Why did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend “up to £16,474” on an “austerity” review with Liverpool John Moores University?

Why did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend “up to £16,474” on an “austerity” review with Liverpool John Moores University?

Why did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend “up to £16,474” on an “austerity” review with Liverpool John Moores University?

Jane Kennedy (left), the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Labour Party candidate in the 2016 elections for a Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside at a public meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (2015)
Jane Kennedy (left), the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Labour Party candidate in the 2016 elections for a Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside at a public meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (2015)

The author of this piece was briefly employed by Liverpool John Moores University on work experience in February 1997 (although this was 15 years before Police and Crime Commissioners existed). However in the interests of transparency I’m declaring it as an interest.

The recently reelected Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) who is pictured above to the left of the photo has often spoken in public about her views on the Merseyside Police budget, the funding of the Merseyside Police and has even referred to her “sleepless nights” worrying about it all.

The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spent up to £16,474 (see the purchase order below) with Liverpool John Moores University to “commission a scoping review of the scale, dimensions and implications of austerity on community safety, crime prevention and diversionary services within Merseyside.”

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside purchase order 20th October 2015 Liverpool John Moores University up to £16474
Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside purchase order 20th October 2015 Liverpool John Moores University up to £16474

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EXCLUSIVE: Wirral Council planning officer decides greenbelt site for Saughall Massie Fire Station is not “environmentally sensitive”

EXCLUSIVE: Wirral Council planning officer decides greenbelt site for Saughall Massie Fire Station is not “environmentally sensitive”

EXCLUSIVE: Wirral Council planning officer decides greenbelt site for Saughall Massie Fire Station is not “environmentally sensitive”

                                            

Dan Stephens (Chief Fire Officer) answers questions at a public consultation meeting in Saughall Massie to discuss proposals for a new fire station
Dan Stephens (Chief Fire Officer) answers questions at a public consultation meeting in Saughall Massie to discuss proposals for a new fire station

The author of this piece is the Appellant in a First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) case where Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority is the Second Respondent.

The first decision on the Saughall Massie Fire Station planning application has been made by Wirral Council in relation to the screening opinion.

In a decision letter dated 17th August 2016, a Wirral Council planning officer has decided that despite the site bordering a conservation area and also (although it’s not mentioned in the decision letter) the fact the plans include fuel storage, that an Environmental Impact Assessment is not required as the site is not considered “environmentally sensitive”.

This is despite Schedule 2 of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2011 listing the following as one the factors that should make a site "environmentally sensitive" and therefore require an environmental impact assessment,

“6 Chemical industry (unless included in Schedule 1)

(c) Storage facilities for petroleum, petrochemical and chemical products.

(i) The area of any new building or structure exceeds 0.05 hectare; or
(ii) more than 200 tonnes of petroleum, petrochemical or chemical products is to be stored at any one time.”

The site plan clearly shows a fuel store (presumably for storing petrol and/or diesel for refuelling the fire engines.

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Why did Wirral Council have to pay back £255,177.21 after overcharging fees for information requests?

Why did Wirral Council have to pay back £255,177.21 after overcharging fees for information requests?

Why did Wirral Council have to pay back £255,177.21 after overcharging fees for information requests?

                                        

The author of this piece is the Appellant in a First-tier Tribunal case in which Wirral Council is Second Respondent.

Below this story is an invoice Wirral Council paid to Bevan Brittan (who are lawyers) which was for disbursements.

In layman’s terms that means money that Bevan Brittan was dispersing on Wirral Council’s behalf which totalled £255,177.21.

This was to settle an overcharging issue involving fees Wirral Council had charged in the past to those making EIR [Environmental Information Regulations 2004] requests.

In 2012 Leeds City Council appealed two ICO decision notices (FER0372970 and
FER0354510) to the First-tier Tribunal over whether Leeds City Council could levy a £22.50 charge over processing CON29 forms (a form used in conveyancing by property search businesses to do checks about information held by the local council).

After a three-day First-tier Tribunal hearing in February 2013, the appeal of Leeds City Council was dismissed in March 2013 and the decision found the charges had been unlawful.

Firstly Leeds City Council should’ve published a list of charges before charging and secondly they were only allowed to cover certain costs involved and not set a flat rate charge.

