A blog about Wirral Council's public meetings, Wirral Council's councillors, Bidston & St. James ward and other public bodies on Merseyside
Author: John Brace
New media journalist from Birkenhead, England who writes about Wirral Council.
Published and promoted by John Brace, 134 Boundary Road, Bidston, CH43 7PH. Printed by UK Webhosting Ltd t/a Tsohost, 113-114 Buckingham Avenue, Slough, Berkshire, England, SL1 4PF.
The First Improvement Plan has a subheading of “for safeguarding adults; making a positive contribution for adults with a learning disability; increased choice and control for adults with a learning disability; providing leadership and commissioning and use of resources”.
It’s a long (fifty-three page) plan that details improvements Wirral Council was to make in twenty-one areas which states under governance “Cabinet will receive progress reports every two months” which is something that doesn’t seem to happen any more.
The twenty-one areas that Wirral Council needed to improve in are safeguarding adults, a shared approach to recognising and responding to allegations of abuse, training of staff who are involved with safeguarding or supporting vulnerable adults, focusing safeguarding activity on those who need it, ensuring that safeguarding is supported by “robust quality assurance arrangements”, improved scrutiny of provider activity and risks, focusing on people with limited opportunities to engage in and contribute to their local communities, wider representation and involvement and support for people using services and their carers in planning and managing change, ensuring that people with learning disabilities and their carers have access to advice, information and support, ensuring people’s needs are “holistically assessed” and supported by partners, the transformation of support planning to promote independence, to address gaps in the awareness of the needs of and support to carers, ensuring that reviews are appropriately times and focused, strengthened arrangements for management and learning from complaints and compliments, ensuring the Safeguarding Adult Board and Learning Disability Partnership Board drive improved outcomes for local people, promoting stronger communication with and involvement of local people and service providers in shaping the vision and development of local services, to develop “robust joint planning to address local needs secured by effective deployment of resources and management of risk”, to “expand its approach to prevention to deliver improved outcomes for people with learning disabilities and their carers”, to “ensure the workforce across the sector has the relevant knowledge, skills and experience to do their job well”, to “robustly challenge and enable the local market to address gaps, raise standards and meet new personalisation requirements” and finally to “ensure joined-up and efficient use of resources across the council, health and housing services”.
The first Improvement Plan with the detail of how they hope to achieve these aims can be read by following the link.
A Appendices as Referred to in the Report
B Equality and Human Rights Commission Letter Dated 29 December 2010
C First Improvement Plan
D Care Quality Commission Inspection Report
E Charging Policy for Supported Living Services
F Documents Relating to 27 Balls Road
G Standards for England Decision Notices Cllr Pat Williams, Cllr Moira McLaughlin, Cllr Denise Roberts and former Cllr Ann Bridson
H Documents Relating to Reimbursement Claims
I Emails Relating to Supported Living Contracts
J Documents Relating to Service Provider 2
K Documents Relating to Service Provider 3
L Medical Information Relating to Martin Morton (MEDICAL IN CONFIDENCE)
M Documents Relating to Service Provider 4
N Minutes of Adult Protection Strategy Meeting Relating to Service Provider 4
O Documents Relating to the Safeguarding Adults Unit
P Minutes of the DASS Monitoring & Development Sub Group Meeting Held on the 11 December 2008
Q Employment Dates for WMBC Employees
A brief explanation about some of the acronyms used above. DASS refers to Department of Adult Social Services and WMBC to Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council. Service Provider 2 was Assisted Living Services (ALS), Service Provider 3 was Salisbury Independent Living Services (SIL) and Service Provider 4 was Options for Living according to this key to the terms used in the Anna Klonowski Associates report.
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The answer given by Graham Burgess (unfortunately he didn’t give a separate answer for each appendix) and starts at 6:12 in the video above was, “Just a response to the first question which relates to a whole series of appendices to the AKA report.
