Wirral Council defy law (for the 4th time) to ban filming at public meeting to discuss alcohol

Wirral Council defy law (for the 4th time) to ban filming at public meeting to discuss alcohol

Wirral Council defy law (for the 4th time) to ban filming at public meeting to discuss alcohol

                                                 

1 Peter 2:15
For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people
Councillor Bill Davies, Left (Chair, Licensing Act 2003 Committee (Wirral Council)) votes against a filming ban of a public meeting 26th October 2016
Councillor Bill Davies, Left (Chair, Licensing Act 2003 Committee (Wirral Council)) votes against a filming ban of a public meeting 26th October 2016

Over two years ago, the law was changed and Wirral Council was criticised in a press release for trying to stop filming of its public meetings.

Last night Wirral Council’s Licensing Act 2003 Committee met.

Wirral Council started the Wirral Alcohol Inquiry in September 2015 and awarded the tender for this to Shared Future (a Community Interest Company). The question that they were asked to answer was, “What can we all do to make it easier for people to have a healthier relationship with alcohol?”.

The report that came out of talking with twenty Wirral residents made a series of recommendations, the most important one was seen as “Limit the number of licensed premises and make it easier for the public to object to licensing applications. Educate the public that you can have a say on local licensing. Explore how we can make it easier for the public to have their say on local licensing.”

Three of the twenty residents were present at last night’s meeting. However despite receiving legal advice to allow filming to go ahead, despite the law being changed over two years ago, councillors decided to adjourn the whole meeting, ironically to make is harder for the public to have their say on local licensing.

This marks the 4th time since the legislation was changed this has happened and here’s just a brief look back at when Wirral Council has tried this before since the legislation change.

The day democracy and freedom of the press died at Wirral Council: 28th October 2014

Councillors decided to ban filming of the Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee, to avoid future problems the Committee stopped meeting in public and now Wirral Council is subject to government intervention for the way it runs the Children and Young Peoples’ Department.

Labour councillor bans filming at public meeting to decide whether to licence a taxi that’s over 10 years old

There’s a transcript of what happened, but essentially a councillor wanted to ban filming of a public meeting discussing whether to licence a taxi.

Why has Wirral Council sunk deeper into the quagmire of poor corporate governance surrounding a complaint about Cllr Steve Foulkes?

At the Standards Panel meeting involving a complaint about Cllr Foulkes, the public were prevented from both attending and filming.

So yes, in scenes that remind me of the film Groundhog Day, watch below as councillors would rather adjourn the whole meeting, than have some openness and transparency.

Councillors were repeatedly advised by a solicitor advising the Licensing Act 2003 Committee to allow filming, but some chose to ignore him.

The vote was as follows.

For a filming ban (that they have no power to impose and is in my view unlawful) (7)
Cllr David Burgess-Joyce (Conservative)
Cllr Ron Abbey (Labour)
Cllr Chris Meaden (Labour)
Cllr Paul Stuart (Labour)
Cllr Denise Roberts (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Michael Sullivan (proposer, Labour))

Against a filming ban (2)
Cllr Bill Davies (Chair, Labour))
Cllr Dave Mitchell (Liberal Democrat)

You can watch below for what happened at the meeting itself. The 5 minute adjournment lasted twenty-six minutes.

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Licensing Act 2003 Committee (Wirral Council) 26th October 2016 Part 1 of 2

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Licensing Act 2003 Committee (Wirral Council) 26th October 2016 Part 2 of 2

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12 Strange Things the Mysterons want in another Thrilling Wirral Council Adventure!

12 Strange Things the Mysterons want in another Thrilling Wirral Council Adventure!

                                           

In a world of betrayal and lies where you can’t even trust your own party’s councillors.

Meet Councillor Phil Davies, one of the few politicians on the face of the planet determined not to change his mind in the face of those that say no!

The government said no! Opposition councillors said no! But Phil knew better and set off on a bold adventure of launching a newspaper called Wirral View.

One man defied fate and his name was Phil Davies. His mission was to bring the good news to the people setting him and Wirral Council on a collision course with the government.

What will the citizens of Wirral make of pretty pictures of fireworks or is this political drama even more explosive?

Watch as Wirral View enters into the final launch phase in this thrilling extraordinary political drama involving secret legal advice, a question about recycled paper and the mysterious Code!

Is it time for another episode of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons?
Is it time for another episode of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons?

“This is the voice of Wirral Council. We know that you can read us. You criticised us and you will pay a heavy price. Our next act of retaliation will be to destroy the local free press. Do you hear!? We will destroy the local free press!”