Moving to Wirral Council, the £255,177 in disbursements below paid by Wirral Council is to (presumably) refund various organisations that had been overcharged by Wirral Council following the First-tier Tribunal decision in March 2013 (although this decision was later appealed and another similar case asked for an opinion by the Court of Justice of the European Union).

However that is just the disbursements (£255,177), the legal costs to Bevan Brittan will come to more than this amount.

In the "old days" at Wirral Council this sort of amount of money would have to be signed off by politicians, however I don’t remember a decision or report that explicitly mentioned this issue in the last 12 months. Maybe I missed something?

The invoice below was unearthed by myself during the 30 day working period during the 2015/16 audit, which I requested because of its size.

Certainly it raises a lot of questions as to whether this has been remedied, not just paying back what was overcharged, but making sure the charges are lawful going forward.

Maybe this is what Wirral Council means when they state, “It is about having a private sector head with a public sector heart.”

187 Bevan Brittan Wirral Council 25th June 2015 £255177 21 APPS Settlement
187 Bevan Brittan Wirral Council 25th June 2015 £255177 21 APPS Settlement

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5 days after Lyndale School closes, Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet will meet to decide on a further consultation on sale of Lyndale School and the playing fields

5 days after Lyndale School closes, Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet will meet to decide on a further consultation on sale of Lyndale School and the playing fields

5 days after Lyndale School closes, Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet will meet to decide on a further consultation on sale of Lyndale School and the playing fields


                                        

Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School closure L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote to close Lyndale School L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan

Wirral Council’s Cabinet, who decided to close Lyndale School effective from the end of August 2016 (this month), will be making a further decision about Lyndale School at the first Cabinet meeting after it closes.

The decision to close Lyndale School was opposed by the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green Party councillors on Wirral Council, but supported by Labour councillors.

At a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Cabinet to be held on the 5th September 2016, the Cabinet will be asked to declare Lyndale School a surplus asset and to seek permission from the government to sell both the Lyndale School site and the playing fields. If agreed there will then be a further consultation on disposal.

The review of commissioning of high needs places, promised to parents during the drawn out process of closing Lyndale School (which many parents stated would conclude after Lyndale School had been closed) will report back to Cabinet on the 3rd of October 2016 (around 5 weeks after Lyndale School will have closed).

As revealed by this blog exclusively in September 2014, Wirral Council’s asset register assigned a value of £1,788,103.00 to the buildings on the Lyndale School site and £908,000 to the land (total £2,696,103.00) in February 2013.

Elleray Park School (another primary school on Wirral in the special sector) has recently had internal alterations and an extension in a contract estimated at £1,028,109.84. It was stated by Wirral Council’s senior management that some of the remaining pupils at Lyndale School when it closed would be transferred to Elleray Park (although this appears now not to be the case as parents have chosen other schools) and an invoice for some of the recent building work (£170,798.74) at Elleray Park School is below.

Wirral Council Elleray Park Primary School Lyjon Company Ltd £170,796.74 28th September 2015 resized
Wirral Council Elleray Park Primary School Lyjon Company Ltd £170,796.74 28th September 2015 resized

Also in 2015 the former Foxfield School in Moreton (which is another special primary school on the Wirral but for clarity this is after the school was moved from Moreton to a new site in Woodchurch) was demolished (see invoice below).

Wirral Council Foxfield School Powell Demolition Ltd £82,050.25th November 2015 resized
Wirral Council Foxfield School Powell Demolition Ltd £82,050.25th November 2015 resized

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Why does this invoice for the Holiday Inn, York come to more than the £1,155.19 Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service paid for it in January 2016?

Why does this invoice for the Holiday Inn, York come to more than the £1,155.19 Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service paid for it in January 2016?

Why does this invoice for the Holiday Inn, York come to more than the £1,155.19 Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service paid for it in January 2016?

                                                    

Declaration of interest: The author of this piece is the Appellant in a First-Tier Tribunal case in which Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority is the Second Respondent (EA/2016/0054).

Below is an invoice unearthed during my citizen’s audit of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service. It appears to be for three not specified people in “Team Merseyside” at the Holiday Inn in York from the 27th December 2015 to the 1st January 2016.

