Police and Fire Collaboration Committee meet today to discuss consultation response and shared services
Police and Fire Collaboration Committee meet today to discuss consultation response and shared services
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Police and Fire Collaboration Committee 1st September 2015 Left Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) Right Sir John Murphy (Chief Constable, Merseyside Police)
The Police and Fire Collaboration Committee, which met last month and was adjourned is meeting again today to consider two items.
Consultation question 2 deals with whether the functions of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority should be transferred to the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside. However in the proposed response to the consultation Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority have made it clear that they are against this.
I am quoting from a longer proposed response to consultation question 2. FRS means Fire & Rescue Service. PCC means Police and Crime Commissioner.
“Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority (MFRA) wish to make it clear within this response that they have no intention of ceding responsibility of the FRS to the PCC. MFRA believe that as a result of their in depth understanding and experience of the FRS they are best placed to provide the political leadership necessary to support the Service through the next round of budget cuts.”
The second substantive item on the agenda of the meeting is what’s called the Emergency Services Collaboration Programme which according to section 13 of the report there is “the potential for significant impact on the staff of
both organisations”. The organisations that refers to are Merseyside Police and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service. Appendix 1 (Blue Light Collaboration Opportunity Assessment) to the report implies that some of the savings from shared services between the two organisations will come from staff costs within the two organisations.
If you click on any of these buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people. Thanks:
What’s in the 370 page whistleblowing report on Wirral Council’s grants to businesses?
What’s in the 370 page whistleblowing report on Wirral Council’s grants to businesses?
ICO Information Commissioner’s Office logo
The BIG/ISUS whistleblowing issues have been already covered in extensive detail by this blog over the past few years. However the latest twist in this story was yesterday’s release of a 370 page 2012 internal audit report into the matter following ICO decision notice FS50559883.
Wirral Council have finally released an internal audit report dated 13th January 2012 that went to Bill Norman (then Monitoring Officer/Director of Law, HR and Asset Management at Wirral Council). Those with long memories will remember that Bill Norman was suspended later that year over the Colas matter, then in September 2012 councillors agreed he should receive £146k plus £5k legal expenses to leave.
Back to the BIG/ISUS matters and let’s just quickly recap the blog posts I’ve written on the many aspects of this matter as they provide some background. I’m sure there are one or two I may have left out (I remember I republished some of my earlier blog posts which contained the agreements for BIG/ISUS in the lead up to the special meeting of the Audit and Risk Management Committee last October).
Million pound contract between Wirral Council and Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd for ISUS scheme was never signed (22/8/13) This blog post was about the contract between Wirral Council and Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd for the ISUS (Intensive Start Up Scheme) not having been signed. At the special meeting of the Audit and Risk Management Committee in October 2014 former Strategic Director for Regeneration and Environment Kevin Adderley did claim that a signed version had eventually been found and brought it to that meeting.
BIG/ISUS Reports: Wirral Council and Merseyside Police in “Alice in Wonderland” (4/10/13) Wirral Council and Merseyside Police respond to FOI requests for the reports for Grant Thornton’s (Wirral Council’s auditor) report into the ISUS matters. Wirral Council state they can’t release it because they’ve referred the matter to Merseyside Police, a Detective Chief Inspector for Merseyside Police states that "This matter is currently in the hands of Wirral Borough Council" and suggests that I make a FOI request to Wirral Council.
Or as I sum it up "Wirral Council won’t say anything because it’s in the hands of Merseyside Police, but Merseyside Police say it’s "currently in the hands of Wirral Borough Council".
So that’s a brief summary of developments so far? So what does the new information reveal? It’s a report by an auditor at Wirral Council which details the allegations the two whistleblowers made, the investigations into those allegations and the auditor’s opinion as to whether the whistleblowers were correct or not.
The executive summary runs from pages 9-16 and details the allegations made by the two whistleblowers and whether what was inspected during the investigation substantiated or refuted these claims. Pages 17-20 go through each of the allegations in detail as well as whether each allegation is correct or not and the implications that follow. Pages 21-45 are the main report which at the end contain 14 recommendations. Had some of these recommendations been implemented in 2012, some of the unanswered questions surrounding this matter would have been dealt with much earlier, such as the transfer of assets from Lockwood to Harbac.
At the special meeting of the Audit and Risk Management Committee in October 2014, councillors, officers and those speaking at the public meeting were warned not to refer to names of companies, yet the release of this 2012 audit report only removes the names of Wirral Council employees (and former employees). These matters are now out in the open (which should’ve happened before the Audit and Risk Management Committee met last year). Had this 2012 internal audit report been made available to councillors before that meeting the discussion may have been very different.
However it only came to light because of a FOI (Freedom of Information) request made by one of the whistleblowers and even then only after the Information Commissioner’s Office intervened with a decision notice. Certainly the whistleblowers must both feel vindicated by the conclusions reached in this detailed 2012 internal audit report.
The Liberal Democrat Group of councillors on Wirral Council plus the Green Party Councillor Pat Cleary have tabled the following Notice of Motion for the next Council meeting on the 12th October 2015 on the subject of FOI requests. It reads as follows:
OPEN GOVERNMENT ?
