and Resources Committee on the 23rd September 2014 (agenda item 6 The Openness in Local Government Regulations 2014). The minutes of that meeting state “The committee were advised that a report will be submitted to a future Authority meeting to approve amendments to the Authority’s Constitution following the impact of the Regulations.”, however there has not been a report to either the Authority meeting on October 2nd 2014 or today’s meeting to approve amending the constitution, which is what this petition calls for in asking for standing order 19.4 to be deleted.
Standing order 19.4 requires permission from the committee concerned before the public meeting can be recorded. As outlined in the government’s guide titled “Open and accountable local government A guide for the press and public on attending and reporting meetings of local government” the new regulations about filming apply to fire and rescue authorities in England such as Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority.
Regulation 4 of the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014, which came into effect in August of this year changed the legislation. “Principal council in England” in the legislation also refers to fire and rescue authorities in England. The legislation was changed to state “(7A) While a meeting of a principal council in England is open to the public, any person attending is to be permitted to report on the meeting.”, “(7C) A person attending a meeting of a principal council in England for the purpose of reporting on the meeting must, so far as practicable, be afforded reasonable facilities for doing so.” and “(7E) Any person who attends a meeting of a principal council in England for the purpose of reporting on the meeting may use any communication method, including the internet, to publish, post or otherwise share the results of the person’s reporting activities.” with reporting implicitly referred to as “filming, photographing or making an audio recording of proceedings at a meeting”.
Other public bodies on Merseyside that had existing standing orders in their constitution about filming such as Liverpool City Council and the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel changed either their constitution or rules of procedure after the new regulations came into effect back in August. The issue about the public making objections in the current MFRA Meeting Reporting Protocol and Procedure to meetings being filmed also needs to be changed, as it misleads chairs and others into thinking they still have the power to stop filming at a public meeting. They don’t have any legal power to stop people filming a public meeting of this body because of these new regulations. Therefore both the constitution needs to be changed and the existing MFRA Meeting Reporting Protocol and Procedure and I call upon councillors and officers to do so to bring both the constitution and the MFRA Meeting Reporting Protocol and Procedure up to date and in line with the new regulations. I look forward to hearing about your proposals for a way forward on this issue. ”
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Over 3,000 people sign 2 petitions against Wirral Council cuts generally and to West Kirby Marine Lake
Over 3,000 people sign 2 petitions against Wirral Council cuts generally and to West Kirby Marine Lake
There are two large petitions on the agenda of tonight’s Council meeting, which means each petition organiser has up to fifteen minutes to speak. The first petition of 4,042 signatures (combined across an e-petition and paper petition) is from Sue Kellett of UNISON and is titled “Save Our Services”, the front page of which can be viewed here. It’s basically an anti cuts petition.
On the subject of libraries, below is some information on Wirral libraries recently given to this blog:
Wirral Community Libraries Baby Bounce and RhymeWirral Community Libraries Storytime visitsGroups at Community Libraries Page 1 of 3Groups at Community Libraries Page 2 of 3Groups at Community Libraries Page 3 of 3Community Libraries Number of PCs for public use May 2013Community Libraries ICT Log Ins April 2014 to October 2014Wirral Community Libraries Summer Reading Challenge individual branch figures 2014 & 2013Wirral Community Libraries books issued and renewed August 2013 to August 2014Wirral Community Libraries Borrowers monthly August 2013 to August 2014Wirral Community Libraries Total number of visitors monthly August 2013 to August 2014Panel Community Libraries budget option Wirral Council page 7Panel Community Libraries budget option Wirral Council page 8Panel Community Libraries budget option Wirral Council page 9Panel Community Libraries budget option Wirral Council page 10Panel Community Libraries budget option Wirral Council page 11Panel Community Libraries budget option Wirral Council page 12Panel Community Libraries budget option Wirral Council page 13Panel Community Libraries budget option Wirral Council page 14Panel Community Libraries budget option Wirral Council page 15
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