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.

Employment & Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) 23/11/2011 Part 1, Declarations of Interest, Minutes

Present: Cllr Jeff Green Cllr Lesley Rennie Cllr Peter Kearney Cllr Mark Johnston Cllr Paul Hayes Cllr Adrian Jones (Chair) Cllr George Davies Cllr Steve Foulkes Cllr Phil Davies Officers present: Chris Hyams Andrew Mossop (Committee Clerk) Tony Williams Kevin Adderley Others Cllr Adrian Jones (Chair) said “Good evening” and asked for declarations of interest. … Continue reading “Employment & Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) 23/11/2011 Part 1, Declarations of Interest, Minutes”

Present:
Cllr Jeff Green
Cllr Lesley Rennie
Cllr Peter Kearney
Cllr Mark Johnston
Cllr Paul Hayes
Cllr Adrian Jones (Chair)
Cllr George Davies
Cllr Steve Foulkes
Cllr Phil Davies

Officers present:
Chris Hyams
Andrew Mossop (Committee Clerk)
Tony Williams
Kevin Adderley
Others

Cllr Adrian Jones (Chair) said “Good evening” and asked for declarations of interest. Cllr Steve Foulkes declared a personal interest in item 8 (Appeals Sub-Committee Minutes) as the solicitor named was known to him.

Cllr Adrian Jones (Chair) moved the meeting on to the minutes of the meetings held on the 29th September 2011 and the 13th October 2011.

Cllr Jeff Green asked a question about page eight of the minutes in respect of the interim management arrangements. He asked for an update about “where we are”? He asked about the arrangements for the Policy Unit, which he had not been contacted about.

Chris Hyams updated Cllr Green on where the process was up to. However she said any discussion would affect staff in the room but they were completing the procurement process. She said the Policy Unit was the remit of the Corporate Governance Cabinet Committee.

Cllr Foulkes said it was one of the Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOE).

Cllr Jeff Green said he was conscious that everything was sequential, but could it be done in tandem? Did the procurement exercise have to be finished?

Chris Hyams said it absolutely had to finish and that was the intention, to meet the timescale.

Cllr Jeff Green said from the 29th September they were getting to the end of November, and asked if it would take a further six months?

Licensing Act 2003 Sub-Committee 22/11/2011 (Four Seasons, 265-267 Seabank Road, Wallasey)

The Licensing Committee due to take place today to review the Four Seasons premises licence in New Brighton ward did not take place as planned.

The following councillors did however turn up:-

Cllr Denise Roberts
Cllr John Salter
Cllr Mike Hornby

Officers:
David Abraham (Legal adviser)
Margaret Calvert (Licensing Team Leader)
Committee Clerk: Unknown

Others:
A Merseyside Police officer
Solicitor for those holding the premises licence at the Four Seasons which was Andrew Church-Taylor of Farleys Solicitors LLP
People holding the premises licence for the Four Seasons
A number of other people (at least two) plus myself and another member of the public.

However the meeting was not held, for possibly multiple reasons. There was a combination of the reasons outlined here about a mistake in the agenda in my letter here which related to the desire of Merseyside Police and Wirral Council to hold the committee in private without the public present and the complexity of the case meaning that starting at 2pm, you can’t do such a complex case justice. Things have to be done at such meetings according to the
Licensing Act 2003 (Hearings) Regulations 2005 No.44 which were amended by the Licensing Act 2003 (Hearings) (Amendment) Regulations 2005 No.78.

There was also talk in the lobby of a councillor being late because he arrives by public transport, but I’m not sure which councillor Margaret Calvert was referring to. As councillors are drawn from a panel of fifteen councillors (three of which were there) it doesn’t narrow it down much, although it may have been the Chair of the previous meeting.

The decision to hold it in private had been made at a previous meeting whose minutes for this meeting have (not at the time of writing on the 22nd November) been published and the committee clerk who wrote the draft minutes wasn’t present. The main error was writing “Licensing Act 2003” instead of “The Licensing Act 2003 (Hearings) Regulations 2005”, which in itself was a minor error, but as it had been made at a previous meeting on the 21st October complicates things further.

As the public representations made during Licensing Act 2003 subcommittee meetings can affect the decision made, excluding the public based on a law that was the wrong one could open the decision up to appeal in the Magistrate’s Court if the public were excluded unlawfully.

If it was Wirral Council’s error and they lost they’d have to pay the legal costs of the other party which could end up being considerable. There is some case-law on the subject of licensing appeals, the police, the Magistrates Court (which my father used to work for) and the High Courts of Justice but it’s too late to go into here and this blog post is too long already. It’s a very complex area of law.

My Dad commented that he felt things were dealt better when the Magistrate’s Court used to deal with licensing issues before it got switched to the local authority (Wirral Council). His view was that a court knows the law better than a local authority does as they have experienced staff that deal with providing legal advice to magistrates (as he used to). Wirral Council does have legally qualified staff to deal with legal matters, such as David Abraham and at least seventeen others (plus external legal advisors on an ad hoc basis).

The problem is the agendas aren’t put together by lawyers, they’re put together by committee clerks who don’t need to have a legal qualification and have to rely on the advice given to them by the legal department about what is legal.

