Is the whole price/prize point about Merseyside’s Mayor actually a load of rubbish?

Is the whole price/prize point about Merseyside’s Mayor actually a load of rubbish?

Is the whole price/prize point about Merseyside’s Mayor actually a load of rubbish?

                                                  

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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015 Part 1 of 2

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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015 Part 2 of 2

Ged Fitzgerald (Chief Executive, Liverpool City Council) tries to explain devolution to a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015
Ged Fitzgerald (Chief Executive, Liverpool City Council) tries to explain devolution to a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015

You can view what was said at a public meeting earlier this week on the subject of devolution for Merseyside above. It’s openly admitted however that the communications/engagement/public relations side of this has been pretty poor.

I will disagree with something that’s been said throughout this process since it doesn’t make sense (although from press reports Cllr Phil Davies has done a U-turn in favour of a Merseyside Mayor).

It’s been stated (in the video above by Ged Fitzgerald, Liverpool City Council Chief Executive and Mayor Joe Anderson before) and again and again that the price of devolution is a Merseyside Mayor. This whole process based on the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill which is wending its way through parliament.

I realise legislation does get amended, but as it’s on its 8th parliamentary stage out of ten it’s going to be eventually (especially as it’s a government bill) mainly in the form it’s now in.

Here’s the section on an elected Mayor.

It modifies the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 to state:

107A 15 Power to provide for election of mayor

(1) The Secretary of State may by order provide for there to be a mayor for the area of a combined authority.
(2) An order under subsection (1) shall not be used as a condition for agreeing to the transfer of local authority or public authority functions.”

In other words what is repeatedly repeated (and perhaps why they’re so bad at communications) doesn’t make sense. The government can’t say we’ll give you this if you have an elected Mayor and the price/prize thing is a load of rubbish. The government can’t do that as the legislation that will underpin this (which has to come into force to trigger the next stage which would result in devolution) makes that unlawful.

With me so far?

The government knows this is going on and I’m sure that it doesn’t make them look favourably on Liverpool when these sorts of political shenanigans to make them look bad, are being played out amongst Merseyside’s more ambitious Labour politicians.

So why would this have got started?

My best educated guess (as trying to make sense about what’s going on with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority with its poor public relations is like wading through treacle) is a certain Labour politician wants (again) to blame something unpopular in some quarters on a Tory government (even if it isn’t entirely true).

Add to this the ambition in some quarters to actually be Merseyside’s Mayor (because once it’s a done deal all they’ll need is the Labour nomination) gives a motive.

So that’s my opinion. The whole price/prize thing is a politician’s way of deflecting the blame knowing that generally the media won’t inquire too deeply and I think readers of this blog can make a jolly good guess as to who wants to be Merseyside’s Mayor.

Once again Labour are blaming something they want (a Merseyside Mayor) on the government, stating an untruth (that it’s a condition of the devolution deal which it’s not because the legislation would make that unlawful) and hoping everyone will believe it?

Well who do you believe? I’ve outlined above the consistent line that they’re trying to spoon feed the Merseyside public and the press whilst deflecting any attempt at scrutiny by politicians by openly refusing to state how the negotiations are going?

There will be an extraordinary public meeting of all Wirral Council councillors (as well as public meetings of councillors in the other areas of Merseyside and Halton) to discuss the devolution deal. Wirral’s will be held on the 19th November starting at 6.00pm in the Council Chamber at Wallasey Town Hall.

Isn’t it about time the public were told the truth?

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.

EXCLUSIVE: Wirral Council continues its multi year battle to keep the 320,000+ Wirral people and press completely in the dark on councillors’ expense claims but in an exclusive you can now read 44 pages of the taxi contract for councillors

EXCLUSIVE: Wirral Council continues its multi year battle to keep the 320,000+ Wirral people and press completely in the dark on councillors’ expense claims but in an exclusive you can now read 44 pages of the taxi contract for councillors

EXCLUSIVE: Wirral Council continues its multi year battle to keep the 320,000+ Wirral people and press completely in the dark on councillors’ expense claims but in an exclusive you can now read 44 pages of the taxi contract for councillors

                                           

Updated: 16:56 7th October 2015: 3 minutes after this blog post was published Wirral Council got in touch about my request under the The Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015. Wirral Council asked for more time to reach a decision (which seems to be on line one page one of their big book of responses. 😉

However I have written back (and carbon copied in Surjit Tour) explaining that Regulation 5(5) excludes such documents because in order to access them I had to prove a legal interest (in this case being a local government elector for the Wirral area) during the 2014/15 audit.

I have made a request for the information Wirral Council are required to provide because of regulation 16(7)(a) and 16(7)(b).

This does mean that as this matter has been resolved, I will be publishing more information unearthed during the audit in the future, such as the Bam Nuttall contract.

Those who pay close attention to this blog will realise I haven’t published anything on this blog for a week. Apologies for that and here is an explanation. For some of that time I wasn’t well and the combination of nights of disrupted sleep due to dogs barking outside/helicopters/extremely noisy weather*(*take your pick as that’s just one night) resulted in severe lack of sleep that made me feel so ill that the last thing I wanted to do is write (and believe me I have to feel very ill not to want to write).

The closest I can describe it to is like suffering from something like jet lag from sleep deprivation (which didn’t help me get better as quickly as I should and had the opposite effect). So apologies if I have either been slow (or not responding at all) to emails and comments. I just haven’t been particularly up to the art of stringing together words into real sentences as typing and actually using my joints to type just made the pain worse. So if I’ve written any emails to you over the past week or so where I seem unusually cranky or cheesed off hopefully this explains why.

