Category: Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council

Fire Brigades Union will strike for 24 hours from 0900 on 9th December 2014 to 0900 on 10th December 2014 over pensions dispute

Fire Brigades Union will strike for 24 hours from 0900 on 9th December 2014 to 0900 on 10th December 2014 over pensions dispute

Fire Brigades Union will strike for 24 hours from 0900 on 9th December 2014 to 0900 on 10th December 2014 over pensions dispute

                                                          

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Consultation and Negotiation Sub-Committee 2nd December 2014 L to R Unknown, Cllr Mahon (Chair), Dan Stephens (Chief Fire Officer), Phil Garrigan (Deputy Chief Fire Officer), Unknown, Cllr Robertson
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Consultation and Negotiation Sub-Committee 2nd December 2014 L to R Unknown, Cllr Mahon (Chair), Dan Stephens (Chief Fire Officer), Phil Garrigan (Deputy Chief Fire Officer), Unknown, Cllr Robertson

Present (Consultation and Negotiation Sub-Committee, 4 out of 5 councillors were present, quorum is two):
Cllr Jimmy Mahon (Labour, Chair)
Cllr Leslie T Byrom (Labour)
Cllr Linda Maloney (Labour)
Cllr Tony Robertson (Lib Dem opposition spokesperson)

Also present:
Dan Stephens (Chief Fire Officer)
Phil Garrigan (Deputy Chief Fire Officer)
Janet Henshaw (Clerk to the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority and Monitoring Officer)
Fire Brigade Union guy 1
Fire Brigade Union guy 2
Union guy 3
Union guy 4
Two members of the public (of which the author of this blog post John Brace is one)

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The Chair started the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meeting by stating in the event of a fire alarm sounding where the nearest fire exits were and people were to assemble at the assembly point across the car park in the event of a fire. Smoking would not be permitted during the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meeting and the toilets were further down the corridor on the opposite side to the meeting room.

If anyone was requested to leave the meeting for whatever reason, recording was to not continue outside the room. He asked people not to leave on display anything that was private or confidential items on display.

There were no exempt items on the agenda for this meeting so the press and public wouldn’t be asked to leave. He asked if any of the two “observers” present had any objections to being filmed (one of whom is the person writing this). Neither of us (including myself) did. He asked people to have their mobile phones on silent, told people he was Councillor Mahon and declared the meeting open.

1. Preliminary Matters

An apology was given by Cllr Tony Robertson for Cllr Lesley Rennie.
An apology was given by the Chair for the Deputy Chief Fire Officer Phil Garrigan.
The Deputy Chief Fire Officer pointed out he was present.

No declarations of interest were made.

There were no items that the press and public would be excluded for.

2. Minutes of Previous Meeting

The minutes of the meeting of the consultation and negotiation sub-committee meeting of the 2nd September 2014 (the blog post Labour councillors blame government for strikes in 1st ever film of a Merseyside Fire Authority meeting refers to this meeting) were agreed.

3. Industrial Relations Update

The Chief Fire Officer, Dan Stephens introduced his report (CFO/124/14) on matters of negotiation and consultation with the trade unions since the last meeting on 2nd September 2014.

He referred to 45 service instructions issued since 2nd September, most had been agreed but nine were outstanding. Dan Stephens referred to the ongoing talks with the Fire Brigades Union and that the Fire Brigades Union did not agree with the health and fitness instruction as well as an ongoing national dispute. However there had been talks in London on the 10th and 11th of September and a further meeting in Liverpool on the 29th September.

The Chief Fire Officer on behalf of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service thanked Phil, Mark and Kevin for getting to the point where they had reached an agreement.

He referred to paragraphs 10 and 11 of his report about 24-hour shifts, the impact of station mergers versus outright closure and the mitigation he had recommended to the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority. With regards to the pensions dispute it was outside his influence and totally outside his sphere of control, however he hoped to maintain constructive dialogue and Merseyside was testament to strong industrial relations between the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority.

There was notification by the Fire Brigades Union of a 24 hour strike from 0900 on the 9th December 2014 to 0900 on the 10th December 2014. An Early Day Motion by Hilary Benn MP had attracted 236 signatures so far. However the pension regulations had been laid before parliament and the 40-day period would conclude on the 11th December 2014, which was the reason for the timing of the notification of industrial action by the Fire Brigades Union.

