Auditors state Wirral Council doesn’t provide value for money for 2nd year in a row!
Auditors state Wirral Council doesn’t provide value for money for 2nd year in a row!
Cabinet 17th December 2014 voting to close Lyndale School L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan
Wirral Council’s auditors Grant Thornton will be telling councilors on Wirral Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee next Monday evening (25th September 2017) that Wirral Council doesn’t provide value for money.
The auditor’s concerns are to do with the lack of improvement following the OFSTED report last year that rated Wirral Council as inadequate. In a report to be discussed by councillors next week the auditors state:
The Council has established an Improvement Board and developed an Improvement Plan to address the Ofsted recommendations, and provided an update on progress in its Annual Governance Statement. However, a subsequent Ofsted monitoring visit in April 2017 reported that while inspectors identified areas of strength and improvement, there are still some areas where inspectors considered that progress has not yet met expectations.
This matter is evidence of weaknesses in proper arrangements for understanding and using appropriate and reliable financial and performance information to support informed decision making and performance management, and for planning, organising and developing the workforce effectively to deliver strategic priorities.”
Since the publication of the OFSTED report, the Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services Cllr Tony Smith, the Director for Children’s Services Julia Hassall and the Chair of the Improvement Board Eleanor Brazil have all resigned (for clarity Cllr Tony Smith resigned from his Cabinet position not as a councillor).
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What’s in a ~500 page contract between the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and CRG for a private company to provide detained persons and officers healthcare and medical services?
What’s in a ~500 page contract between the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and CRG for a private company to provide detained persons and officers healthcare and medical services?
I have a big red box file in my office.
What’s in the box you may ask?
Here’s a sample.
letter Police Crime Commissioner for Merseyside citizen audit 2015-16 page 1 of 2letter Police Crime Commissioner for Merseyside citizen audit 2015-16 page 2 of 2
Well it’s the result of my citizen audit of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside for the financial year 2015-16.
Just to show how long I’ve been a journalist for, you will find on this blog reports of public meetings of the Merseyside Police Authority. A few years ago the coalition government abolished the Merseyside Police Authority and replaced it with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside.
In the box are copies of 49 invoices and details of 10 contracts.
The largest contract at ~500 pages is a contract between the Police and Crime Commissioner and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t/a CRG for the “Provision of Forensic Medical and Healthcare Services for the period, 21st January 2015 – 20th January 2017 with an option to extend by a further 2 years.“ which is reference PCCM / PD / 026 – Bluelight ref. 9KBD-BXVLMV .
This is perhaps the most interesting document although like many of the documents is redacted in part.
There’s also a service level agreement with Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council and a secondment agreement with Liverpool City Council.
Some of the redactions were later challenged by myself and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner agreed with me that they didn’t have a legal basis to do so and released further information.
It is somewhat strange however that myself a journalist seems to have a better knowledge (from a legal perspective) over what can be redacted than the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner. However I shouldn’t be too harsh on the OPCC for Merseyside as legal advice is a matter contracted under a SLA out to Knowsley Council (but don’t get me started on Knowsley Council and flawed legal advice!)
However the public sector as a whole has a tendency to for want of an expression take the mickey with me over redactions.
Although thankfully I rarely have to involve the judiciary in such matters.
Anyway going back to the large contract, due to its size from a time element it would take some considerable time to scan in, resize, compress and publish on the blog.
Those of a more political bent, may point out that in the public sector paying a private company for medical and healthcare services, that this falls into the political arguments over whether public services should be provided by the public sector. If provided by the private sector, ultimately less is spent on the service as a proportion ends up in profit (and presumably a different amount in taxes). For example 20% of all the money spent on CRG goes on VAT.
However, from CRG‘s last published accounts for 2015-16, they have a turnover of £34.3 million with a gross profit of 23.1%.
So out of £100 spent by the public sector with CRG, I estimate £16.69 will go on VAT, £23.10 on profit, leaving ~£60 out of every £100 on providing a service.
The contract is signed by Jane Kennedy (the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) and Laura Hale (a director of Castlerock Recruitment Group Limited).
Moving on to the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire it states that it’s for the provision of forensic and healthcare services (excluding SARCS).
SARC refers to Sexual Assault Referral Centre.
It explains that police forces and NHS Local Area Teams are working towards the transfer of commissioning responsibility for healthcare in police custody from the Home Office to the Department of Health and that the work of these Police/NHS Partnerships sits within the National Police Transition Programme.
If this happens during the life of the contract it is anticipated that the commissioning authority changes from Merseyside Police to the NHS England Lancashire Area Team and the contract will be novated.
However police forces and the NHS share contract governance, even after this change. This is done through the Strategic Healthcare Joint Partnership Board, at the time chaired by Chief Superintendant Carl Krueger, with representatives from NHS England Lancashire Area Team and NHS England (Merseyside).
PCC in the contract refers to the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside.
The background explains that Merseyside Police was formed in 1974, serves a population of ~1.5 million people, covering an area of 647 sq km and five Metropolitan Borough Areas (Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley, St Helens and Wirral).