Our view is that all those appendices actually contain very sensitive personal information and to release those appendices would be in breach of data protection and also the duty we have to individuals that gave us information in confidence or relating to their own personal, medical or financial circumstances. Therefore it’s our view that it would be inappropriate to release those documents as they contain a whole host of sensitive information.
Clearly these matters can be tested, if people wish to test our view, by FOIs and the Information Commissioner but so far our position has been and has not been challenged in respect of those appendices. As you can see from some of them anyway clearly showing they do contain very sensitive personal information.”
Joyce Redfearn, Chair of the Improvement Board said, “I think that was recognised within the question certainly in terms of one of the appendices.”
Cllr Jeff Green, Leader of the Conservative Group said, “Yeah, can I just check with the Chief Executive said ‘We decided’ who the we were?”
Graham Burgess, Chief Executive responded, “It’s err the Council. I’ve no doubt said the Council.”
John Brace said, “Sorry, as I’m entitled to a supplementary on that. In relation to P in that list which is the minutes of the DASS Monitoring & Development Sub Group Meeting. I know that there were councillors present at that one and that was used as a justification that councillors had signed off on the special charging policy. So if you released it with the other names blacked out, wouldn’t that then mean people could then have at least a bit of accountability as to who the people were who agreed to that?”
Graham Burgess responded, “Can I also say Chair, that with your agreement it would be the intention of the Council to print all these questions, to place all these questions on our website and all the answers to them as well so they can be unearthed by people who couldn’t make this meeting so they could see what was said and what we’re saying.
In respect of that errm, obviously this is a question we got at five o’clock last night which was reasonable and obviously your supplementary has just been asked now. So I’d need probably to go away and take advice on that point and we’ll give the answer both to you John personally and put the answer on the website for everybody to see. Certainly Joyce and the Improvement Board will take that into account when they write the final report.”
Joyce Redfearn said, “So thank you for the particular question, it was really helpful.”
Below is the first appendix I asked to be published, appendix B (Equality and Human Rights Commission Letter Dated 29 December 2010) supplied by Paul Cardin (not Wirral Council), who has further information on some of the background to the letter in a blog post headlined “The Saga of DLA Piper – can the truth finally be allowed to emerge? Er, not yet…”. You can click on the image of the letter for a larger image, but as search engines can’t spider images, the text of the letter is also included below it.
Equality and
Human Rights
Commission
equalityhumanrights.com
29 December 2010
Angela Eagle MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear Ms Eagle Mr Paul Cardin
In response to your letter of 9 November 2010, in which you outline Mr. Cardin’s concerns that the overcharging of disabled residents amounted to discrimination.
I do not agree with the conclusions drawn by the Council’s Director of Law namely that discrimination did not occur because the residents were not overcharged for reasons relating to disability.
Current discrimination law and supporting case law clearly establish that motive and intent are irrelevant to this issue. The facts are that disabled people were subject to unlawful levels of charging (whether or not the cause was maladministration).
It is therefore the opinion of the Commission that Mr. Cardin’s concerns should be included in the Inquiry, in order to identify whether there are other issues or systemic problems that need to be addressed.
Furthermore inclusion of Mr. Cardin’s concerns in the Inquiry will assist the Local Authority in communicating their commitment to fully investigating this matter.
Yours sincerely
Mike Smith
Chair of the Disability Committee
Equality and Human Rights Commission
3 More London Riverside
Tooley Street
London
SE1 2RG
Tel: 020 3117 0235
Fax: 020 7407 7557
info@equalityhumanrights.com
The Equality and Human Rights Commission was established by the Equality Act 2006 as the Commission for Equality and Human Rights
So going through the list of reasons Graham Burgess gave for not publishing appendices such as these.
1. Does it contain “very sensitive personal information”?
No, it doesn’t. It does contain Paul Cardin’s name and if Wirral Council wished to protect his privacy it could easily have been released the letter with his name blacked out. However I had Paul Cardin’s permission to republish the letter without any redactions.