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Extraordinary Meeting (Wirral Council) Keeping Residents Informed 17th October 2016 Part 1 of 3

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Extraordinary Meeting (Wirral Council) Keeping Residents Informed 17th October 2016 Part 2 of 3

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Extraordinary Meeting (Wirral Council) Keeping Residents Informed 17th October 2016 Part 3 of 3

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EXCLUSIVE: How many pages did Wirral Council black out from a 63 page litter enforcement contract with Kingdom Security Ltd?

EXCLUSIVE: How many pages did Wirral Council black out from a 63 page litter enforcement contract with Kingdom Security Ltd?

EXCLUSIVE: How many pages did Wirral Council black out from a 63 page litter enforcement contract with Kingdom Security Ltd?

                                             

Yesterday I received through the post what I hope is the last of what I requested during the 2015-16 audit. Yes, I know that Wirral Council was supposed to supply this contract by 11th August 2016 within the 30 working day inspection period but matters move slowly at Wirral Council.

What I was sent on the litter enforcement contract I publish a copy of below. If any page is difficult to read, I’ve had to resize the images and compress them for publishing on this blog.

For those who don’t know the background is that the litter enforcement function used to be done in-house at Wirral Council. From July 2015 it was outsourced to Kingdom Security Limited. I’m rather surprised by how much has been blacked out from the contract, but the invitation to tender explains that it’s a 2 year contract with an option to extend for a year.

Wirral Council require at least 4 full-time enforcement officers and interestingly don’t issue fixed penalty notices to people under 18. Enforcement officers have to hold a SIA licence, and be “of good character, polite and confident with proven experience of dealing with conflict situations”.

The Council ask that a minimum of 4,800 fixed penalty notices are issued each year. There are two interesting bits about the press which I quote below (it’s a gagging clause).

2.10.1 Neither the Contractor nor his Employees shall give or offer to permit to be given, any information concerning the Services for use by or publication in the press or radio, television or cinema screens, or in any other media whatsoever without the written approval of the Council’s Authorised Officer.

2.10.2 The Contractor shall under no circumstances use the name of the Council in any advertisement or press release without express written permission thereof.

Here’s another interesting bit, “5.1 .. In order to incentivise the contractor to reach the minimum requirement of 4800 FPNs, the pricing schedule enables tenderers to specify a different fixed price for all justified FPN’s [sic] issued over 4800 per annum.

Unfortunately Wirral Council have decided to black out the method statements at pages 20 to 39 of the contract and the pricing schedule at pages 45 to 46. Those with long memories will remember some stories in the local press about fixed penalty notices issued, then rescinded by Wirral Council.

Below is the contract (or at least the parts Wirral Council was happy with the public seeing), many of the blacked out bits are subject to a public interest test.

Wirral Council litter enforcement contract Kingdom Security Ltd cover page 1
Wirral Council litter enforcement contract Kingdom Security Ltd cover page 1

DATED 3rd July 2015

WIRRAL BOROUGH COUNCIL

and

KINGDOM SECURITY LTD

AGREEMENT

THE PROVISION OF LITTER ENFORCEMENT

Surjit Tour
Head of Legal and Member
Services
Town Hall
Brighton Street
Wallasey
CH44 8ED

Continue reading “EXCLUSIVE: How many pages did Wirral Council black out from a 63 page litter enforcement contract with Kingdom Security Ltd?”

EXCLUSIVE: What was in 138 pages of unpublished information on the Greasby and Saughall Massie fire stations?

EXCLUSIVE: What was in 138 pages of unpublished information on the proposals for a Greasby Fire Station and Saughall Massie Fire Station?

EXCLUSIVE: What was in 138 pages of unpublished information on the proposals for a Greasby Fire Station and Saughall Massie 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 (20th April 2015)
Dan Stephens (Chief Fire Officer) answers questions at a public consultation meeting in Saughall Massie to discuss proposals for a new fire station (20th April 2015)

On my recent birthday I resolved to publish more unpublished material that was in the public interest.

As regular readers of my blog will know, I was recently an Appellant in a First-tier Tribunal case involving Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority over the Greasby (and now Saughall Massie) fire stations project (which also relates to the fire stations at Upton and West Kirby).

Whereas that planning application for a fire station had originally been down to be decided tomorrow at the Planning Committee it has been put back. There have been extra documents added to the planning application too. A 5 page bat survey has been added and 5 drawings have been revised which are linked to from here. The main difference is the green roofs that presumably are to look something like moss (presumably to reduce its impact on the openness of the greenbelt). If either of those links don’t work, just search for application APP/16/00985 here.

An eighty-two page transcript of various public meetings discussing the project produced at the request of the Tribunal can be read here.

However, a few weeks after the Tribunal hearing, ICO sent me a copy of communications between MFRA and ICO in the lead up to the decision notice under dispute at the Tribunal. These cover the period 3rd September 2015 to 16th February 2016 and am republishing it as I’m a broadcaster and it’s relevant to previously published footage of these public meetings.