However I was better yesterday but was busy doing writing of a different sort, which forms part of what I’m going to write about today.

This blog post is a new chapter in a long running saga about taxis, Wirral Council and secret expenses system. However the story has got far wider than that.

First, before I get into fourth gear of what is a story that seems to now have more interesting angles than the Watergate affair and as this blog is read in many countries around the world I need to explain.

For reasons far too complex to go into here, Wirral Council tends to go in for similar types of high political drama that surrounded the Watergate affair, except people very, very rarely resign (resigning being a once in a blue moon event at Wirral Council that tends to really take people by surprise). This was summed up by the attitude of the former Improvement Board at a public meeting who I will paraphrase here, no one is ever held personally accountable and you mustn’t name names (as if you name names that’s blaming people)! My own personal political philosophy is there are always matters people are personally accountable for, but organisational failings of checks and balances and abuses of power have more serious outcomes for society as a whole than people (or even groups of people) behaving badly. However I digress and I need to briefly summarise the story so far as this is starting to have echoes of the MP expenses scandal. In fact not just echoes but marked similarities.

Wirral Council (official long name the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral) has sixty-six councillors (for foreign readers unfamiliar with the word councillor it’s a form of politician). Nearly every year the people who get to vote on the Wirral (Wirral’s population was estimated at 320,295 in mid-2013 according to the Office for National Statistics) get to choose a candidate. The candidate with the most votes (and I’ll leave out a long argument as to why the First Past the Post system that is used for this is unfair and the merits of STV [single transferable vote] for another day) becomes a politician called a councillor. The person who is elected (unless it’s in a by-election) is then elected and called a councillor generally for a four-year term of office.

During their term of office they receive allowances, but there is also an expenses system too. Under our "democracy" (although technically the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy) politicians such as councillors are answerable to the people.

Many politicians stand for re-election (there are no term limits for being a councillor so for some people it can become a "job for life" (however as councillors on Wirral Council are not employees and not MPs (Members of Parliament) they don’t get a gold-plated pension)) so if you’ve been a bad sort of politician and stand for re election (or if you’re a good politician but are very bad at actually communicating this to the public and/or your political party does bad things) you’ll lose your seat. This is the greatest form of accountability to the public.

During their term of office (on top of their generous allowances) councillors can claim expenses (or have expenses paid on their behalf) under a set of rules written into Wirral Council’s constitution called the Members Allowance Scheme (pages 329-338) of Wirral Council’s constitution. Members in local government jargon means councillors.

A law called The Local Authorities (Members’ Allowances) (England) Regulations 2003, SI 2003/1021 (later amended by the The Local Authorities (Members’ Allowances) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2003, SI 2003/1692 and The Local Authorities (Members’ Allowances) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2004 places various legal responsibilities on Wirral Council.

Wirral Council are legally required to keep a record of all payments made under the scheme (whether to councillors themselves or to third parties). These records are required to be "be available, at all reasonable times, for inspection and at no charge" to any local government elector for the Wirral area.

However the right to copies of such information is wider than that as under the regulations "any person" can request copies.

This is a bit of a laugh really, as it takes Wirral Council months merely to assemble such information on councillors (therefore strictly speaking the information isn’t available at all reasonable times for inspection breaching one of the regulations).

I am however taking about a thousand words so far and slightly digressing from the points I wanted to make (which wasn’t just about local government record keeping).

Another part of the regulations requires an annual list to be published by Wirral Council for each councillor for the total of allowances & expenses claimed by each councillor for the previous financial year. This way the public can see what councillors are personally receiving (or is being paid on their behalf to third parties) in relation to their duties. Some councillors chose to claim no expenses at all.

However it probably requires a certain amount of forensic accountancy to prove that the expenses lists as published by Wirral Council have been incorrect and they have been for many years.

I am now going to refer to why this happened and what Wirral Council needs to do to correct this and why despite it being pointed out to them they probably won’t bother as to Wirral Council getting things right seems to be too much effort and too expensive as the politicians decide on an annual revenue budget of hundreds of millions of pounds a year and large amounts of capital expenditure too.

At the moment the published expenses lists are only part of the story. Based on looking at a similar situation at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, what the public are actually told about is probably only approximately 50% (or half for those who don’t understand percentages) of what is actually claimed in expenses.

It has become a party political issue which is illustrated by this quote from the Leader of Wirral Council Cllr Phil Davies in this Wirral Globe article earlier this year. Again members is referring to councillors (our members refers to the councillors who are part of the ruling Labour Group on Wirral Council).

Asked why only Labour councillors appeared on the list, Cllr Davies said: “The reality is that quite a lot of our members don’t have cars, so they need to use taxis to get to council meetings. If they had cars then they would be making a claim on council expenses for their car allowance, but they don’t. There are more Labour councillors who don’t have a car than those from other parties. These are legitimate claims within the budget of the council for elected members to allow them to do their jobs. Quite often taxis are the only form of transport they can use to get to their meetings.”

Apart from this having echoes of militant Labour delivering redundancy notices to all Liverpool City Council staff by taxi, basically this is a councillor (Leader of the Labour Group) somewhat begrudingly explaining about a secret expenses system for claiming taxis that the public and the press are presumably deliberately kept in the dark about. Wirral Council has known about this corporate governance matter about councillors expenses but despite claiming it would fix it has refused to do so. These figures for taxis (which come to £thousands) don’t appear in the annually published lists) and as detailed in the Wirral Globe article (based in part on my earlier story on the matter) that are used exclusively by one political party (Labour) are according to Cllr Phil Davies justified.

