What’s happened on the 6th floor of Wirral Council’s Chamber of Secrets for it to sue for over £300,000?
What’s happened on the 6th floor of Wirral Council’s Chamber of Secrets for it to sue for over £300,000?
Last year I requested various legal invoices during the 2013/14 audit of Wirral Council. One of these is below:
Wirral Council invoice Trowers & Hamlins £10,151.04 20th February 2014
The invoice above is from Trowers & Hamlins and is for work connected to a court case to do with the 6th floor of Castle Chambers (a building owned and rented out by the Merseyside Pension Fund which is part of Wirral Council).
The court fee of £1,670 means this invoice is to do with to a civil court case in the High Court (in which Wirral Council is the claimant) to recover a sum of money where the amount exceeds £300,000 or an amount that is not limited.
What is blacked out under the heading Professional services provided appears to end in “6th floor Castle Chambers – Merseyside Pension Fund for the period to 31 01 2014”
So why all the secrecy surrounding the 6th floor at Castle Chambers? What was the outcome of the case and did the expenditure of £10,151.04 with Trowers & Hamlins lead to Wirral Council recovering any money?
Below is an earlier invoice about the same matter for £5,749.44.
Wirral Council invoice Trowers and Hamlins £5,749.44 13th August 2013
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Incredible: Wirral Council shared 55,640 addresses of residents who live on their own with Merseyside Fire Service!
Incredible: Wirral Council shared 55,640 addresses of residents who live on their own with Merseyside Fire Service!
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Paul Murphy of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service explains how Wirral Council told Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service where all the people claiming a single person council tax discount live 19th March 2015
At yesterday’s meeting of Merseyside’s Fire and Rescue Authority’s Performance and Scrutiny Committee Paul Murphy (the fire service manager for the Wirral district) said something surprising (his interesting talk starts at 3 minutes 22 seconds into the video of the meeting above).
31 minutes and 6 seconds into the meeting, in answer to a question from a councillor he says, “What we did with the last Chief Exec is, that was the dilemma I was sadly in Councillor Stapleton, so the give away to me was to deliver that up. So we went to Wirral Borough Council and said “Would you do us a favour? Would you share your single person council tax, who are those people on that list?” and Wirral shared that with us.
So straight away it went from 320,000, it shrunk it down, I think it was around I can’t remember the exact numbers but it went from a global figure to a manageable figure and that goes on, on the fire stations they’ll have a Goldmine system of status reports. So if it’s for instance Paul Murphy, if I’m 65, I live alone, I’m a known smoker, I’ve been in hospital, I will build up a criteria, the vulnerable person index and then what the fire crews will do is they will prioritise those people especially if they haven’t had a visit.”
Just to summarise, a person lives on their own so quite rightly gets 25% off their Council Tax. Unbeknownst to them, Wirral Council shares this information with Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, so a fire engine and crew comes round offering them a free smoke alarm?
Does anyone other than me find this sharing of council tax data for other purposes worrying? There is a poll below so you can give your opinion on this.
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On Monday evening I asked Councillor Adrian Jones about councillor’s use of taxis during the public question time section of Council meeting. Below is a transcript of the answer he gave to my question (apart from one small section that is unclear) along with a transcript of my supplementary question and answer.
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JOHN BRACE: Thanks, as you said my question is to Councillor Jones.
Each year Wirral Council is required to publish annual totals of what councillors have claimed in travel expenses. Due to contracts with various taxi firms invoicing Wirral Council directly thousands of pounds of expenses weren’t included in the list for 2013/14.
The Members Allowance Scheme states that the use of taxis (or councillors’ own cars) for attending meetings is only permitted where public transport is either not available, or the journey by public transport would be likely to result in unreasonable delay.
For the taxi journeys made by councillors that were not included in the annual published lists for 2013/14 and those made since can you confirm:
(a) each journey was taken where there is no available public transport (or taking public transport would lead to unreasonable delay) and if not will councillors involved be refunding Wirral Council and
(b) what changes will be made so that the expenses for such journeys made in 2014/15 will be included next time the annual lists are published? Thank you.
CLLR ADRIAN JONES (CABINET MEMBER FOR SUPPORT SERVICES): Thank you for your question John.
The Council’s Members Allowance Scheme is detailed in part six of the constitution and paragraph 8(a) deals with travel costs but I’m sure you already know that.
The roles and personal circumstances of Members varies widely as do demands and expectations of their constituents and this has to be followed by considering which journey for Wirral that Members do.
Some Members for various reasons have no reason to use taxis in order to carry out some of their duties. It’s the responsibility of those Members concerned to determine when to use a taxi and in doing so Members are trusted to make a judgement that is consistent with the Members Allowances Scheme.
Members in exercising that judgement will take account of a number of factors such as the public transport arrangements available at the time in question, including the frequency of service, the length of time between connections and the consequent time it’ll take to get to and from their destination.
This is also balanced against other factors including personal and family circumstances, other conflicting commitments including a Member’s employment, other engagements and appointments to be attended that day and also for safety issues, health and safety issues that may arise at a particular time such as late night travel and …
The Council has negotiated competitive prices and entered into contracts with a local taxi company to provide transport for Members in accordance with the Members Allowances Scheme. The taxi company submits its invoices and the details of the Members that used the taxis each month directly to the Council for payment. The advantage of this arrangement is that the cost of transport by taxis is always at the negotiated rate and is a more efficient way to manage the service.