Although no final decision on the planning application or land transfer has been made, it seems MFRA was very keen that the amounts it had estimated for land sales and purchases were kept out of the public domain. The first two FOI reasons (section 44, then section 43) ICO rejected.

Admittedly some of the arguments MFRA made showed indicated that they hadn’t at that point watched the videos of what happened at the public meetings in question, once a DVD and transcripts were supplied (about a month before the hearing) they changed their mind over disclosure of the information.

Just for clarity MFRA (Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority) is the 18 councillors (plus a few statutory officers). It’s a different public body to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service (which was a point that both ICO and the First-tier Tribunal managed to get wrong).

However the communications show that they intend to purchase the land at Saughall Massie in 2016 and possibly sell the other land in late 2017.

Obviously these timescales seem to have been put back a bit from what was originally planned at that time.

I seem to remember that it was said that Upton wouldn’t be closed or sold until its replacement was operational, therefore do people think that 12 months is realistic for building a fire station?

Here is what Cllr Adrian Jones (then Cabinet Member for that area) stated at a public meeting (which is at lines 3265 to 3324 of the transcript about Wirral Council’s position and isn’t it interesting that he states “we have to give planning permission” when surely that’s up to councillors on the Planning Committee?

CLLR ADRIAN JONES: I made the point of first being present at the err Greasby public meeting. Errm, and I heard err Dan Stephens, and then I reported back to the Leader of the Council and Phil’s Notice of Motion, that I’m happy to second it, err just to be perfectly clear in my decision.

And I want to give some clearly factual background information.

It’s err quite normal Mr Mayor for Council officers in our asset management department to be asked to identify the Council owned land by other public bodies and quite rightly businesses and that’s public information anyway

[26:00]

that is requested and the fact that we as a Council as we do as a thankless task.

The Fire Service in fact Mr Mayor approached us to identify Council owned land in the Greasby area and they were obliged by the government cuts to get by with fewer stations.

The Head of Asset Management is obliged when asked to identify land in Council control, and that means not making an offer!

No request has ever been to me Mr Mayor as it’s the Cabinet responsible for, err Cabinet Member responsible for asset management to make any decision on the transfer, sale or indeed the Merseyside Fire Service, if that sort of request had come to me, I would not have made the decision under delegated powers. I would have perhaps have consulted the councillors in Greasby ward with this.

The councillor errm err in Blakeley’s case, of course he was one councillor that Councillor [indiscernible – accent] has been talking about him

[27:00]

that the likelihood is that it’ll go direct for a Cabinet decision in a public session.

The Fire Service officers Mr Mayor came down I understand very strongly indeed in favour of central Greasby, now as the judgement that it had greater merit judged against response times and the risk for 26,000 of Wirral residents who they serve.

The Service is looking to embrace a range of new facilities currently 24⁄7 and very much in accordance with Eric Pickles’ wishes!

Errm, now for the last Mr Mayor. We have listened and have withdrawn the Greasby site. Whatever land is finally identified Mr Mayor, it’s the Fire Authority that has the orders for it in any case, and we have to give planning permission.

[28:00]

Err, the planning process is quite straightforward, it’s transparent and residents can object and raise their objections with councillors of all parties on that Committee. In the end granting of a planning consent is separate entirely, it is done through a motion if that is correct Mr Mayor and that is only indeed can be when people on the Cabinet and hose who are the people I’ve answered too.

Now, having heard the depth of feeling and emotion, that’s against the Greasby site,
our professional officers have identified four other potentially available alternatives and then there will be no question Mr Mayor, of any Council land being released until all these processes have been endorsed, and I think it is quite wrong of the Conservative councillors to attempt to make political capital on this and to imply to the wider public that offers were made when they know very well, it is costly and impossible for officers to have made offers!


I would have asked Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service for their response to the issues above, however as far as I can tell their press office has been under instructions not to supply comments to myself or this publication.

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Wirral Council in the Three Little Pigs, did the wolves blow their house down?

Wirral Council in the Three Little Pigs, did the wolves blow their house down?

Wirral Council in the Three Little Pigs, did the wolves blow their house down?

                               

John Brace looks at what the wolves wanted to achieve
John Brace looks at what the wolves wanted to achieve

I will briefly relate what happened last night at Wirral Council in the style of The Story of the Three Little Pigs.

First, a little back story. In February 2012, the wolves had huffed and puffed and blew Labour’s Cabinet down. One of the wolves then became Leader, however a different party won a majority at the elections later that year and he resigned.

Last night was an attempt by the wolf to do something similar.

First, the wolf had a lot to say about the piglets but wanted more time to say how terrible the pigs had been treating the piglets. This was denied.