Cllr Phil Davies wears many hats, one as Leader of the Labour Group of councillors, one as Leader of Wirral Council (with the Cabinet portfolio for finance and corporate governance) and a third as a local councillor. The quote referred to above makes Cllr Phil Davies sound like a union rep for the other Labour councillors trying to keep hold of an expensive perk for his fellow politicians.

This has parallels with the approach by Michael Martin MP when he was Speaker of the House of Commons over the MP’s expenses scandal. Michael Martin MP saw himself as a representative of his fellow politicians and eventually had to resign because of the fallout over MP expenses when a national newspaper (in an example of chequebook journalism) bought and published the information. This ultimately led to a lot of embarrassment and prison sentences for some politicians (but ultimately reform of the system) whereas councillors at Wirral Council don’t even get the bare legal minimum of scrutiny of their expenses due to poor corporate governance (which is a matter that the person with democratic acccountability to the public is Cllr Phil Davies).

He compares Labour councillors’ use of taxis to a car mileage allowance used by other councillors. However the latter appears in the annual lists, but Labour’s use of taxis doesn’t. In order for the people to know what’s going on and compare one to the other they have to both appear.

I hope this doesn’t come across to people as an attack on Labour politicians or Labour Party, it’s not. If this was being done by Conservative, Lib Dem, Green Party or other sorts of politicians I would be writing this same sort of blog post.

However it reminds me of an email exchange I had before the General Election with a Labour Party member. They told me that they couldn’t campaign against their own party on an issue (I think it may have been about Lyndale School or possibly some other controversial issue) as instead their efforts were better put into getting Labour elected nationally into government in 2015.

Their view was once elected a Labour government in 2015 would have power and therefore be able to solve the policy problem. It was a stark example of how political parties may have individuals that care about policies, but ultimately as a group the Labour Party wasn’t interested in campaigning for something popular with the public (therefore winning votes and support) which may have ultimately led to them winning the 2015 General Election. This point was pointed out to them many times in the lead up to the election by the press and others.

Instead the Labour Party decided to pursue a strategy of ignoring public opinion, brazenly going for power at all costs, then got confused when the Conservatives got a majority and Labour lost seats.

I will point out that when I was a former member of the Lib Dems, there was a controversial joint Labour/Lib Dem policy decision to close half of Wirral’s libraries. I expressed my views against this in Lib Dem party meetings, stubborn councillors decided play brinkmanship, there was a public inquiry and the whole thing descended into farce and fiasco with a lot of people losing face over the whole matter. I even got ticked off by Sue Charteris as I unfortunately turned up about fifteen minutes late to the public inquiry (which was being filmed) and was told off for having the temerity to discreetly take a photo of what was going on (an omen of the later long running battles over filming public meetings).

At no point do I remember telling anyone within or outside the Lib Dem party (I decided to leave the Lib Dems in January 2012 and indeed sued the entire Liberal Democrat party for breaking the law, had my day in court and won), sorry I personally believe half of Wirral’s libraries shouldn’t close, but I refuse to campaign against the combined Labour & Lib Dem Parties as it’s important that I instead put my efforts into making sure the Lib Dems became the sole party of national government in 2015.

I think if I had made such claims fellow party members would’ve asked me if I was being sarcastic or not thinking straight. My position on the disastrous policy was well known, my views were dismissed partly because of my youth (one party member referred to me as a "baby" during a party meeting) although I doubt the full story about what happened internally within the Lib Dem Party over its politicians setting an unlawful budget will ever be told. The problem with that coalition is the buck could always be passed to Labour just as two halves of the recent 2010-2015 Coalition government could do with each other. The Lib Dem Party has always made it clear to me that they don’t care about the reputational consequences of its politicians or employees breaking the law. As obeying the "rule of law" is a part of democracy it makes me wonder how they have the gall to truthfully call themselves the Liberal Democrats.

However I am going off track in an explanation of the terrible policy failings of party politics and the errors of judgement of politicians (who seem to have a blind spot when it comes to abuses of power) that make unpopular decisions that are not only unlawful but not supported by their own political party either.

This article is going to be about the nuts and bolts of the Passenger Transport Contract issue though.

Last year, Wirral Council agreed to a one-year Passenger Transport Contract worth about £4.1 million. It’s possibly worth more than this as there’s an option in the contract for a one year extension. However I’m not sure if the £4.1 million figure relates to the one or two years of the contract.

This contract is with a company called Eyecab Limited based in Upton (Upton makes a lot of geographical sense for a taxi company to base itself as it’s in the middle of the Wirral).

The contract is divided up into four parts called lots. I’d better describe what each lot is about.

LOT 1

This lot is for transporting children with special educational needs and/or disability from home to school and school to home. It also covers transport for children in care. Children in care is a term that those involved in social work might be more familiar as looked after children. If you’re still not familiar with the term looked after children it refers to for example (but not exclusively) to those in foster care for whom Wirral Council is their "parent". It also covers transport for vulnerable adults to day centres.

LOT 2

Lot two is for ad hoc travel for children with special educational needs and/or disability, vulnerable adults and children in care by taxi, people carrier or hackney carriage (black cab).

LOT 3

The third lot is for journeys by taxi to work and training for Wirral residents (where journeys start or end in East Wirral) known as the "Maxi Taxi". This is to "support individuals travelling to locations not served by traditional public transport and too far or too unsafe to cycle to."