2. Would it be a breach of the data protection legislation for Wirral Council to release and publish such a letter?
In my view no (apart from the point about whether Paul Cardin’s name should be included when published or not). Wirral Council have been criticised in the past for using the spurious reason of data protection legislation to try and stop filming of their meetings so I don’t think they’re as familiar with this legislation and case law on the subject as they claim to be. My own personal experience is that I’ve previously won a case (in 2012) in the Birkenhead County Court involving a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 where one of the two defendants was a Wirral councillor. Sadly it seems at least one Wirral councillor has very little understanding of the data protection legislation.
3. Would it breach the duty Wirral Council has to individuals that gave them information in confidence?
No, this is a letter written to Angela Eagle MP. I very much doubt that Mike Smith was told by Anna Klonowski Associates Ltd that his letter would be kept confidential or that he was providing it on these terms to Anna Klonowski’s investigation on those terms.
4. Does it relate to personal, medical or financial circumstances?
No, it does relate to overcharging but not in detail.
This however brings us to a final question which seems to be the crux of the matter.
5. Would releasing or publishing a letter from the Chair of the Disability Committee of the Equality and Human Rights Commission that states that disabled people were subject to unlawful levels of charging which amounted to discrimination, which contradicts the legal opinion of Wirral Council’s former Director of Law be something that would be embarrassing to Wirral Council? The answer to that one is yes. As usual comments on this matter are appreciated.
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Wirral Council reveals how fraudsters conned them out of £45k<
Wirral Council reveals how fraudsters conned them out of £45k
Published yesterday as part of the agenda for Wirral Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee meeting on the 25th November was the report into how fraudsters managed to con Wirral out of £45,683.86 and £95.60 meant for one of Wirral’s care homes.
As the care home had to then be paid, this con cost the Wirral taxpayer £45,779.46. The report goes into detail stating that other local authorities have fallen victim to this particular type of fraud and lost far larger amounts as a result.
The report details that the investigation started when the manager of a care home telephoned Wirral Council on the 23rd August querying why they hadn’t been paid as expected the previous week. Wirral Council confirmed that a payment had been made by bank transfer on the 13th August and that they’d received a request to change the bank details of the payee a few weeks earlier. The manager of the care home informed Wirral Council that they hadn’t made a request to change bank details, so the matter was referred to Wirral Council’s Internal Audit team.
The audit team contacted the bank that the fraudulent payment had been made to and were informed that once the money had cleared on the 16th August that it had been moved to another account. A replacement payment was made to the care home.
On investigation Internal Audit found that a request to change bank details had been made via email in July 2013. This email had been sent to the Wirral Council email address that Wirral Council’s Accounts Payable team request that their suppliers use. The email address used (although an email address can be easily forged) matched the information held on Wirral Council’s records and contained details of the payment the previous month to the care home.
Wirral Council’s procedures require staff to phone the supplier to check such a request is genuine. However as the email address matched and details of the payment the previous month was included this phone call was never made as it was assumed (wrongly) that the request was genuine.
The change was then checked by a supervising officer and the change to the bank details were made on Wirral Council’s Oracle system.
The fraud was reported to Merseyside Police on the 23rd August 2013 and Internal Audit were able to provide the name, account holder and address for both the account that the money was initially transferred to and the second account it was transferred to after the payment had cleared. This information was also passed to Action Fraud, who passed it onto the Metropolitan Police.
The Metropolitan Police contacted Internal Audit on the 5th November 2013 who confirmed that they are “actively pursuing” it. Internal Audit provided the Metropolitan Police with a statement detailing what happened.
A report was also prepared for senior management detailing ten recommendations which “stress the importance of following documented procedures in respect of changes to any account details”. These recommendations are also included in the monthly Internal Audit Activity Summary report which will also be discussed at the next Audit and Risk Management Committee.
