Category: Liverpool City Council

Labour councillors argue for increase in range of Wirral Council’s Chief Executives’ salary to between £155,000 and £175,000

Labour councillors argue for increase in range of Wirral Council’s Chief Executives’ salary to between £155,000 and £175,000

Labour councillors argue for increase in range of Wirral Council’s Chief Executives’ salary to between £155,000 and £175,000

                                                                               

Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, 24th November 2014 L to R Martin Denny (LGA), David Slatter (Penna PLC), Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative), Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative) and Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Lib Dem)
Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, 24th November 2014 L to R Martin Denny (LGA), David Slatter (Penna PLC), Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative), Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative) and Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Lib Dem)

Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, 24th November 2014 L to R Martin Denny (LGA), David Slatter (Penna PLC), Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative councillor), Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative councillor) and Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Lib Dem councillor)

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Video above is from the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) public meeting held on the 24th November 2014 in Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, Seacombe . This write-up of the public meeting starts at 12:05 in the video above.

Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) met in Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, Seacombe on Monday afternoon at around 2.30pm. The councillors on the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) which had previously been decided by the Employment and Appointments Committee on the 27th October 2014 are:

Cllr Phil Davies (Labour) Chair
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour)
Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative)
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Lib Dem)

Continues from Cllr Jeff Green asks if Wirral Council are looking to spend £1,000,000 on their new Chief Executive (over 5 years)?. This is continuing the write-up of a public meeting of the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) held on the afternoon of 24th November 2014.

3. Appointment of Chief Executive, Head of Paid Service (including Returning Officer and Electoral Registration Officer)

There was a report and thirteen appendices for this item.

The Chair, Cllr Phil Davies invited Cllr Ann McLachlan to speak. She said, “I think it’s important to recognise where we are in the local government family and what we want to attract here. We want to attract the best in England, so we’ve got to be somewhere in the parameters of being able to say ‘Oh we’re pitching our salary at such an appropriate level, to get the best field of candidates that we possibly can to attract the best in the business’.

I think also it would be fair to say and I’m sure we’ll be doing this, we will be setting, you will Phil within because consultation with the new Chief Executive, you’ll be setting some parameters for them to look at, you know senior management savings across err you know the period of their, their tenure here at Wirral. So and part of the role will also be about saving money, so sometimes you have to invest to save in the longer term and I think also that it’s worth saying that we need to look at comparisons with the rest of the public sector.

It was reported last week that a primary headteacher within an academy was on a salary equivalent to £200,000. The first 150 secondary academies have got heads on over £150,000. You’re talking about a primary head managing a school of two hundred and fifty pupils max, probably about forty staff. There’s no comparison between managing you know a multi-million pound organisation like Wirral!

So I think for those reasons for me, I’ll be saying we need to get this salary in the right range for you know the kind of calibre of the people that we want to work with us.”

Cllr Phil Gilchrist referred to the salary grades. He asked about the salaries of people on the next tier down from Chief Executive and that if they attracted someone who was currently a strategic director in another authority, how much of a salary increase it would be?

Cllr Phil Davies (Chair) replied that they’d have to wait and see what level of candidate they got, but he hoped that they would be attracting not just deputies and strategic directors but actually serving chief executives elsewhere with an “excellent track record” so they could “hit the ground running”. Cllr Phil Gilchrist said he understood.

Cllr Jeff Green said that his parents had told him that “two wrongs don’t make a right”. The other point he wanted to make was that unless they’re going to ask a primary head to run the authority, and there might be one paid £200,000 somewhere around the country, that it wasn’t really a reason for making decisions on the chief executive’s salary. Then again he said, “a primary head might be just what is required!”

Cllr Green continued that his understanding was that a set of proposals were being worked on that were going to save £1.5 million by the current Chief Executive. He said that [Cllr] Ann [McLachlan] had promised that would be delivered in December in terms of Council unless she’d changed her mind and then he revealed “Those savings were already in the works are due to be published in December”. So in terms of some of the points that councillors had been making Cllr Green felt were “extraneous”. He asked them to focus on what would be required, he referred to a saving of £730,000 and referred to a number of issues about the current Chief Executive. He didn’t understand why they’d have to increase it [the Chief Executive’s salary] to £175,000.

Referring to other salaries for Chief Executives in the North West, he said that “to increase to that much seems to be excessive”. He referred to the documents prepared for full Council, how £1.5 million of senior management savings had been identified and how all those things had been delivered off a salary of £130,000. He proposed they seek a Chief Executive on the current salary range of the current Chief Executive of £130,000.