On that latter point, in my younger days I classed a 16 mile cycle ride as not too far and for many years regularly used to cycle a 7 mile round trip to work and back. I’m presuming the "too unsafe" comments are in relation to the rise in people killed and seriously injured on Wirral’s roads since that time. However as you can take the bike on a Merseyrail train (and most areas of Merseyside are within one mile of a train station). It is possible to use bike, train, bike as I did for many years as a university student and for work travelling all over Merseyside as the trains run from very early in the morning to very late in the evening.

LOT 4

I’ll just quote the official description for this lot. "This contract is for ad hoc journeys by taxi to allow Wirral Councillors to travel to various venues across Wirral.
This contract will allow Wirral Councillors to travel around Wirral on official Council business. The times will vary and may include evenings and weekends.
"

Much as I would happily write about the millions spent by Wirral Council on lots 1-3, effectively lot 4 is the focus of this piece.

During the audit I requested the contract with Eyecab Limited. I did this as I’m a local government elector for the Wirral area using Audit Commission Act 1998, s.15. I will add here that this is the last year I can do this as that right has now been repealed by the previous Tory/Lib Dem government.

It’s been replaced with a much more watered down right which has the following two major changes (amongst others).

(a) the safeguard of the independent auditor deciding what is personal information (not relating to officers) rather than the body itself and whether this can or can’t be redacted from information supplied has been removed,

(b) showing perhaps a Tory philosophy that will no doubt fill my Labour-leaning readers with glee as another example of government pandering to the sorts of commercial interests that make large donations to the Conservative Party, an extra category of withholding information on grounds of "commercial confidentiality" has been added.

I will point out that Wirral Council has withheld some information from the contract supplied to me. The phone number for Eyecab Limited is such a secret that presumably Wirral Council got permission from its auditors to withhold it.

When the phone number for Eyecab Limited is in the Yellow Pages as 0151 201 0000 (therefore hardly confidential after all please leave a comment if you ever heard of a taxi company that deliberately keeps its phone number a secret?), I do wonder why Wirral Council just make work for themselves (and me) in blacking such information out.

Other information that has been withheld has been pricing information and routes.

On the subject of Wirral Council and its well paid auditor Grant Thornton, when I complained to Grant Thornton about one of contacts to blow the whistle to (Ian Coleman on page 36) having received early retirement from Wirral Council two years before this contract even started, I got an email back stating that contracts weren’t to do with the accounts, therefore weren’t the auditors’ responsibility.

Auditors it seems such as Grant Thornton don’t know what they’re doing (maybe Wirral Council could ask for a refund of their fee when they get things wrong) so they just seem to spout nonsense like this in an attempt to fob people off.

As nobody is ever personally accountable in local government I will spare the particular auditor’s blushes by merely quoting from the email and my reply without naming names. It shows however that some auditors in my opinion are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard (a general point aimed at the entire accounting profession rather than this particular auditor).

I think the term is fobbing off as from other bloggers I know that auditors up and down the country are trying to evade their responsibilities in law by giving this sort of reply to local government electors. The likes of Cllr Ron Abbey (who I recently heard being critical of local government electors exercising their rights with auditors at a Merseytravel meeting because of the cost) would probably not approve of me teaching an auditor they’re wrong as the cost of this (in the form of increased external audit costs) is falling on the taxpayer (whereas sadly my advice and grumpiness is not something I can charge them for).

"Dear Mr Brace

I have now had an opportunity consider the contents of your email to me of 6 September 2015.

I understand from your email that you have exercised your rights under the Audit Commission Act to inspect certain documents associated with Wirral Council’s accounts for 2014/15, including a Passenger Transport Contract with a specific contractor named in your email. You highlight that page 36 of the contract identifies the individuals who should be written to in the event of a whistleblowing complaint. The second of these names is the former Director of Finance who left the council 2012. You have asked us to explain why someone who ‘was not an employee of Wirral Council at the time the Passenger Transport Contract was put out to tender (or when the contract was agreed) … was he included as a whistleblowing contact in the contract?’

I have carefully considered this matter and I am not sure this is a valid question that it is appropriate for us to answer. As you highlight the power to question the auditor is set in section 15(2) of the Audit Commission Act 1998. Although interested persons can ask questions of the auditor, the questions must be about items in the Council’s account. It seems to me that your question is not about an item of account and therefore we are not in a position to respond to your question. It seems to me that your question is more appropriately addressed to the Council.

In summary, I would suggest that you contact the Council with your specific request for information.

It is currently our intention to close the audit of the Council’s 2014/15 accounts by 30 September 2015.

I hope that is helpful in clarifying the position.

Yours sincerely"


I however have learnt the art of being concise in emails and played this game of re educating the external auditor in the trump suit of 3 High Court Judges. Here is one of my replies (which meant the auditor had to change their mind).

Dear all,

I would also like to point out that a Court of Appeal case established beyond a doubt that contracts are part of the accounts. See [2010] EWCA Civ 1214 .

So as three High Court Judges seem to agree with my interpretation, I would ask you to reconsider..

Thanks,

John Brace


As you would probably say in tennis, game, set and match to me (not that I’m competing with an auditor, it’s just well whether deliberately or by accident they don’t really seem to know what they’re actually doing or the legal framework within which they operate properly but what’s new eh?).

However if I wanted to blow the whistle on the contract about taxis for councillors (and there are many reasons why one should), the contract suggests I blow the whistle to a person who was granted early retirement by Wirral Council in 2012.

Bear in mind this contract isn’t just about councillors and their taxi journeys. It’s also about children with disabilities & vulnerable adults. It is possible a family member might have cause for concern that they wish to raise. If so they could be directed to a person who doesn’t even work for Wirral Council.

Back however to lot 4 and taxis for councillors. As a reward for having to read through nearly 3,000 words of my ranting about poor corporate governance, I have a reward for you dear reader but I want to first explain the price at which publication of this contract comes.