Now these costs have not been published on that basis previously, however in future the cost of Member’s taxi journeys undertaken pertinent to these taxi contracts will be published on the Council’s website as soon as practicable after the end of each financial year.
I will just add John that I’ve no doubt in targeting your question to the use of taxis you may be thought to have missed the big picture as the use of private cars is also charged to the public purse and that’s a point that will go over on both sides of the room.
Various councillors: Hear, hear.
Mayor: Do we, are we allowing the press a supplementary? You want a supplementary? OK.
JOHN BRACE: Thank you for that answer Councillor Jones.
The information about taxi journeys made by some councillors was provided to me on the 23rd January 2015 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Since that time I have made four further FOI requests that have not been answered at all within the statutory twenty days, there are a further six that have not been responded to and only this morning I received an email from the Information Commissioners Office that said they would be drafting a decision notice about the Council’s failure to respond to an internal review request that was made on the 12th of November last year.
Will he apologise tonight for the way that this Council is ignoring my requests made under the Freedom of Information legislation and send me a written answer before the elections in May as to what is happening to improve Wirral Council’s performance when requests for information are made using the Freedom of Information Act legislation?
CLLR ADRIAN JONES: I’ll ask for a report as on why your question wasn’t answered and I’ll get back to you soon.
JOHN BRACE: Thank you.
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In answer to Councillor Jones’ point about use of councillor’s own cars to attend meetings being part of the bigger picture I refer him (and readers) to the fact I published all these (for 2013/14) last year:
Below is the text of my question to Councillor Adrian Jones (the Cabinet Member for Support Services):
“Each year Wirral Council is required to publish annual totals of what councillors have claimed in travel expenses. Due to contracts with various taxi firms invoicing Wirral Council directly thousands of pounds of expenses weren’t included in the list for 2013/14.
The Members Allowance Scheme states that the use of taxis (or councillors’ own cars) for attending meetings is only permitted where public transport is either not available, or the journey by public transport would be likely to result in unreasonable delay.
For the taxi journeys made by councillors not included in the annual published lists for 2013/14 and those made since can you confirm:
(a) each journey was taken where there is no available public transport (or taking public transport would lead to unreasonable delay) and if not will councillors involved be refunding Wirral Council and
(b) what changes will be made so that the expenses for such journeys made in 2014/15 will be included next time the annual lists are published?”
For example by looking at that website I can tell you that my MP Frank Field travelled by taxi on the 10th October 2014 from Rock Ferry to Conway Park station costing £6. I doubt there’ll ever be that level of openness and transparency for expense claims by councillors, but during the audit last summer I exercised my right to request (see s.15 of the Audit Commission Act 1998)the documentation providing amounts, what transport they used, mileage et cetera for travel expenses for councillors during the 2013/14 financial year.
A lot of paperwork was provided (which I published on this blog), but the detail about taxi journeys by Labour councillors revealed through a Freedom of Information Act request here was not (and this is only the annual totals and not at the detail of each journey).
It’s only if information was provided on the level of detail of each journey that the question about whether there was no available public transport could be answered. I’m sure Wirral Council should have this information from the invoices from the taxi firms. When this part of the passenger transport contract was put out to tender this year lot 4 was described as follows:
“LOT4 – This contract is for ad hoc journeys by taxi to allow Wirral Councillors to travel to various venues across Wirral.
This contract will allow Wirral Councillors to travel around Wirral on official Council business. The times will vary and may include evening and weekends.”
I look forward to hearing Councillor Jones’ answer this evening!
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Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet agree to consultation on master plan for Birkenhead
Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet agree to consultation on master plan for Birkenhead
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You can watch what happened at the Cabinet meeting on the 12th March 2015 above.
Wirral Council Cabinet meeting at Birkenhead Town Hall Thursday 12th March 2015 Left to right Surjit Tour, Cllr Phil Davies and Joe Blott
Wirral Council’s Cabinet met at a different venue to usual (Birkenhead Town Hall). At the start, Councillor Phil Davies wanted to show people the trophy that Wirral Council had received for being “Most Improved Council”. You can see a photo of when they received the award on the Local Government Chronicle website, but below is a photo of Cllr Phil Davies showing people the award at the Cabinet meeting.
Councillor Phil Davies shows off the Local Government Chronicle award Wirral Council received for being most improved council 12th March 2015
Cllr Pat Hackett talks at a Cabinet meeting about the master plan for Birkenhead Town Centre
Councillor Pat Hackett spoke to the report recommending a consultation on the masterplan for Birkenhead Town Centre. He referred to an “improved market” and the stage one lockout agreement that the Council had entered into with Neptune Developments Limited. The detail of the proposals were covered in an earlier blog post. Cabinet agreed that Neptune Development Limited were to consult with the public (as well as staff who work at Europa Pools) on the masterplan.
Kevin Adderley pointed out that the Mars Pension Fund had recently advertised the Grange and Pyramids shopping centre in Birkenhead as being for sale. The recommendation to have a consultation was agreed by Cabinet.