Cllr Phil Davies asked councillors to look at the salaries in appendix 4. He referred to Liverpool City Council’s Chief Executive being paid £197,500, Cheshire West’s £180,000, Cheshire East’s £187,000, Knowsley a “much smaller authority than Wirral” £160,000, St Helens £140,000 and Sefton £152,000. He said “even councils on our doorstep are paying a substantially higher salary than Wirral does.

I think my kind of comments or my reflection on the discussion is, we need to be able to attract the best, but also retain them as well, what we don’t want to do is get somebody here and then because Cheshire West are paying you know a much larger salary, they’ll disappear to Cheshire West in a few years time. So I think we need to just have that in our forefront of our minds as well.”

Cllr Ann McLachlan said, “Completely disingenuous [Cllr] Jeff [Green], because what I was doing was giving a comparison with the public sector that wasn’t a local government chief executive, just to demonstrate that out there the salaries in the public sector in general at that level, you know to get the expertise you want at that level are much more higher than Wirral.

I’m going to ask Chris [Hyams] if she would give us a little bit of background on that £131 or £130 or whatever it is Graham [Burgess]’s in, because how long, what was the previous Chief Executive on? Coz Graham [Burgess] came to us and took his pension, I think he took his pension, .. or has pension arrangements in place or didn’t need to be paid the on costs that we would have to pay.

Well previous chief executives, what kind of salary was he on and how long ago was that? I mean in a sense I think we need to get a bit of a reality check here and get in the real world about what the real costs of salaries at this level are.

So, errm, yeah, I think it’s you know, our salary range here is at the bottom of the tree really. So what’s the history of that and also you know it’s not that two wrongs don’t make a right, it’s not anything like that but what we’re trying to do is demonstrate that here in this Authority we want to get somebody who is going to you know help us in the obviously very clear difficult financial circumstances we’re in, with the financial challenges we’ve got going forward as well and in remodelling and changing this Council. You know, so errm, I’m absolutely of the view that we will have to pay the appropriate level. Thanks Chris.”

Chris Hyams, Head of HR responded by saying, “OK, thank you. The current Chief Executive is paid top of the salary range. As the Deputy Leader’s just intonated, it is in the public domain that he left his last council with a pension which is why we didn’t incur the on costs. So in terms of remuneration, there was an additional salary arrangement through his last job through gaining his pension.

Before that, the salary range that was in place for a previous Chief Executive had his spot salary within that range of £130,000. The range has not been reviewed for a number of years and certainly not reviewed as such or changed previously to this in the time that I’ve been here in the last five years.”

Continues at 4 Labour councillors agree salary for new Wirral Council Chief Executive at between £155,000 and £175,000.

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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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Cllr Jeff Green asks if Wirral Council are looking to spend £1,000,000 on their new Chief Executive (over 5 years)?

Cllr Jeff Green asks if Wirral Council are looking to spend £1,000,000 on their new Chief Executive (over 5 years)?

Cllr Jeff Green asks if Wirral Council are looking to spend £1,000,000 on their new Chief Executive (over 5 years)?

                                                    

Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, 24th November 2014 L to R Martin Denny (LGA), David Slatter (Penna PLC), Cllr Jeff Green, Cllr Lesley Rennie and Cllr Phil Gilchrist
Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, 24th November 2014 L to R Martin Denny (LGA), David Slatter (Penna PLC), Cllr Jeff Green, Cllr Lesley Rennie and Cllr Phil Gilchrist

Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, 24th November 2014 L to R Martin Denny (LGA), David Slatter (Penna PLC), Cllr Jeff Green, Cllr Lesley Rennie and Cllr Phil Gilchrist

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Video above is from the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) public meeting held on the 24th November 2014 in Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, Seacombe

Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) met in Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, Seacombe on Monday afternoon at around 2.30pm. The councillors on the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) which had previously been decided by the Employment and Appointments Committee on the 27th October 2014 are:

Cllr Phil Davies (Labour)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour)
Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative)
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Lib Dem)

1. Appointment of Chair

The meeting started with a Wirral Council officer from the Legal and Member Services section asking for nominations for Chair.

Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour) proposed Cllr Phil Davies (Labour) as Chair of the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) meeting.
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour) seconded Cllr Phil Davies (Labour) as Chair of the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) meeting.

The officer asked if there were any other nominations for Chair?

There were no other nominations for Chair so Cllr Phil Davies was appointed Chair for the meeting.

Cllr Phil Davies got up and moved to a different seat.

2. Members’ Code of Conduct – Declarations of Interest

The Chair asked if there were any declarations of interest? No councillors declared any interests.

3. Appointment of Chief Executive, Head of Paid Service (including Returning Officer and Electoral Registration Officer)

There was a report and thirteen appendices for this item.