First I had to request it during the audit. Wirral Council exceeded the time limits set down in law for giving it to me so I had to wait a bit longer. I then had to travel for a meeting at a Wirral Council building just off Hamilton Square to inspect it and pick up a copy.

It comes to 43 pages (even after the information has been removed I referred to earlier). I then had to scan these pages in one at a time (because that’s the way my A3 scanner works). I made a request to Wirral Council under The Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 to publish it.

Despite this request being made some time ago, I have not received a response back from Wirral Council. As my communications to Wirral Council often seem to disappear into if I was being charitable what must be a black hole operating in one of its departments that sucks up my emails, I’m having to use my editorial discretion to use the part of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998, s.30 that deals with criticism, review and news reporting. I’m also covered bythe Data Protection Act 1998, s.34 in that its been made available to the public (myself) therefore isn’t subject to the non-disclosure provisions of the data protection legislation.

The way I have digitised this contract was by taking the 73 image files, putting them in OpenOffice Writer one at a time and creating a PDF file. However this file (as each page is an image) comes to 124 megabytes. As Wirral Council raided a reserve for high speed internet access some time ago, not only would this use up a lot of space but peoples’ internet speeds would mean it would take a long time to download.

I therefore spent one work day (yesterday) initially typing up the contract only using images for those that needed it (a MaxiTaxi logo and some signatures). This is very boring and time consuming work, but part way through I found a way to speed things up dramatically by putting the multi-page pdf file through FreeOCR.

The problem was as you can see from my earlier post about page 36 is that the pages given to me by Wirral Council were in a very poor state with many artifacts (a technical term for blemishes on the page). The artifacts cause massive problems for OCR as OCR software can try and guess what they are (for example a full stop).

Passenger Transport Contract Wirral Council page 36 of 40 thumbnail compressed
Passenger Transport Contract Wirral Council page 36 of 40 thumbnail compressed

The versions of the contract I finally ended up with are far easier to read than the version provided to me by Wirral Council. For those with disabilities, the text can now be magnified without just blowing up the blemishes too. The file sizes of the new files (and I’m providing it in multiple versions because I’m trying to be helpful) are massively smaller.

I have not included the Wirral Council logos and replaced these with (Wirral Council logo). As you can see from the image above it’s the five Ws logo with WIRRAL in bold letters. The typographical errors in the contract (such as the many instances of Disclosure and Baring (rather than Barring) Service), missing full stops etc I’ve left in and not corrected. I hope people appreciate the work put into producing it and I realise it has probably been hard work reading through over 3,000 words to reach this point.

A bit like Schrödinger’s cat, although I requested this contract and the what must be about ~6 monthly invoices that relate to it during the audit, I can only at this point in time observe one (the contract).

Wirral Council are still stalling me on inspecting and receiving copies of the monthly invoices for councillors journeys by taxis. Anyone would think that Wirral Council hasn’t quite got the staff to deal with the sort of investigative journalism I tend to be good at. However as the taxi contract is used solely by the ruling Labour Group councillors I can see how it would be in no officers’ interests to actually comply with the legal deadline for this as no doubt I would publish them which would cause politicians to be embarrassed. Wirral Council are &improving& their website, the legal notice they’re required to publish on their website with the deadline on has also vanished at the time of writing.

Certainly I await to see what other corporate governance horrors Wirral Council get up to and will (hopefully) keep readers of this blog advised of what’s happening. In the meantime at the end are the pages of contract information.

This does raise a lot of questions but I will just concentrate on one which seems to demolish one of the reasons given for this contract. When Councillor Adrian Jones read out an answer to me prepared for him by officers at a public meeting as reported previously he stated, "The Council has negotiated competitive prices and entered into contracts with a local taxi company to provide transport for Members in accordance with the Members Allowances Scheme. The taxi company submits its invoices and the details of the Members that used the taxis each month directly to the Council for payment. The advantage of this arrangement is that the cost of transport by taxis is always at the negotiated rate and is a more efficient way to manage the service."

It does raise an interesting point though as the pricing information for councillors’ journeys by taxi are included. In the method statement that Eyecab Limited completed when bidding for lot 4 (councillors’ taxi journeys) Eyecab Limited stated on page 34 of 40 "Eye Cab is an all Hackney taxi firm vehicles range from five passenger seats to seven passenger seats at present we operate approximately twenty seven vehicles this number is increasing on a regular basis."

When I heard Cllr Jones’ answer about "competitive prices" anyone hearing it would think that it was stating that taxis through this contract are better value for money (in terms of the actual cost of the taxi ride) than a councillor paying for it themselves, then claiming the money back.

However having read the contract and that I know now that Eyecab Limited is an all hackney carriage company, I’m puzzled. That’s because the prices at which all hackney carriages on Wirral charge is set by Wirral Council. Therefore for the same journey surely all hackney carriages would charge the same amount and it wouldn’t be cheaper doing it through a contract. When you factor in the costs of putting this contract out to tender (yes I realise lot 4 is part of a wider contract however potential contractors had to bid on each lot separately), the costs of procurement will outweigh any efficiency saving from just having to pay a monthly invoice rather than when councillors claim on an ad hoc basis.

A small saving does occur because Wirral Council isn’t actually doing it legally and including these amounts in the annual lists but by small saving I’m talking about an employee cost time of maybe £50-£60.

However by not doing it that way it increases costs elsewhere at Wirral Council, for example the cost of processing FOI requests, providing me with a redacted copy of the contract during the audit, providing me (hopefully eventually) with the underlying invoices etc and of course the expensive cost in senior officer time (probably an employee on ~£80 an hour) in having to answer questions posed by me to Councillor Adrian Jones at a public meeting.