If the pension regulations were agreed by Parliament they would come into effect on the 1st April 2015. He said he would take any questions.

The Fire Brigades Union representative referred to the service instructions and the enormous body of work it had entailed. They had put it forward to the national Fire Brigades Union to be recognised as a template. He agreed with the Chief Fire Officer that it was much better to have an agreed outcomes and agreed introduction.

He referred to the policies about aiding sick and injured firefighters rather than punitively punishing them and accepted the reassurances about the issue of 24-hour working. Rather than death by a thousand cuts, he wanted to deal with the issues now to give a relative period of stability moving forward. Finally he pointed out to everyone at the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service that it was a national pensions dispute and he wanted to reiterate that there was excellent industrial relations locally in that they could talk about thorny issues without either side finding it offensive.

Cllr Maloney said that as an Authority they hadn’t got a clue as to what was going to happen.

Cllr Byrom said that during the strike period relationships on Merseyside had been cordial. Other authorities hadn’t seen this so he was grateful. He said that they “stand on the brink of considerable change”. In the tours they had been doing of fire stations, he’d been able to say to firefighters and members of the public it’s not the cheapest way of working but a better way of working to retain a full-time method of operation.

If they lost control of the agenda, the way to save money would be to move to retained. He said, “We don’t want that.” However, working closely with the staff and the public they serve, he wanted to put forward the message that it was safe, a good speed of response, a good weight of response and that the crews when they get there were prepared and trained.

The representative of the Fire Officers Association referred to the financial difficulties, the staffing model and how everyone was integral to providing an emergency service. He too referred to the 24-hour shift system. On the pensions issue he said that the government wasn’t moving and that they had got to persuade ministers and civil servants as there were issues that hadn’t been fully considered by the government.

He wanted (in reflection of the 236 MPs that had signed an Early Day Motion) a debate, otherwise there was something seriously wrong with politics. The union representative suggested that they address their MPs and ask them to sign the Early Day Motion apart from the one who is a government minister.

Referring to the MP for Wirral West, the Rt Hon Esther McVey MP, he said that she, “certainly doesn’t seem to live in the real world, doesn’t seem to want to know the impact of the cuts that are happening on this [Merseyside Fire and Rescue] Service”.

Although the Fire Brigades Union had said not to respond to the Adrian Thomas review of conditions of service and questionnaire, he had seen a tweet from the Deputy General Secretary encouraging members to respond to this. He had retweeted it, because he thought it was important as it affects all members.

He wanted Adrian Thomas as the independent person undertaking the review to fully understand and appreciate the concerns and issues of members. Looking forward to the budget proposals in February, the mergers were the big issue, he wanted to make sure that any cuts protected the frontline.

Cllr Tony Robertson (Lib Dem opposition spokesperson) that he agreed over the fulltime issue. He referred to his union background as a branch secretary and how there was a huge amount of respect on both sides. Although he was only a recently appointed member of the Fire Authority, he had read about it prior to becoming a member. He said that industrial relations were a hugely important issue as poor industrial relations would lead to a poor service. Cllr Robertson also said he had “no enthusiasm for city region government”.

The Chair referred to the disputes from 2003 and the £100,000 cost of getting the Green Goddess and how in the past the trade unions had told them what to do and how bad it was in the past. He compared how it was in 2003 to the improved industrial relations in 2014.

The Chief Fire Officer said to respond to Cllr Hanratty, that all MPs on Merseyside, bar the MP for Wirral West had signed the Early Day Motion, which included the Rt Hon John Pugh MP for Southport who is a member of the coalition.

The recommendations were agreed. The Chair said that the next meeting would be the 24th March 2015, he thanked people for their attendance and wished people a safe journey.

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I’ve started a petition calling on the Mersey Fire and Rescue Authority to delete the part of its constitution that requires permission to film each public meeting following the legal change in August 2014. Please if you agree with it then sign it.