This Council recognises that the Information Commissioner’s Office, as the independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest and to promote openness by public bodies, upheld 13 complaints against Wirral Council in the past year.
Of the 18 notices issued between 29 September 2014 and 24 August 2015, the majority (72%) of complaints were upheld.
Council believes that this is a matter for concern, requiring an explanation to its Members.
Council requests that lessons should be learned and applied from these decisions and questions whether Officers have been excessively cautious or defensive in their interpretation of the legislation.
Council, therefore, requests that the legislation is approached with greater regard to the ‘public interest test’ so that the risk of further reputational damage to Wirral can be reduced.
If you click on any of these buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people. Thanks:
Why is the government consulting on abolishing fire and rescue authorities in England?
Why is the government consulting on abolishing fire and rescue authorities in England?
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Police and Fire Collaboration Committee 1st September 2015 Left Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) Right Sir John Murphy (Chief Constable, Merseyside Police)
This article in the Guardian about the consultation on the proposals has the opening two sentences which sum things up, "What do you do if you’re part of a government that believes in decimating the fire and rescue service as a means to making "efficiency savings", only to find yourself regularly thwarted by elected councillors who sit on the local fire and rescue authority? Answer: abolish the fire and rescue authority."
It 2012 the Merseyside Police Authority (made up half of local councillors and half of independents) was scrapped and replaced with a Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner. It would seem the Conservative government wants to do something similar to what the Coalition government did to the police authorities in 2012, but this time to the fire and rescue authorities in England.
What happened to the police authorities and their replacement with police and crime commissioners plus police and crime panels was part of the Coalition agreement:
"We will introduce measures to make the police more accountable through oversight by a directly elected individual, who will be subject to strict checks and balances by locally elected representatives."
The Conservative 2015 manifesto stated "We will enable fire and police services to work more closely together and develop the role of our elected and accountable Police and Crime Commissioners." but didn’t go as far as stating the fire and rescue authorities would be abolished and their functions transferred to the police and crime commissioners.
First Merseyside Police disciplinary hearing held in public starts today
First Merseyside Police disciplinary hearing held in public starts today
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Police and Fire Collaboration Committee 1st September 2015 Left Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) Right Sir John Murphy (Chief Constable, Merseyside Police)
I read an interesting article in the Liverpool Echo this morning. The article refers to a police disciplinary hearing for four police officers that’s being held in public (starting today) for four days. By the time this blog post is published the hearing will have started.
This is the first one held in Merseyside since the Home Secretary changed the regulations earlier this year that govern police disciplinary hearings so that they’re in public and not in private.
However there were some parts of the Merseyside Police notice about the hearing that I wanted to quote. These are matters not referred to in the Liverpool Echo article.
Pages one to two of the notice about the hearing deal with the reasons why it is being held, but it is last bit that is interesting (which I will quote in full here, then comment on).
There will be limited seating for members of the press and public. To facilitate your attendance, you must apply by emailing the Merseyside Police Professional Standards Department at:
Professional.Standards.Department.PSD@merseyside.pnn.police.uk, with the following details: Name, Date of birth, Address, Email address, Phone number.
When attending a hearing you will be expected to produce photographic ID. These measures are in place to ensure compliance with Health & Safety legislation and security protocols. You are expected to arrive at least 30 minutes before the start of proceedings to enable staff to complete the administrative process and guide you to the seating area.
No recording or filming of these proceedings is allowed and attendees may be searched prior to entry.
Please note there are no parking or refreshment facilities available at the venue.
The premises are wheelchair accessible and a member of Merseyside Police staff will facilitate the signing in process.
This is a ‘No Smoking Building’.
No food or pets are allowed in the building, other than guide dogs.
So in other words, Merseyside Police want to know exactly who is at the hearing (held in public for the first time) and not only that but they want the dates of birth, address, email address and phone number of everyone from the press and public there.
They expect anyone from the press to show photo ID (not hard for the press as the press will have press cards or photo ID from their employer) but also the public too!
Merseyside Police don’t want any recording or filming of the hearing (presumably this won’t stop people sending tweets about the hearing from their mobile phones during the hearing) and to possibly search people attending.
There won’t be "refreshment facilities" (presumably that means no tea/coffee machine) and for a four-day hearing you’re not even allowed to bring a packed lunch.
Plus they want you to email in advance to say you’re coming!
For a public hearing (or to paraphrase what some councillors would say not a "public hearing" but a "hearing held in public") Merseyside Police would seem to be trying to deter people from going and to gather intelligence on the press and public attending.
Sadly, however interesting it sounds, with Wavertree being a ten-mile trip there and ten miles back from the Wirral we can’t spare someone for the four days of the hearing. I do hope the newspapers send someone though, so there is some record of what happens in this new age of openness and transparency.
If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.