The point I will finish on is that Wirral Council doing things the right way and legal way saves money in the long run in the communications you get from people trying to persuade Wirral Council just to do things the right way.

However officers across local government (in fact some have even said this to my face) see this sort of press scrutiny as a drain on "scarce resources".

In other words, the kind of major embarrassing politically sensitive fiascos (politicians’ expenses just being the tip of an absolutely massive corporate governance iceberg) I write about on my blog probably cause no end of awkward questions behind the scenes from politicians to those on high 5 figure and 6 figure salaries as to why things aren’t right.

I’m sure some people paid by the taxpayer well above my pay grade don’t always see the sort of journalism as a good thing for their future career prospects. I’m pointing out things to the world that if the checks and balances that these employees are supposed to be were working properly would be spotted internally and corrected.

Some bureaucrats (while stating they welcome accountability) I’m sure don’t really feel it’s right that they should be under a legal requirement to hand over embarrassing information to me, that’ll then form stories that politicians will read (or in the case of video watch) and use to hold the bureaucrats to account.

It’s the way I’ve been trained though and the independence of the press is something that this country should value.

Please note, although I proofread the contract before publishing due to the poor quality of the original pages at times the OCR program has misidentified one character incorrectly such as the postcode CH44 8ED, the OCR program has outputted as CH44 BED (page 23 of 40). The other errors (typographical such as baring for barring & punctuation such as missing full stops) were made in the original document.

Passenger Transport Contract Eyecab Limited Wirral Council complete (Word document version) 331 kilobytes

Passenger Transport Contract Eyecab Limited Wirral Council complete (OpenOffice ODF Text Document) 72 kilobytes

Passenger Transport Contract Eyecab Limited Wirral Council complete (Adobe Acrobat pdf version) 257 kilobytes

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MTUA accuse politicians of ‘U-turn’ on Mersey Tunnel tolls promises

MTUA accuse politicians of ‘U-turn’ on Mersey Tunnel tolls promises

MTUA accuse politicians of ‘U-turn’ on Mersey Tunnel tolls promises

                                                                  

For those not from Merseyside and reading this in far-flung lands, I had better first explain what the Mersey Tunnels are. Anyone local to Merseyside reading this can skip the next paragraph.

Liverpool is separated from the peninsula of the Wirral by the River Mersey and beneath the River Mersey are two road tunnels and a railway tunnel (the railway tunnel that opened in 1886 is not the focus of this article). One road tunnel connects Liverpool to the town of Birkenhead (called the Queensway Tunnel) and the other with the town of Wallasey (called the Kingsway Tunnel). The Birkenhead Tunnel opened in 1934 and the Wallasey Tunnel in 1971. Both road tunnels are tolled with the current cash toll for cars being £1.70 (different rates apply for those who pay by Fast Tag or different sizes of vehicles).

The issue of the tunnel tolls has been a long running political issue locally and each year the tunnel tolls are set by local politicians. For years the local transport body called Merseytravel (which was then eighteen councillors from the various parts of Merseyside) decided on the Mersey Tunnel tolls. As the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) was created in April 2014, it meant that this year the tolls decision was made by the LCRCA (on a recommendation from the Merseytravel Committee).

The LCRCA comprises the elected leaders of each Council on Merseyside, the elected Mayor of Liverpool, the Chair of the Local Enterprise Partnership and the Leader of Halton. The Chair of the Local Enterprise Partnership (as detailed in the LCRCA’s constitution) doesn’t have a vote when the Mersey Tunnel tolls are set and the Leader of Halton abstained in the vote this year because Halton’s not part of Merseyside.

Earlier this year, in the lead up to the 2015 General Election (to elect MPs) and 2015 local elections (to elect local councillors) politicians from both the Labour and Conservative parties made soothing noises to the public about the issue of tunnel tolls.

Once the running costs of the tunnels and debt repayments are paid out of the money received through tolls, there is now a surplus of around £16 million. The generally accepted position is that legislation, in this case the Mersey Tunnels Act 2004 means that any surplus tolls are only spent on transport projects that are in the Local Transport Plan.

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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meeting of the 13th February 2015 which should start at agenda item 7 (2015/16 Mersey Tunnel Tolls which starts at 1h 3m 4s)

However returning to February 2015 (see video of that meeting above which should start at the right point) politicians on the LCRCA agreed to a freeze in toll charges.

Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson speaking on a motion on the Mersey Tunnels at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 13th February 2015
Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson speaking on a motion on the Mersey Tunnels at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 13th February 2015

The Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson, seconded by the Chair of the LCRCA Cllr Phil Davies moved the following motion (agreed at February’s meeting of the LCRCA as you can read in the minutes):

The Combined Authority (CA) calls on:

  • The Chair of the CA to set up a task group to consider options open to the CA to reduce costs of tunnel tolls and its impact on infrastructure and transportation;
  • The Head of Paid Service of the CA to produce a report for discussion to inform the setting of tunnel tolls for 2016/17;
  • The CA to press for a review of the Mersey Tunnel Act in any on-going devolution negotiations.

The Mersey Tunnel Users Association feels that the recently approved devolution asks of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority as reported earlier this month on this blog, which include asking the government for a legislation change so that surplus tolls can be spent on "wider broader infrastructure and economic development and transport infrastructure across the city region" is a U-turn on what politicians’ position was before the election.