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Merseytravel’s Head of Internal Audit brands some whistleblowing as “Mickey Mouse” & “complete nonsense”

Merseytravel’s Head of Internal Audit brands some whistleblowing as “Mickey Mouse” & “complete nonsense”

Merseytravel’s Head of Internal Audit brands some whistleblowing as “Mickey Mouse” & “complete nonsense”

                                                                 

ED 26/11/14 15:16 – Following a complaint from Merseytravel received on the 26th November 2014, the word “some” has been added to the headline for the purposes of clarity.

Declaration of Interest: The author of this piece was years ago involved as the Claimant in litigation against Merseyside Passenger Transport Authority (defendant) and Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive (defendant) that started and concluded in 2007 in the Birkenhead County Court. This was after first raising his concerns internally with its former Chief Executive Neil Scales and former Chair of Merseytravel Cllr Dowd. At this stage the matter could have been easily settled for £15 but Merseytravel chose at that stage not to.

Merseytravel’s legal costs in the matter were estimated at £thousands (which Merseytravel paid themselves and would have had to pay whether they won or lost). The increased legal costs of Merseytravel were partly because of what happened as detailed below.

During the case Merseytravel’s barrister (in my opinion a barrister is indeed slight overkill for a £15 claim in the small claims track in the county court, but I know now it’s common practice in the public sector to do this) had to (rather embarrassingly) ask for the permission from both the Claimant (myself) and the Birkenhead County Court to withdraw the first signed witness statement of their expert witness (a Merseytravel employee) after I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in their witness statement (that the witness (a Merseytravel employee) had indeed signed a statement of truth for).

Merseytravel also sought (initially but later changed their mind on that) in 2008 to withhold documents referred to from the Claimant that were referred to in their defence. If I remember correctly a Merseytravel employee stated to me at the time that such documents (which were details of their charging policy for lost Solo and Trio passes) were not for the public.

The final judgement in the case (by agreement by both Merseytravel and myself) was later modified by the Birkenhead County Court due to a factual error made by the Judge who had not taken into account an earlier application in the case and chosen to ignore me pointing this out to him at the time of the hearing.

Although the judge at the final hearing agreed with me that Merseytravel had discriminated against me three times because of a protected characteristic, the court accepted Merseytrave’s reliance on a statutory defence that discrimination on these three times was justified due to a “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim” because of decisions by politicians.

The four councillors from Wirral Council at the time on Merseytravel (the Merseyside Passenger Transport Authority) were:

Cllr Ron Abbey (Labour)
former Cllr Denis Knowles (Labour at the time but switched to the Conservatives)

It is perhaps to be noted that as is relevant to how politicians and those in the public sector relate towards protected minorities (and this point here is obviously to do with attitudes towards a different protected minority) that Denis Knowles in 2012 later faced a Wirral Council Standards Hearing Panel hearing based on a complaint of Denis Knowles after a comment he left on Facebook about members of the LGBT community who were members of the Labour Party. He was suspended at the time from the Conservative Party.

former Cllr Jacqueline McKelvie (Conservative)
Cllr Dave Mitchell (Lib Dem)

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A councillor asks a question about Merseytravel's whistleblowing policy at a public meeting of its Audit and Governance SubCommittee 24th November 2014
A councillor asks a question about Merseytravel’s whistleblowing policy at a public meeting of its Audit and Governance SubCommittee 24th November 2014

Cllr Steve Foulkes (Vice-Chair of Merseytravel’s Audit and Governance Sub-Committee) now part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority sent his apologies to a public meeting to discuss Merseytravel’s whistleblowing policy and was not present.

Officers of Merseytravel were asking councillors for their comments on a draft whistleblowing policy which included such priceless paragraphs as:

“10.2 If you do take the matter outside Merseytravel, you should ensure that you do not disclose confidential information acquired during your employment unless it falls within the qualifying criteria for protected disclosures. Premature or inaccurate media exposure or adverse publicity may cause needless reputational damage, impede a proper investigation or cause unnecessary distress to individuals.”

I will translate those two sentences in the draft policy into what my interpretation of the intention behind it is and probably in much clearer English:

“10.2 If you rat on us to the press, not only will we [Merseytravel] start spinning to the press and refer to any damaging press report as “inaccurate”, we’ll go after you (despite what the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 c.23 states as we’re more bothered with our reputation and making sure that we control the flow of information about our organisation to both to the public and politicians.”