It then describes the BCUs (Basic Command Units) in operation at the time, which was one for each borough except Liverpool split into two.
The contract refers to the three universities, two premiership football teams (Tranmere Rovers doesn’t get a mention or maybe its fans are better behaved), a rugby league team and two major racecourses. It states that in 2013, Liverpool received 57 million visitors to the region (referring to tourism). At the time of writing Merseyside Police employed over 6,000 people (*although technically police officers aren’t employees but officers of the Crown) ranging from police officers, PCSOs, support staff, Special Constabulary Officers and volunteers).
The custody suites are listed as follows (five in total) with 131 cells. There are also two mothballed custody suites which can be opened for pre-planned events and operations (which is an extra 32 cells).
Here is the list in the following format
location – BCU – Cells – Current operation
St Anne Street – Liverpool – 33 – 24/7 Wavertree – Liverpool – 20 – 24/7 Copy Lane – Sefton – 24 – 24/7 Wirral – 32 – 24/7 St Helens – 22 – 24/7 (Mothballing or reduced opening hours are currently being considered for this suite) Southport – 12 – Mothballed Belle Vale – South Liverpool – Mothballed
The contract states that services at the time of the contract award were provided by Medacs Healthcare (contact details Helen Kelly (Director of Managed Healthcare)) and that staff employed by Medacs may need to be TUPEd over to the new provider.
There is a list of how many detainees there are for each month from April 2013-14, how many calls there were for a healthcare professional, along with a percentage of HCP calls vs No of detainees.
The total number of detainees varies from 3,510 in April to 3,927 in July. The number of HCP calls varies from 1,698 in March to 2,217 in July. The percentage varies from 46.3% in March to 56.5% in July.
There is then a table for December 2013 of various categories of call out, split by custody suite location with totals.
For example one of the categories, category 6 is Death (All) of which there were 4 in December 2013. This is 4 out of a total of 2,011 calls for a healthcare professional.
The six major categories (all with totals over 100 call outs in that month across Merseyside) in order of calls were:
Injuries (All) – inc Officer Injury,
Fitness to – Detain, Interview, Release, Court, Travel etc,
Medication Administer / Review,
Drink / Drug Withdrawl,
Reassessment / Mental Health Reassessment,
Detainee’s Request / Complaint against police
There were also 27 listed as Taser Removal / self harm / suicide risk.
Below are the first pages of the contract that I’m referring to. Are people interested in the rest or is police officer healthcare and detained persons’ healthcare an issue you assumed was provided by the NHS?
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 1contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 2contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 3contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 4contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 5contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 6contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 7contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 8contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 9contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 10
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Why is Wirral Council’s draft 2015/16 statement of accounts to be amended following concerns by myself and their external auditor?
Why is Wirral Council’s draft 2015/16 statement of accounts to be amended following concerns by myself and their external auditor?
Tom Sault (Acting Section 151 Officer) Wirral Council at the Audit and Risk Management Committee on the 13th June 2016
I’d perhaps better start by declaring the interest that I’m the person the letter below is to, in response to a letter I wrote to Robin Baker.
In an update to Why am I objecting to Wirral Council’s draft statement of accounts for the 2015/16 financial year? published on the 11th July 2016, I have today received a further reply (that you can read below) from Wirral Council’s auditors Grant Thornton dated 19th July 2016 which I quote from below. I’ve linked to the legislation referred to and the page of the statement of accounts that’s the issue. It seems they agree with me (although curiously don’t address the issue of bonuses too in their letter). I’ve left out some of the bits of their headed notepaper which I summarise in brackets ().
Please note the below letter I quote from was written by Robin Baker of Grant Thornton UK LLP (not myself).
I note from your letter that you wish to raise an objection to the accounts of Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council. You identify that the draft accounts included on the Council”s website does not comply with the requirements contained within the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015. Specifically for Category 1 authorities there is a requirements under Regulation 2(1)(a) that for employees who salary is more than £150,000 per year, that the name of the employee is included within the Senior employee remuneration table. You highlight the Council’s Chief Executive is on a salary in excess of £150,000 yet he is not named in the table at note 32 of the draft accounts. You ask us to let you know whether we will consider this objection.
As part of our audit process I have reviewed the draft financial statements prepared by the Council. My review also highlighted the omission of the name of the Chief Executive from note 32 to the draft financial statements and I asked my team to raise the matter with the Council. The Council has acknowledged that the failure to name the Chief Executive in the draft financial statements is an oversight that will be corrected in the revised financial statements that will be published before 30 September 2016.
Thank you for raising this matter with me. Given the Council acknowledges the failure to name the Chief Executive is an oversight and will be corrected, we do not consider there is a need to treat this matter as a formal objection to the accounts. The failure to comply with the regulations will be corrected and there will be no continuing breach that would require us to consider whether the accounts are contrary to law.
If you do not agree with this view, please let me know as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely,
(signature)
Robin Baker
Director
For Grant Thornton UK LLP
(bit at the bottom about how they’re Chartered Accounts, a LLP registered in England and Wales, registered office details, list of members available, regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, member firm of Grant Thornton International (GTIL) etc)
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