John McGoldrick, secretary for the Mersey Tunnel Users Association (MTUA) stated,

"Assuming that the politicians meant what they said earlier this year, then it looks as if they have done a u-turn and the users of the Tunnels are to be sold down the river. Instead of stopping the profit taking and reducing tolls, it seems that the City Region’s aim is to use the tolls profits on economic development or infrastructure "across the city region". The people who voted in the May elections have been duped over what Labour’s tolls policy was.

The Conservative party also made promises about reducing or abolishing tolls. It is not yet clear what the Government is going to do and whether they will honour what the Chancellor and others said before the May elections. We urge all drivers and businesses to raise this issue with their MP and local councillors."

The motion to the special meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meeting that met on the 2nd September and approved the devolution asks of government made it clear that before any devolution deal offered by the government was approved, that the constituent councils would have to agree and there would have to be consultation.

Each of the constituent councils in the LCRCA are Labour controlled and those that make these decisions on this matter on the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority are all Labour politicians.

It remains to be seen what the Conservative government’s response will be to the request for greater flexibility on what surplus tunnel tolls can be spent on.

However the MTUA is also against the spending of tunnel tolls on transport projects. John McGoldrick of the MTUA added "Obviously the MTUA aim is no tolls, but as a minimum we want a stop to the use of tolls for non Tunnels purposes."

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10 more pages of MFRA councillors’ expense claims for car mileage, taxis and a meal

10 more pages of MFRA councillors’ expense claims for car mileage, taxis and a meal

10 more pages of MFRA councillors’ expense claims for car mileage, taxis and a meal

                                                

Earlier this month I published pages eleven to twenty of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority councillor’s expense claims for claims where councillors were claiming the money back. This continues from 10 more pages of MFRA councillors’ expense claims for car mileage, taxis and parking.

Below are ten more A4 pages of expense claims submitted by councillors on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority for the 2014/15 financial year. It’s pages twenty-one to thirty of eighty-nine pages and each thumbnail below should link to a more high-definition (and therefore readable) image for each page.

The councillors these pages are for are Cllr Dave Hanratty, Cllr Leslie Byrom, Cllr Linda Maloney and Cllr Ted Grannell.

HQ stand for headquarters, LGA means Local Government Association, FIG (also known as FIGUK) means Fire Information Group and I’ve no idea what SRB refers to.

Cllr Dave Hanratty October November 2014 car mileage taxis page 1 of 2
Cllr Dave Hanratty October November 2014 car mileage taxis page 1 of 2
Cllr Dave Hanratty taxi receipt £13 page 2 of 2
Cllr Dave Hanratty taxi receipt £13 page 2 of 2
Cllr Leslie Byrom October 2014 car mileage taxi train
Cllr Leslie Byrom October 2014 car mileage taxi train
Cllr Leslie Byrom Virgin Trains receipt £8 page 1 of 3
Cllr Leslie Byrom Virgin Trains receipt £8 page 1 of 3
Cllr Leslie Byrom Virgin Trains receipt £12 page 2 of 3
Cllr Leslie Byrom Virgin Trains receipt £12 page 2 of 3
Cllr Leslie Byrom receipt taxi £20 page 3 of 3
Cllr Leslie Byrom receipt taxi £20 page 3 of 3
Cllr Linda Maloney October November 2014 car mileage taxis and meal page 1 of 3
Cllr Linda Maloney October November 2014 car mileage taxis and meal page 1 of 3
Cllr Linda Maloney taxi receipt £23 page 2 of 3
Cllr Linda Maloney taxi receipt £23 page 2 of 3
Cllr Linda Maloney Jacques Wine Bar receipt £12.50 page 3 of 3
Cllr Linda Maloney Jacques Wine Bar receipt £12.50 page 3 of 3
Cllr Ted Grannell taxi September to November 2014 £63
Cllr Ted Grannell taxi September to November 2014 £63

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Mayor Joe Anderson “my good name [has been] dragged through the mud” over £90,000 legal bill for unfair dismissal case

Mayor Joe Anderson “my good name [has been] dragged through the mud” over £90,000 legal bill for unfair dismissal case

Mayor Joe Anderson “my good name [has been] dragged through the mud” over £90,000 legal bill for unfair dismissal case

                                                           

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Liverpool City Council meeting of 16th September 2015 Part 1 of 6

Mayor Joe Anderson explains why Liverpool City Council paid a nearly £90000 legal bill over an unfair dismissal battle with his former employer Chesterfield High School
Mayor Joe Anderson explains why Liverpool City Council paid a nearly £90000 legal bill over an unfair dismissal battle with his former employer Chesterfield High School

After pledging his full support to the Royal National Institute for the Blind for the Council motion on the “Who Put That There!” campaign, Mayor Joe Anderson used his slot on the Council meeting agenda to give a very detailed explanation to those present about his former employer unfairly dismissing him.

“Joe must go” was a slogan on a protest banner I saw earlier this year, but this story starts with Chesterfield High School. Chesterfield High School told Joe to go, but Joe said no.

Joe (being a staunch trade unionist) felt this wasn’t fair. As His Honour Judge Serota QC put it Joe Anderson was on “a reverse form for a zero hours contract” in that he got to be Mayor, do zero hours of work for his employer yet still be paid by his employer!

However it wasn’t the fact that he was being paid for not working that was Joe’s problem. His employer decided that paying somebody for no work wasn’t “value for money” and that the public would be horrified if they knew so sent Joe a P45 through the post.

This hurt Joe. So Joe asked his friends at Liverpool City Council what they could do.

Sure enough Liverpool City Council got a lawyer for Joe. So it went to an Employment Tribunal.