The references made during the public meeting itself to a hypothetical whistleblower as “Mickey Mouse” (whether made in jest or not) speaks volumes about cultural attitudes that still persist at Merseytravel.

However bearing in mind my unusually long declaration of interest made at the start of this piece, I had better not let how dysfunctional Merseytravel was in 2007 influence my reporting of it in 2014 as the Merseytravel politicians of 2014 are keen to put its somewhat chequered past behind it.

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Merseytravel’s (now part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s) Audit and Governance Subcommittee public meeting of the 24th November 2014

The whistleblowing item (item 7) starts at 31m 48s into the meeting and can be watched above. The report and draft policy can be read on Merseytravel’s website.

Councillor Fulham at the meeting asked, “Thanks Chair. Errm, I appreciate that on page 48 of the agenda and at 7.4 in the policy, errm it says that this part of the that I’m looking at, I’ve found somewhere I’m looking at says this policy applies even if after investigation, disclosure is found to be incorrect or unfounded and there are statutory protections which the policy acknowledges for people who errm make a protected disclosure, that’s found out too. Well at the end of the process is found out not to be errm founded but it might be a reasonably held disclosure.

But what worries me is on page 46, where it says policy statement, under errm in chapter 4 “we will investigate all genuine and reasonable concerns”, but the way I would approach things, you can’t make an assessment whether it’s genuine or reasonable until you’ve investigated it? So it kind of precludes the investigation. So errm, why is that there?”

Stephanie Donaldson, Merseytravel’s Head of Internal Audit answered “OK, you’re absolutely right in so far as how can you tell that anything’s genuine or legitimate until you investigate it, so realistically everything will be investigated to a point.

However if something was found to be errm you know complete nonsense for want of a better word then that investigation would cease. We wouldn’t pursue investigating something which is you know completely unfounded or false then, but you’re right that there is the legislation requires that as long as it’s in the public interest it should still be investigated and that’s what the changes to the policy would fly at.

I suppose the purpose of that one in the policy statement and I will take some advice through you Chair from legal, is that errm, that if we received a complete nonsense of an allegation and it’s clearly complete nonsense from Mickey Mouse for example that we would not investigate that, there are boundaries aren’t there?

Errm, but you’re absolutely right to say that in a majority of I think all cases, it would be you have to undertake an investigation in order to assess its legitimacy.”

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David Parr tells Liverpool City Region Combined Authority about how Mersey Gateway Bridge will cost under £600 million

David Parr tells Liverpool City Region Combined Authority about how Mersey Gateway Bridge will cost under £600 million

David Parr tells Liverpool City Region Combined Authority about how Mersey Gateway Bridge will cost under £600 million

                                                                                                          

Updated: 11:25 24/11/14 Declaration of interest: In February 1997 the author of this piece was an employee of John Moores University for a week on work experience.

The papers for last Friday morning’s public meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority can be found on Knowsley Council’s website.

If you wish to watch what happened at the meeting you can do so below filmed by myself. If you want to watch me filming the meeting you can do so thanks to Knowsley Council. Also filming was somebody from Liverpool John Moores University Journalism. I think three people filming the same meeting is a record so far (considering that before August 2014 all requests to film Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meetings were refused).

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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority public meeting 21st November 2014

However, what actually happened? A good chunk of the meeting (around half) was a twenty-five minutes presentation (followed by questions and answers) by Halton Borough Council’s Chief Executive David Parr (pictured below) on the Mersey Gateway bridge across the River Mersey being built in Halton near to the Silver Jubilee Bridge (or Runcorn Bridge).

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st November 2014 L to R David Parr Chief Executive Halton Council Angela Sanderson Monitoring Officer Jim Fogarty Treasurer Cllr Phil Davies Chair Wirral Council
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st November 2014 L to R David Parr Chief Executive Halton Council Angela Sanderson Monitoring Officer Jim Fogarty Treasurer Cllr Phil Davies Chair Wirral Council

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st November 2014 item 5 Mersey Gateway Progress Update L to R David Parr Chief Executive Halton Council Angela Sanderson Monitoring Officer Jim Fogarty Treasurer Cllr Phil Davies Chair Wirral Council

Agreement was also reached to amend the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s constitution. Last month on the 15th October 2014 West Lancashire Council decided to join the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority as an Associate Member.