It’s the first page of a multi page invoice from the Holiday Inn York. Sadly Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority failed to provide the rest of the invoice as requested within the 30 working day deadline.

The payment is listed as £1,155.19 made on the 1st January 2016 to the Holiday Inn York. This amount doesn’t include VAT.

However the total on page one of the invoice comes to £1,638.48.

Even if you add the VAT to the amount paid at a rate of 20%, £1,155.19 * 120% only comes to £1,386.23p so it doesn’t make much sense to me.

However it’s possible although a dinner was included in the £80 a night price, that the room charges for bar food, room charges for rest food and a room charge for rest beverage were paid out of a different budget or by someone else. Or possibly some sort of discount was applied on the second missing page! Certainly the second page of the invoice would clear a lot of this up!

I could ask Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority to provide the missing page or pages but they’ve already been quite cross at me (after charging me £40 for copies) at how much officer time is involved in finding an invoice for the inspection and how they couldn’t charge me for the inspection etc etc.

After all there are only have three hundred or so administrative staff working at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service. Which when you consider all they have to do such as employee payroll, invoices, day-to-day admin it probably isn’t enough staff when you consider my request for invoices during the 30 day inspection period seemed to take at least between around nine and a dozen staff at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service to deal with (maybe the costs they refer to are their own unique way of doing things?)

I won’t bother their auditors Grant Thornton with these sorts of trifling anomalies as their response is usually just we don’t know, ask Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service!

As their press office appear to be under instructions not to give out quotes on behalf of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service to me I haven’t asked them for a quote either before publishing as it seems to be a futile exercise.

Holiday Inn York invoice Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service 1st January 2016 resized
Holiday Inn York invoice Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service 1st January 2016 resized

Holiday Inn York
Tadcaster Road
York, YO24 1QF
United Kingdom
Tel: +44(0)8719429085
Fax: +44(O)1904702804
mailto:reservations@hiyorkhotel.co.uk

(Holiday Inn logo)
Holiday Inn

Team Merseyside
Gb
ELLESMERE PORT LITTL
ch66 4py

Bill 2016000024
Date 01/01/2016
Room 037 Twin Room Non
Arrival 27/12/2015
Departure 01/01/2016
CRS Confirmation 61146719

Holiday Inn, York

Date Description Supplement Qty. Price Amount
27/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 033 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
27/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 1 80.00 80.00
27/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 214 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
28/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 033 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
28/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 1 80.00 80.00
28/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 214 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
28/12 Dinner Food Incl inc -1 36.00 -36.00
28/12 Room Charge Bar Food Check:2015051345 1 47.25 47.25
29/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 033 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
29/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 1 80.00 80.00
29/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 214 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
29/12 Dinner Food Incl inc -1 36.00 -36.00
29/12 Room Charge Bar Food Check:2015051765 1 64.70 64.70
30/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 033 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
30/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 1 80.00 80.00
30/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 214 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
30/12 Dinner Food Incl inc 033 Merseyside, Team -1 27.10 -27.10
30/12 Dinner Food Incl inc -1 36.00 -36.00
30/12 Room Charge Rest Food Check:2015051959 1 21.90 21.90
30/12 Room Charge Rest Food Check:2015051962 033 Mers 1 19.15 19.15
30/12 Room Charge Rest Food Check:2015052009 1 5.95 5.95
30/12 Room Charge Rest Food Check:2015052011 033 Mers 1 7.95 7.95
30/12 Room Charge Bar Food Check:2015051893 1 62.08 62.08
31/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 033 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
31/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 1 80.00 80.00
31/12 Accommodation Dinner Brea 214 Merseyside, Team 1 80.00 80.00
31/12 Room Charge Rest Food Check:2015052073 1 85.70 85.70
31/12 Room Charge Rest Food Check:2015052173 1 108.80 108.80
31/12 Room Charge Rest Beverage Check:2015052073 1 15.00 15.00

This hotel is owned and operated by Kew Green Hotels (York) Limited under license from IHG Hotels.
Registered Office 2nd Floor, Dome Building, The Quadrant, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1DT
Company Registration 9096181, VAT Number 798600878


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