The Employment Tribunal ruled that yes Joe had been unfairly dismissed but even if he hadn’t been, his employer would have still have sacked him anyway. So no compensation for Joe.

This was not the result Joe wanted, so once again he asked his friends at Liverpool City Council what they could do.

Sure enough Liverpool City Council got a lawyer (again) for Joe. So it went to an Employment Appeals Tribunal and here is the judgement.

Once again the case was lost and the final bill (that fell on the taxpayer) came to just under £90,000.

Mayor Anderson at the Liverpool City Council public meeting on the 16th September gave a detailed defence as to why he had done this.

Called to speak by the other Mayor, having been already embroiled in a trial by media, this was Mayor Anderson’s chance to have his say.

With his head bowed down, the normally confident Mayor seemed crestfallen. He started by referring to the blog of the Lib Dem Leader Cllr Richard Kemp. Mayor Anderson said he was doing this not because of Cllr Kemp’s blog.

He referred to it as “the Council’s legal action” (although as you can read from the Employment Appeals Tribunal judgement Liverpool City Council were not a party to the case).

Mayor Anderson was going to tell people the “full facts” and so that the public could “understand the complexities of this” followed by “I’ve certainly got nothing to hide or wish to disclose, err not disclose” .

Feeling his own collar he explained how he’d been on the radio that very day and dealing with the press detailling with the reasons why.

Joe (because it’s very hard in reporting this to know which bit it in this is Joe the former employee and which bit is Mayor Joe Anderson) said, “When I then became Leader of the Council in 2010, people in the Labour Party certainly know but I made a pledge, a promise that I would become a full-time Leader of the Council and for too long this Council was run like a toy town at Council and officers led the Council by the nose. Councillors weren’t here and decisions were made that were quite frankly not good enough for a Council and a city like Liverpool.”

Joe’s explanation was that when he was Leader of the Opposition on Liverpool City Council that Sefton Council had paid the LEA controlled Chesterfield School “round about £7,000 a year”. That was to pay Joe the 208 hours he was allowed off.

He claimed this cost Chesterfield School “less than £4,000” (although I’ll point out that surely Chesterfield would’ve had to pay both Joe time off to be a councillor and someone else to do his job?) which Joe saw as a “good deal”. Mayor Anderson stated that politicians were all doing this including two former leaders of Liverpool City Council.

Mayor Anderson claimed that the money he was receiving for no work from Chesterfield School he was giving to charity.

The difference however, came when Cllr Anderson became Mayor Anderson. He explained “six or seven weeks before my 55th birthday, Chesterfield High School became an academy and six or seven week before my 55th birthday sacked me without any discussion with me, without any negotiation with me” or as he put it “P45 in the post, you’re sacked”.

For him the fundamental principle as a trade unionist, he would support any councillor of whatever colour political party they may be, as the principle of being sacked for carrying out public service should be something that (saying this while twirling his finger) “we all defend and stand by”.

He said that the decision that that it should be challenged and that the indemnity policy applied was taken by the Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer of Liverpool City Council and that the Council’s external auditor and legal advisors were also informed.

In criticism of Councillor Kemp he said, “Let me ask ourselves the question around the politics of this, where it’s getting played out and how it’s disgracefully being played out. Course Councillor Kemp says, ‘Will he pay it back?'” At this point Mayor Anderson just shrugged in reply and then pointed out that former Lib Dem Leaders of Liverpool City Council had had similar arrangements with their employers.

He referred to the trial of former Lib Dem Leader of Liverpool City Council Warren Bradley, that a court had found guilty of perjury followed by saying “I’ve done nothing wrong, I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. The only thing I’ve done wrong, the only thing I’ve done wrong is trusted the School to honour that procedure that we’ve got in place that was costing them nothing but because it went to an academy they decided to sack me. That was the only thing that we did wrong”.

Mayor Anderson continued, “Then you ask yourself the question, ‘Has Councillor Anderson benefitted from this, has he gained from this?’ Well let me tell ye, not only have I not gained, my good name which I am proud of and the hard work that I do for this City has been sullied by individuals in this Council, dragged through the mud by individuals in this Council, for doing nothing more than trying to serve the people of this City.

It’s been estimated that because I’ve been finished in my local government pension that I had for 16 years that I will have lost somewhere estimated to be £134,000 in contributions. If I die now in service or whatever, I’m not in service of course because I’m not in the pension, my wife, my family I get nothing, no protection! No job to go back to! And yet there are councillors in this chamber that want to pay politics with that.”

He said he would support anyone who was sacked for doing public service “because it’s the right thing to do public service and so my conscience on this matter is absolutely 110% clear” because “nothing I’ve done in this matter was for Joe Anderson. Nothing! ” and “never at any time did I seek any personal gain for me”.

Referring to the opposition Mayor Anderson said, “they played dirty politics with it and that shows to me, that shows to me the contempt that they have for the democratic politics that we engaged in over the Mayoral Deal and also the disrespect that they have for this City and for us and the form of governance that we’ve got.”

Mayor Anderson said that the government has accepted and will change through legislation the changes that need to be made to support mayors in the future. If he’d stayed as Leader of Liverpool City Council, he would’ve retained his salary, retained his allowances and retained his pension.

However the City of Liverpool wouldn’t have had the Mayoral Deal, the schools and wouldn’t have had that investment and he wouldn’t have lost out on his pension accruing and the benefits if he was still part of the pension scheme. He finished by saying, “My conscience on this matter is absolutely clear” and received a standing ovation and applause from his Labour councillors.

There are a series of FOI requests to Liverpool City Council on the whatdotheyknow website here, here and here that give further information on this matter.

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