However to join, first the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority had to amend its constitution. Now that’s been done, a memorandum of understanding will be sent to West Lancashire Council which will need to be signed by them. However it seems likely that by the time the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority next meets that there will be someone there representing West Lancashire Council.

The area covered by West Lancashire has a population of 111,314 (2013 estimate), which is about a third of the Wirral. Its current political composition is 26 Labour councillors and 27 Conservative councillors. It was (until recently) evenly split at 27:27 but there is now (at the time of writing) a by-election going on in Skelmersdale North due to the recent death of a Labour councillor. The results of the by-election will be known by December 12th 2014.

The rest of the meeting was largely routine. However I welcome both hearing the result of the Skelmersdale North by-election and seeing who West Lancashire Council send to the next public meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. Pictures of its Leader and Deputy Leader can be viewed on this blog which covers the West Lancashire area.

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Bureaucrats ask councillors to agree filming/photo/audio recording ban at public meetings of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority

Bureaucrats ask councillors to agree filming/photo/audio recording ban at public meetings of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority

Bureaucrats ask councillors to agree filming/photo/audio recording ban at public meetings of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority

Merseyside Fire and Rescue crew in James Street, Liverpool 2nd September 2014
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service crew in James Street, Liverpool 2nd September 2014

Above is the sort of photo for Merseyside fire stories that I’ll have to use if politicians agree to ban filming at future public meetings of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority

Ed – updated at 12:46 8/12/14 to include link to petition and slight rewording of text.

In case it isn’t obvious, I will declare an interest as author in this article as a person who films public meetings of the Mersey Fire and Rescue Authority and reports on them as part of my job.

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority have come up with a draft MFRA Meeting Reporting Protocol and Procedure for politicians to sign off on at some future public meeting (which is presumably the Policy and Resources Committee meeting next week (however as the agenda has since been published and it’s not on it is must be a different meeting)).

What’s interesting is how draconian it is and how whoever wrote it seems to unaware of a some of the existing laws surrounding public meetings.

Currently the link to it on MFRA’s website is broken. Technically it is only in draft form until agreed by politicians. However the trade unions will probably have a few choice words to say to me about it when I discuss this with them!

It’s split into two sections Procedure for attendance and recording of meetings of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority"PROTOCOL ON REPORTING AT MEETINGS" and "Procedure for attendance and recording of meetings of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority".

Some of it is just common sense that I agree with such as trying to start public meetings on time. Some public authorities of course are known for starting their meetings before the scheduled start time or up to an hour after the scheduled start time.

Personally I was always taught that punctuality is just good manners but the public sector sometimes forgets to put its clocks back/forward or has watches that are a few minutes slow or fast. Councillors also seem to have great difficulty in getting to meetings on time. In fact I have known in the past some councillors arrive to meetings so late that the meeting has actually finished before they arrive.

However moving on from the perennial, "Wouldn’t it be nice if meetings actually started on time question?" to more serious points.

Here’s a quote from the draft document linked above:

"Temporary Building Works

Due to current building works which are ongoing until Spring 2015, The Authority are temporarily short of meeting and available waiting space. Please bear with us in accommodating you during this period.”

Now you’d think if that was the case the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority could have its meetings somewhere else in Merseyside. For example a room in one of Merseyside’s fire stations (they still have plenty of these don’t they?). Or is this just too much to ask?

"There will be a designated area in the meeting room for you to observe the meeting and to allow you to film, photograph and/or audio-record it. Wherever possible you will have access to a seat (although this may depend on how much space is available)."

Nice to know seats are optional. I don’t mind standing and filming meetings, but I’m sure others in the press expect an organisation to provide seats (especially to the disabled). Maybe this is the parlous state of the public sector in Merseyside though, they can’t even afford a few chairs any more.

"The Chair of the meeting will be informed if the reporting includes filming, photographing and/or audio-recording. Those attending the meeting who are not Members or officers will be made aware that they have the right to object to being filmed, photographed and/or audio-recorded by you."