Pensions Committee (Wirral Council) 21st November 2011 Part 1, Declarations of interest, minutes (Pension Committee 19/9/2011, Investment Monitoring Working Party (12/10/2011)), Local Government Pension Scheme Update, Public Service Pensions (HM Treasury)

Present:
Cllr Geoffrey Watt (Chair)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (spokesperson)
Cllr Tom Harney (spokesperson)
Cllr Peter Johnston
Cllr Paul Doughty
Cllr George Davies
Cllr Adrian Jones
Various other councillors and co-optees

The Chair Cllr Geoffrey Watt welcomed people to the meeting of the Pensions Committee.

He asked if members of the committee had any personal or prejudicial interests in agenda items to declare.

Cllr George Davies declared a personal interest by virtue of his wife’s employment in a school.
Cllr Paul Doughty declared a personal interest by virtue of his wife’s employment in a school.
Cllr Geoffrey Watt declared an interest because of his father-in-law.
It is possible others declared interests too but as they didn’t use their microphones, I couldn’t hear them.

The Chair, Cllr Geoffrey Watt then asked if they agreed the minutes of the Pension Committee meeting held on the 19th September 2011. He asked if could sign them as a true record. The committee agreed that he could. He said that they were signed.

1:50

The Chair, Cllr Geoffrey Watt then moved to item 3, which was the Investment Monitoring Working Party minutes of the 12th October 2011. He referred committee members to the exempt appendix too. He asked committee members to note those. The committee noted them.

2:15
The Chair, Cllr Geoffrey Watt moved the committee to item 4 which was the Local Government Pension Scheme Update and two reports. He said he would take this with item 11 (Any Other Urgent Business – Public Service Pensions – HM Treasury on the supplementary agenda.

2:21

Standards Hearing Panel (Wirral Council) 21st November 2011 Part 1

Standards Hearing Panel (Wirral Council) 21/11/2011 9:15am

Present:
Independent (2)
Ken Harrison
Stella Elliott

Councillors (3)
Cllr Chris Blakeley (Conservative)
Cllr Bill Davies (Labour) arrived at 9:18am
Cllr Pat Williams (Lib Dem) arrived at 9:20am

Officers present:
Surjit Tour, Deputy Monitoring Officer representing Bill Norman (Monitoring Officer)
Shirley Hudspeth, Committee Services Officer & Clerk
Rosemary Lyons, Investigating Officer

Press/Public:
Denis Knowles
John Brace (press)
Leonora Brace

The meeting started late (instead of at 9.15am) due to not all of the panel being present and some councillors (who were late) missing extra paperwork handed out which was handed out to those who were late along with an explanation.

The meeting started with Ken Harrison saying “Good morning” and explaining that as Vice-Chair of the Standards Committee he would be chairing the panel. He explained there was a problem which would mean the meeting would be deferred to a further date Ed – which turned out to be two months later on 24th January 2012. This was because of further paperwork which they needed time to act upon and digest, otherwise it would not be fair to Mr. Knowles and the public. Ken Harrison apologised for the waste of time, which he had no control over.

Denis Knowles asked if this was further evidence that Ken Harrison had referred to?

Cllr Chris Blakeley said it referred to reference material, specifically appendix 1 and 2. He said it was “outrageous”.

Surjit Tour said in answer to Denis Knowles’s question, “No”.

Cllr Chris Blakeley said they had “acted terribly”, that three minutes before the meeting was to start paperwork had been handed out. He said he would be writing to Bill Norman [Monitoring Officer] about the Legal Department’s approach.

Denis Knowles said he was “only a pawn”, that he “fully understands”, that it was “not fair on you” and that he was “happy to come back”.

A member of the panel misheard what Denis Knowles said as prawn.

The meeting was adjourned to a later date.

Wirral Council libraries & e-books

Following the recent press release from Wirral Council about e-books being available from November 11th I thought I would try it out.

Here’s how you go about borrowing an e-book.

1) Go to the Wirral Libraries website.
2) Enter your borrower number (it’s on your library card) and PIN number.
3) Click Log In.
4) Click Search for eBooks.
5) Enter information in one of the fields to find a book, such as I searched for ebooks using the author Asimov in the creator field.
6) If you find an eBook you want, click Add to Basket. Or alternatively add some more eBooks first.
7) Click Proceed to Checkout.
8 ) Reenter your borrower number and PIN number
9) Click sign in.
10) Click confirm checkout.
11) Click download. There’s also a link here to the software you need (which only needs to be installed the first time).
12) Enjoy reading the book (using Adobe Digital Editions).

This does save time travelling to and from libraries, is a boon for anyone who is housebound. However only four eBooks can be borrowed at any time.

There are also pages on Wirral Council’s libraries website that go into more detail about eBooks.

The reason eBooks are now available is because they were put in the Budget for this year by the Conservative and Lib Dem councillors on Wirral Council. Here’s the relevant bit of the budget.

During 2011-2012 we will modernise the service our libraries provide to make them more attractive and equipped for 21st Century users by investing in the installation of wifi, information screens and a brand new e-book service in every library: £120,000.