Police and Fire Collaboration Committee agree to joint review for collaboration between Merseyside Police & Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service
Police and Fire Collaboration Committee agree to joint review for collaboration between Merseyside Police & Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Police and Fire Collaboration Committee 1st September 2015 Left Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) Right Sir John Murphy (Chief Constable, Merseyside Police)
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
The first meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee elected Councillor Dave Hanratty as Chair.
The other members of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee are:
Councillor Linda Maloney (Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority) Councillor Leslie Byron (Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority) Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) Sue Murphy (Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside)
The Police and Fire Collaboration Committee agreed the terms of reference.
Chief Fire Officer Dan Stephens presented the report, as did Sir Jon Murphy (Chief Constable, Merseyside Police). Chief Fire Officer Dan Stephens drew the Committee’s attention to the list of possible areas for shared services in the report at part 6. The areas detailed in the report are:
Human Resources
Occupational Health
Finance
Procurement
Vehicle Fleet Management
Estates/Facilities
Press Office
Communication and Marketing
Performance/Corporate Development
Legal Services
ICT
He gave an example of shared working in the shared estates area as the Joint Control Centre in the building where the public meeting was being held. Dan Stephens highlighted the staffing implications in the report (section 16-17 on page 10). He stated, “Just to reassure members of the Committee that a Communications Strategy is being developed to ensure that all of our staff can be fully informed. As you can appreciate there will be a fair degree of interest in the work as it progresses.” Dan Stephens also referred to the legal implications, financial implications and other implications in sections 18-24 in the report.
Chief Constable Sir John Murphy added, “Everything that the Chief has just laid out there has been drawn up in complete collaboration with ourselves”.
Jane Kennedy, Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside said “That’s a good and comprehensive list of potential quick gains. For knowing what I know of the potential cliff edge that the Force is facing in terms of its funding and the particular threat in particular to community policing, for me B Ways of Working is absolutely crucial to the future benefit to the community of our two services working together. I can’t, my waking nightmare is the loss of what we currently know of as community style policing.
If we lose community policing altogether then there would still be neighbourhood policing, but we are, we are very close to that now. There is potential gain from us working very closely together with your people and the Force’s people on the ground in communities which I think is probably the greatest benefit.”
Councillor Hanratty (Chair) said that they needed to have conversations with the North West Ambulance Service to see “how they could work better together with them”. He suggested inviting the Chief Executive and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the North West Ambulance Service to a future meeting. Cllr Hanratty suggested that when they got to the last agenda item adjourning the meeting.
Jane Kennedy agreed with Councillor Hanratty but that it had taken her six months to get a meeting with North West Ambulance Service but, “I completely agree with what you’re saying David”.
Cllr Hanratty referred to both Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and Merseyside Police’s independence. He commented that both organisations do “fantastic work”.
Chief Constable Sir John Murphy said, “Just to endorse what the Commissioner’s said there, the great strength of what we’re embarking on here is the MFRS [Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service] and Merseyside Police are under the same pressures, we share the same footprint and there’s a real joint will amongst the Chief Officer Teams and the people in this room to get things done.
Our experience with working with North West Ambulance and the North West is a problem to start with is that it’s not quite that straightforward and the experience of the JCC [Joint Control Centre] here and they’re in, they’re out, they’re in, they’re out, I would not like to see North West Ambulance Service get in the way of what we’re trying to achieve, but the principle of what you’re suggesting and the commenced approach towards that I agree.”
Councillor Leslie Byrom added, “I mean I agree with everything that’s been said, what we’re going to have in the next few months of business other than the budget stuff which is going to have a real major impact on how we’re going to plan for the future. This is the first step.
We’be got the overlay also that’s emerging of the Police Reform and Criminal Justice draft Bill. That mentions fire and police collaboration. It may mean that it’s more intended to affect non-metropolitan areas, there may be a separate solution anticipated for metropolitan areas but there is so much happening I think we are going to have to be fleet of foot for the next few months, adjourning this meeting is absolutely right.
Err, enabling us to call a meeting at you know legally short notice, errm and deal with changes that are being presented to us as they happen because you know we are on a bit of a roller coaster.
NWAS [North West Ambulance Service], obviously that’s another part, that’s another facet, another side of the entire blue light issue isn’t it? And I don’t think you know, I know we have difficulty sitting round and meeting with them, but actually I think we can’t leave that as an excuse can we?
We have to, they can not participate yes, but we have to be making the, giving leadership on this issue and showing that you know there is that overlay of blue light and the cross issues. Both the money and the way that they operate are quite different to us, I understand that, but we’re all in the area of public expenditure at this time.
So you know we just try our best with NWAS [North West Ambulance Service] to move things forward.”
The Chair thanked the officers for their work and referred to it as “a culture change for both of our organisations and the way they’ve worked together so far has been tremendous as well”
The recommendations contained within the report were agreed which are:
b. Instruct the Chief Fire Officer (CFO) and Chief Constable (CC) to undertake a joint review of existing and potential opportunities for collaboration in line with the methodology detailed within the Guiding Principles.”
The Chair then agreed to adjourn the meeting, so that they could “call the meeting as and when required” but that the next meeting should be within the next couple of months.
If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.