Oh people can object all they like. I’ve heard objections before. Here’s one of the current councillor representatives from Wirral Council on the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Cllr Steve Niblock objecting to me filming a meeting back in June 2014.

I don’t mind people objecting, they can object all they like. Just makes meetings a little longer!

"You must not start filming, photographing and/or audio-recording until the Chair opens the meeting."

Usually I don’t anyway. Trouble happens is when does the meeting actually start (which can be before or after the time on the agenda)? Do I just start recording at the time on the agenda when the meeting could actually not start for a further ten minutes? What does “opens the meeting” actually mean? How do I even recognise a Chair?

Does the Chair saying, "We’re waiting for X, Y and Z to turn up so we’re going to wait another 5 minutes” count as the public meeting starting or not?"

Then it gets to the interesting bit:

"The Chair will announce at the beginning of the meeting that the meeting is being filmed, photographed and/or audio-recorded. He or she will then ask attendees whether they agree to be filmed, photographed and/or audio-recorded to allow them to register a personal objection. If anyone has a personal objection then the Chair can temporarily suspend filming, photographing and/or audio-recording to allow attendees to have their say.
Note: this does not apply to Members and officers."

Oh boy. This is going to be fun isn’t it!

You’re going to get councillors and officers object, then be told they can’t make an objection.

There could be between one and a dozen members of the public present. That could be half a dozen "personal objections". During the meeting itself the Chair has no say over suspending filming.

In order to suspend filming, the Chair would have to actually suspend the meeting or exclude the press and public (and if they did the latter how would the objections be heard)?

It goes on:

"If the Chair considers that the filming, photographing and/or audio-recording is disrupting the meeting he/she can instruct you to stop doing so. Therefore, it is worth noting that your equipment should not be noisy or otherwise distracting (e.g. flash and spotlights can be problematic)."

Ahh so this makes Chairs of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meetings editors right? I’m just glad that my equipment films silently, I don’t carry spotlights with me and I don’t tend to use flash. This makes it even more unclear, earlier on it states the Chair can "temporarily suspend filming, photographing and/or audio-recording" now it states "he/she can instruct you to stop doing so."

There’s a big difference between being instructed to stop filming, photographing and/or audio-recording and temporarily suspending filming.

I’ve seen these "temporarily suspending filming" issues before. By temporary they can mean about two years.

If you refuse to stop filming, photographing and/or audio-recording when requested to do so, the Chair may ask you to leave the meeting.

That’s fascinating, what if I refuse to stop filming and just leave the room? Unless I stop it the equipment carries on recording in my absence…

I could leave the room, then come back. The equipment would still be recording.

"If you refuse to do so then the Chair may adjourn the meeting or make other appropriate arrangements for the meeting to continue without disruption. There are provisions in the Authority’s Constitution that allow this.

When the meeting is officially closed by the Chair you must stop filming, photographing and/or audio-recording."

In other words, we’re back to the old fallback position of Schrödinger’s cat. Public meetings can be filmed (in fact there’s a legal right to do so), but if someone tries to film one and someone objects they will no longer be classed as public meetings. They will be adjourned or some or all of the public will be excluded from the meeting. Or alternatively the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority would ask the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service to call the Merseyside Police who would then presumably turn up to the meeting. If that happens, we’re probably heading for #daftarrest territory…

So to summarise:

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority thinks it can stop filming because despite knowing it was coming in February 2014, the new regulations on filming have taken them by surprise because they didn’t expect anyone would exercise their right to film some of their public meetings.

In total in this calendar year there are 29 public meetings scheduled of Mersey Fire and Rescue Authority.

As the new regulations came into effect on August 6th, only 11 of those can be filmed.

So far 7 public meetings of the Mersey Fire and Rescue Authority have happened since August 6th (plus a number of consultation meetings).

I’ve filmed one of the public consultation meetings and 3 out of 7 of the public meetings (four public meetings in total).

It would have made more sense for Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority (who knew 9 months ago the regulations were coming into effect) to make the necessary changes to their constitution (as advised to by the government). Now we’re basically in the Liverpool City Council position.

The Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority met on October 2nd 2014, but changing their constitution wasn’t even on the agenda.

The law has changed, but bureaucrats still cling to an unchanged bit of a constitution and state this gives politicians the right to stop filming of public meetings. Everyone is still clinging to the past and not moving on. It doesn’t work like that now, whether at the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, Wirral Council, Liverpool City Council, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, Merseytravel or the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel. The last thing anyone should do is try to put politicians in charge of the press. That’s the way of a totalitarian regime.

If that ever happens they’ll censor anything “politically sensitive” from being published or ending up in the public domain. Say for instance like, trying to close fire stations. All they’d need to do is invite one member of the public along to make an objection and that would be it, no filming at the public meeting (or else).

There are a bunch of human rights issues this raises to such as:

a) whether searches by a public body of equipment the press have to do their job before they enter a public meeting is indeed lawful as the press/public have a legal right to be there.

Even the Merseyside Police aren’t allowed to start erasing journalistic material we’ve recorded, so why should Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority be given access to our equipment either before, during or after a public meeting?

b) whether indeed the proposed policy/procedure is actually lawful on Human Rights Act 1998 (freedom of speech grounds)

c) as public bodies have to have some kind of legal power to do stuff like this, as the laws on preventing filming at public meetings of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority have been repealed exactly what legislation they think they can stop filming under and how they can justify it’s adherence to the Human Rights Act 1998 specifically s.6(1) in relation to Article 10 in Schedule 1 which states:

"Freedom of expression

1 Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2 The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."

So I shall request to speak at the public meeting next week, I may even have organised a petition, but until the agenda is published I can only tell you when and where it meets and which councillors are on it:

Thursday 27th November 1.00pm
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Policy and Resources Committee
Temporary Meeting Room, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Headquarters, Bridle Road, Bootle

Cllr Leslie T Byrom CBE (Chair, Sefton Council) 01704 574859/ 0783 662 1059
Cllr Peter Brennan (Liverpool City Council) 0151 225 2366
Cllr Roy Gladden (Liverpool City Council) 0151 226 6708
Cllr Ted Grannell (Knowsley Council) 0151 546 2633
Cllr Denise Roberts (Wirral Council) 0151 652 3309
Cllr Jean Stapleton (Wirral Council) 0151 201 5057
Cllr Sharon Sullivan (Liverpool City Council) 0151 225 2366
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Wirral Council) 0151 644 8137/ 0779 545 0497

You can click on each councillors’ name above if you wish to email them with your views on this proposed policy. If you don’t have email their phone numbers and addresses are also included. After all these 8 councillors are supposed to be there to represent your views in the decision making process! Alternatively please leave a comment to let me know what you think.

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Wirral Council's Pensions Committee agrees to create new Pensions Board for Merseyside Pension Fund

Wirral Council’s Pensions Committee agrees to create new Pensions Board for Merseyside Pension Fund

Wirral Council’s Pensions Committee agrees to create new Pensions Board for Merseyside Pension Fund

                                            

Pensions Committee 17th November 2014 Committee Room 1 Wallasey Town Hall L to R Peter Wallach Cllr Paul Doughty Colin Hughes
Pensions Committee 17th November 2014 Committee Room 1 Wallasey Town Hall L to R Peter Wallach Cllr Paul Doughty Colin Hughes

I’ll start this write-up of the Pensions Committee of 17th November 2014 by declaring an interest in the Pensions Committee (which governs the Merseyside Pension Fund administered by Wirral Council). My father is one of the retired members n the Fund and is paid a pension from it.

Just before I start, there is now a brass plaque outside Committee Room 1 (where the Pensions Committee meeting was held), referring to Committee Room 1 as the Mark Delap Room in memory of Mark Delap, who was a Wirral Council employee that took minutes at public meetings who sadly passed away this year.

Links to the agenda, supplementary agenda and reports for this meeting are on Wirral Council’s website.

Video of the first nine agenda items of the meeting can be viewed in the Youtube video below.