Cllr Phil Davies asked Chris Hyams (Head of Human Resources and Organisational
Development) to take the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) through the report and asked her to highlight the areas where they [the councillors] needed to make a decision.

She referred to the Employment and Appointments Committee meeting of the 27th October 2014 and said that the Employment and Appointments Panel was set up to appoint a Chief Executive. Chris Hyams said that the report recommends a review of the salary of the Chief Executive, the role of Returning Officer and Electoral Registration Officer, the requirements of the job and a proposed timetable for moving forward. The report also detailed interim management arrangements between the retirement of the current Chief Executive and the appointment of his replacement.

The Chair, Cllr Phil Davies referred to the recommendations on page 6 and he suggested taking each recommendation in turn and that he was happy to take questions and comments as they go on. That was agreed.

He introduced their two external advisers to the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) who were Martin Denny from the Local Government Association and David Slatter of Penna PLC (who are paid £15,000 by Wirral Council to help with recruiting a Chief Executive).

The Chair said that the first item to discuss is salary for the new Chief Executive. The current salary range of the Chief Executive was £121,807 to £135,341. The comparative data for Chief Executive salaries and workforce size (FTE) for North West authorities was attached at Appendix 5 (2013 figures). The comparative salaries for officers that report to Chief Executives was attached at appendix 7. A comparison of the multiple between the average FTE earnings and the Chief Executive was attached at appendix 8.

The Chair started by asking the external advisers for their advice.

David Slatter of Penna PLC went first. He said that the current salary for the Chief Executive was in the lower quartile. The £155,000 to £175,000 range in his opinion would give the flexibility to make sure they got the quality of candidates and that whoever was appointed would stay.

The Chair said that that would be David’s recommendation. He asked Martin Denny from the Local Government Association next.

Martin Denny from the Local Government Association that their data was very similar [to Penna’s] and that it was important that they had a “range of characters to choose from and that they are retained as well”. He said that they needed the ability to recruit the best possible candidate and that’s what they needed to search for.

The Chair Cllr Phil Davies had said that that was the advice.

Cllr Jeff Green asked what the salary of the Prime Minister is?

As a point of information at this point, I will point out that the salary of the Prime Minister is £142,500 (April 2013 figures) [source: Parliament’s website].

Cllr Phil Davies replied with “I don’t know.”

Cllr Jeff Green said that his understanding was that it was around £140,000. He asked if they were suggesting if they get a new Chief Executive that they pay them more than the Prime Minister?

Cllr Phil Davies (Chair) said that that was what their external advisers were suggesting, yes.

Cllr Adrian Jones made some comments.

Cllr Phil Gilchrist asked about appendix 3. He referred to page 13 and asked are the proportions fixed automatically and would there be automatic increases in the Strategic Director’s salaries if the salary of the Chief Executive was increased?

Cllr Phil Davies (Chair) invited Chris Hyams to answer that question.

Chris Hyams explained that the percentages for strategic director’s salaries were shown as percentages of the current grade for the Chief Executive. She said the percentage was the current situation, however it could be altered and that the Employment and Appointment Panel (Chief Executive) had the authority to make a recommendation to Council to do so.

Cllr Phil Gilchrist to the Council’s policy to pay staff the living wage [at the time of writing £7.85/hour]. He asked for the pay differential between the lowest and highest paid member of staff?

Chris Hyams referred to an entry level of spinal column point 10, local government pay scales starting at point 5, the national pay award, but that at Wirral Council its lowest paid workers were paid more than the lowest paid workers at other councils as they pay the Living Wage.

Cllr Phil Gilchrist made a follow up comment, Chris Hyams replied referring to the ratio between the earnings of the Chief Executive and the lowest paid worker which the Council published as part of its pay policy [which was a requirement of the Localism Act 2011 c.20].

Cllr Jeff Green asked if the salary quoted included pension contributions?

Chris Hyams replied that each salary had on costs of just over 22% of each salary. The salary details shown were exclusive of on costs.

Cllr Jeff Green said that the suggested amount was £155,000 to £175,000. Taking a middle figure of £160,000 how much on top of that would Wirral Council be paying £190,000 to £200,000 once pension contributions were taken into account as Wirral Council didn’t pay the current Chief Executive’s pension?

Chris Hyams said that it was unusual not to pay an employee’s on costs. She emphasised that the data did not include on costs.

Cllr Jeff Green said that if they went with the recommended figures that it would be £200,000, which over five years would be a million pounds. He said they were looking at spending a million pounds for one person?

Continues at Labour councillors argue for increase in range of Wirral Council’s Chief Executives’ salary to between £155,000 and £175,000.

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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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