The Leader of the pigs said he was “disappointed” with a recent “tough but accuratereport about the piglets. He had met with the wolves and there were 19 recommendations to put matters right!

The Leader of the wolves had a somewhat less optimistic view of the report referring to how the pigs had managed it as “spin”, “news management” and referred to the pigs as being “over optimistic”. He said they were hiding from “media scrutiny”.

A wolf referred to the leaked letter to the Echo and the comments in the report on the piglets.

One of the key pigs in the matter started squealing, there was now a Piglet Improvement Board, £2 million had been found and they weren’t the only place having trouble with piglets!

Deputy Leader of the wolves used words such as “complacency”, “arrogance” and “secretive behaviour” to describe the pigs. She referred to the “Most Improved” award as a joke and said the pigs had been too busy with alternative bin collections, a newspaper, a trip to China or the Liverpool City Region which meant they had “taken their eye off the ball”.

A pig squealed back, he didn’t like the wolves using a word like “appalled” and instead thought they should be using, “surprised and disappointed” instead.

One of the wolves referred to the pigs concerning themselves with rubbish (surely people know pigs like rubbish?), newspapers and how none of the pigs had resigned or sacked someone.

Another of the wolves referred to the £2 million extra and how more millions had been shifted around earlier in the year. The pigs’ finances were in his view on a “rollercoaster”, he made some suggestions for how one of the pigs’ jobs should be done by two pigs and how there should be better scrutiny by the wolves over what the pigs were doing.

A key pig wanted to thank people. She thanked the workers, she thanked the residents, she thanked the workers again. She said how wonderful the piglets were and of course how wonderful the pigs were, she thanked so many that the Mayor asked her to wind up.

She finished by saying it that the responsibility was everyone’s, both pigs and wolves alike and that pigs and wolves should work together.

One of the wolves had a terrible message to tell the pigs. He had worked for two organisations that had failed and no longer existed. That was because they had scrutinised themselves! He asked the Leader of the pigs to resign!

Another of the wolves referred to “bad management” and “bad governance” and how a lot of energy had been put into promoting a Youth Hub for the piglets in Birkenhead and the Hoylake Golf Resort.

A wolf referred to the OFSTED report and the culture of “over optimism”.

One of the pigs rose to say it was all the fault of the wolves and (ironically) that there was no attempt at spin. She asked pigs and wolves to come together and for pigs and wolves to look at themselves.

A wolf made his “maiden speech” (for the 4th time). He said that whether the pigs or wolves were in charge, the piglets were still “let down”. The wolf described the situation as “unacceptable” and said that when the pigs left office they would have regrets. He referred to the Improvement Board and reminded the pigs that they had asked for the wolves to resign in 2010 when the bins were collected a week late. Also he asked for the Piglet Improvement Board to meet in public.

A pig congratulated the wolf on another maiden speech, however went on to criticise what another wolf had put on Twitter.

A wolf drew parallels between what happened with the piglets to four years ago and how the pigs had driven someone out of their job who told them what went wrong.

Another wolf referred to how much the pigs spent on agency staff, a different wolf bemoaned the lack of staff reviews.

A pig described what had happened as merely a “perfect storm” going on to again blame it on the wolves.

A wolf used the idiom “fall on deaf ears“* which means ignored.

*It was pointed out by later that this phrase was seen as discriminatory towards those with deaf ears.

Another wolf described herself as angry.

One of the pigs who’d been asked to resign, congratulated one of the wolves on his 4th maiden speech. He said they had, “let people down”.

A wolf referred to various reports, thanked the other wolf for his maiden speech and referred to his analysis that in one team of workers eight out of thirteen were agency staff.

Leader of the wolves again referred to the piglets and his view on the pigs’ news management. He said that in 2012 they [the wolves] had offered people extra money to work there and referred to the new furniture for nearby buildings. He said he had not heard the pigs say sorry.

Leader of the pigs said it was a wolf who should apologise and he didn’t accept the wolves’ assertions. Staff worked hard, there was a Piglet Improvement Board, which had been suggested by a wolf. He went on to say how the wolves didn’t take things seriously. The budget matters were in his view all the fault of the wolves. He congratulated a wolf on his maiden speech and said that alternate meetings of the Improvement Board would be in public as issues had to be dealt with “in confidence”.

He announced that no pigs would resign, that the wolves were outrageous and should stop their “personal attacks” as the workers couldn’t defend themselves. He would engage in a robust Improvement Plan to move forward at a pace.

There was then the huffing and puffing in an attempt to blow the pigs’ house down.

Twenty-four wolves did their best, but thirty-six pigs squealed back. So in the end, the house didn’t blow down and no pigs resigned.

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