Standards for England email about missing councillor in Martin Morton complaint
Standards for England email about missing councillor in Martin Morton complaint
I realise as this is over two years ago this is probably regarded now as ancient history, but as far as I remember the name of the former councillor that was missing from the complaint of Martin Morton that Wirral Council incorrectly sent to Standards for England has not before been made public. Here’s an email from Standards for England that states who it was and refers to how they initially reached a decision on one councillor because with regards to the information sent by Wirral Council that they “were not provided with evidence to show that the complainant had made a complaint about her”.
from: Lori Holden “Lori.Holden@standardsforengland.gov.uk”
to: “john.brace@gmail.com”
date: 7 July 2011 11:02
subject: RE: complaint referred to Standards Board for England by Metropolitan Borough of Wirral with regards to Cllr Bridson, Cllr Williams, Cllr Roberts and Cllr McLaughlin made by Mr. Morton
Hi John,
Thanks again for you latest email. As previously confirmed, Standards for England received a referral from Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council’s Standards Committee’s Initial Assessment Panel relating to Councillors Moira McLaughlin, Denise Roberts, Pat Williams and Ann Bridson on April 1, 2011.
Standards for England made a decision, in accordance with section 58(2) of the Local Government Act 2000, as amended, that no further action be taken on the allegation in relation to all four councillors based on the information provided to us by the local authority.
However, with regards to Councillor Ann Bridson, we stated that we reached our decision of no further action on the basis that we were not provided with evidence to show that the complainant had made a complaint about her.
In relation to the referral we received on June 14, I have been advised that initial assessment of this complaint is still in progress. I would advise contacting me again by mid-week next week for an update and, if I hear of any developments in the meantime, I will let you know.
Hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Lori
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Never believe anything until it’s officially denied
Never believe anything until it’s officially denied
There is a phrase “Never believe anything until it’s officially denied” which seems to apply to the Wirral Council/LGA Improvement Board too although they seem to have rewritten it to “Never believe anything until you’re told you can’t even speak about it”.
I’m a member of the NUJ and subject to a Code of Conduct which includes in rule one an obligation on me (rule 1) that “At all times upholds and defends the principle of media freedom, the right of freedom of expression and the right of the public to be informed.”
So when I got a response like this (the email is copied below) in response to a question I submitted to the Improvement Board’s public question and answer session I wonder why someone doesn’t want the public to be informed on this matter and why? If there was nothing going on, surely the Wirral Council/LGA Improvement Board would welcome an opportunity to set the record straight? Have Wirral Council not heard of the Streisand effect?
An opposition councillor at last night’s Audit and Risk Management Committee was complaining that officers won’t answer his questions. If councillors can’t get answers and a question from the public is effectively censored from even being asked is it any wonder that some of the public don’t think things at Wirral Council have changed much along their much trumpeted journey to openness and transparency (accompanied by the phrase “move on” as “sweep it under the carpet” seems to have gone out of fashion)?
Below is the email and below that the question. It feels pointless to ask it at the meeting as I doubt I’ll get an answer, but it shows that the “bureaucratic machinations” referred to by Klonowski seem to still be alive and kicking.
from: CorpServ-Improvement
to: john.brace@gmail.com
date: 14 November 2013 17:16
subject: RE: questions for Wirral/LGA Improvement Board question and answer session on the 15th November 2013
mailed-by: wirral.gov.uk
Dear Mr. Brace
Thank you for your questions which I have shared with the Chair of the Improvement Board. I have been asked to advise you that Q8 refers to a member of staff and it would therefore be inappropriate for this to be discussed in a public forum.
The Chair kindly requests you do not refer to this question at the meeting.
Best Regards
Improvement Team
Q8 is The Strategic Director for Regeneration and the Environment Kevin Adderley has been mysteriously absent of late from recent public meetings at Wirral Council. Can a reason be given for this to quash (or confirm) the rumours circulating as to the reasons why?
P.S. I am reminded of an answer given by the Improvement Board to a question in July “The LGA Wirral Improvement Board meetings are not meetings of the Council at which public functions are being exercised.” Quite how you manage to have a public forum and a public meeting (or is to use a phrase trotted out by Wirral councillors when they are heckled not a public meeting but a meeting held in public?) without exercising a public function is probably one of those difficult questions there isn’t a good answer to.
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