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Pensions Committee (Wirral Council) 17th November 2014 Committee Room 1, Wallasey Town Hall starting at 6.00pm

First a bit of background about who’s on the Pensions Committee, what it does and why. There are ten councillors from Wirral Council (6 Labour, 3 Conservative, 1 Lib Dem). Two of these couldn’t make it so sent deputies. Cllr Eddie Boult (Conservative) was deputising for Cllr Mike Hornby (Conservative) and Cllr Dave Mitchell (Lib Dem) was deputising for Cllr Chris Carubia (Lib Dem spokesperson).

The others from Wirral present were Cllr Paul Doughty (Chair, Labour), Cllr Harry Smith (Labour), Cllr Treena Johnson (Labour), Cllr Cherry Povall (Conservative), Cllr Geoffrey Watt (Conservative spokesperson), Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour), Cllr George Davies (Labour) and Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour).

In addition to the Wirral Council councillors there are councillors representing the other councils on Merseyside. There was Councillor John Fulham (Labour) from St. Helens Council and Councillor Norman Keats (Labour) from Knowsley Council.

There are also other representatives on the Pension Committee, such as the representative for retired members, trade unions et cetera.

The Pensions Committee governs the running of the £multi-billion Merseyside Pension Fund (which is administered by Wirral Council).

The meeting started and a number of councillors declared interests.

1. Declarations of Interest
Cllr Norman Keats (Knowsley) declared a pecuniary interest as a member of the Merseyside Pension Fund.
Cllr Paul Doughty (Wirral Council) declared an interest as his wife is a member of the Merseyside Pension Fund.
Cllr George Davies (Wirral Council) declared an interest as his wife is a member of the Merseyside Pension Fund.
Others on the Pension Committee declared interests as members of the Merseyside Pension Fund.

2. Minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on the 15th September 2014 were agreed.

The Chair brought people’s attention to item 37 (Annual Employers Conference) that was being held on Thursday 27th November 2014 at Aintree Racecourse.

An officer explained that he, Peter Wallach and Yvonne Caddock would be speaking at the conference. However there would also be external speakers from industry. Lunch would be provided and he encouraged attendance. The Chair said that he was looking forward to it. No one had any questions.

3. LGPS Update

Yvonne Caddock (Principal Pension Officer) spoke to her report.

Cllr Harry Smith asked her a question about the reference in the report to the Working Party. Yvonne Caddock apologised and explained that the reference was to the Shadow Board creating a Working Party.

Cllr Ann McLachlan asked if a response was made to the consultation. Yvonne Caddock said that it hadn’t been their intention to respond because they had responded in June and the revised provisions had reflected the comments they had made in June.

She continued that part of the consultation was on cost management which had been discussed at a CIPFA conference last week and that Bob Holloway had said that there were only five people in the country that understand the cost management process so they were best placed to leave that to the actuarial firms to comment on that.

Cllr Geoffrey Watt (Conservative spokesperson) asked about 2.5 in the report for Yvonne Caddock to explain the change over who can sit on the Local Pension Board.

Yvonne Caddock explained that the published draft regulations had removed the previous requirement about majorities on the Board. It was in her view now permissible for councillors to be on the Pension Board and in her report it stated that they could as long as the councillor was not also a member of the Pension Committee or had responsibility for the discharge of any LGPS function.

It was agreed that the contents of the report were noted.

4. Creation of New Pension Board

Yvonne Caddock introduced her report on the new requirement for a Pension Board.

Cllr Dave Mitchell asked if a councillors on a “select committee” could be part of the decision making?

Yvonne Caddock answered that members of the Pension Committee were not allowed to be members of the Pension Board due to the conflict of interest. She also gave more detail as to the type and number of those who would be on the Pension Board and how they would try to balance it across the different types of employers in the Merseyside Pension Fund.

Cllr Dave Mitchell thanked Yvonne Caddock for her answer and moved the recommendations at 14.0 which were:

To note the contents of the report and in particular the requirements for the Council to establish a Pension Board by 1 April 2015.

That Members authorise fund officers to work with the Administering Authority to develop arrangements for the establishment of a Pensions Board which ensure the requirements in the guidance issued by the Secretary of State are fulfilled. Details of those arrangements will be reported to a future meeting of this Committee.

The recommendations were agreed and the meeting proceeded to item 4 (Creation of New Pension Board).

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