EXCLUSIVE: Incredible £88,174 loss made by Merseytravel on sale of Liverpool pub

At Thursday’s meeting of Merseytravel, councillors had to decide whether to sell a Liverpool pub (bought for £106,174 in May 2009) for only £18,000. The pub was bought as part of the since axed Merseytram scheme. According to the report prepared for councillors it was “overgrown with vegetation”, “substantially demolished” and only retained its front walls. Due to fly tipping Merseytravel was served with a “environmental enforcement order” by Liverpool City Council. Despite its unloved state, since being purchased by Merseytravel, “minimal works to improve the site have been completed by Ascot Property Group in 2013”.

Budget Meeting, Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority
Thursday, 6th February, 2014 2.30 pm

Agenda Item 6 (Disposal of Land)

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair, (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Item number six is the disposal plans, Tony’s going to actually present that <A HREF="“>report, I’m just going to make the point that this part of the land is actually falls within my ward, I’ve checked with the Monitoring Officer and I don’t need to declare an interest because I have no personal interest in the matter. I did want to make that clear beforehand, so Tony?

Tony (Merseytravel officer): Thank you Chair. Yeah, Merseytravel owns a small plot of land on the corner of West Derby Road as you can see in the report. This proposal is to accept an offer for the sale of it to an organisation called The Lofts (Ormskirk) Management Limited.

The background to this property purchase on behalf of our Merseytram scheme was to secure the land for the tram. Obviously now that the site is owned by ourselves, we’ve further looked to try and dispose of it. We have taken a decision it’s important to establish.

Effectively the building is just a façade, it’s just a shell, it’s an old pub, it’s derelict, it’s been knocked down. In fact recently it was identified by the city council as an eyesore and obviously I’ve been exploring there’s actually been a lot of debris and fly tipping from the site. At the moment it’s a liability to us and what we’re looking to try and do is dispose of it.

The advice of the District Auditor is effectively we should pursue a meeting and sell to the adjacent landowner, who’s actually preparing a land package to … a large … of the site. Our understanding is that there’s going to be a planning application for residential and then retail usage. The proposal is that we’ve had from them is to sell for £18,000 which is a reduction on what we purchased it for, details are in the report and if you want me to take any questions Chair on the proposal?

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair, (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Yeah, thanks Tony. Les and Steve.

Cllr Steve Foulkes (Wirral Council, Labour): Yeah, I can understand the issues around this particular piece of land and it’s got a history of causing us problems. We are expending revenue on looking after the piece of land I guess, but my question and challenge is really about how we deal with what maybe I don’t know a portfolio of bits of land that are this. Some of them may be a remnant of Merseytram, others may be different but particularly there is another methodology of getting rid of land where you go through open auction, you do it through an agent and you don’t know who the owner is. Sometimes that brings a better price or a worse price.

The argument that’s sort of been discussed or debated is should we have gone to auction with this rather than just simply .. bid we’d have got more money. Or if we auctioned it now with a reserve price of £18,000 would we get more potentially?

Tony (Merseytravel officer): I’ll just say Chair, we did look at obviously going to auction there’s a cost but there’s no guarantees that there’d be buyers. The advice from the District Auditor was that the best option including the landlord who’s actually bought the plots of land is to make the best bid. If we want to open auction there would only be one bid and we may only get the reserve price.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair, (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Shane do you want to add to that?

Shane Fitzpatrick (Senior Head of Operations, Merseytravel): Just to add a comment on that, the land obviously was acquired from the Liverpool City Council and one of the conditions of the sale was to offer that back as an option. That was not, there was no take up on that offer.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair, (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Thanks for that Shane, I’ve got Les first and then Tony.

Cllr Les Rowlands (Wirral Council, Conservative)): Chair, I was going to bring up the auction thing but that having been said now, looking at what it was bought for £106,000 and what we’re asking for it now £18,000 is actually a very low price for a plot of land that’s built some buildings on.

I mean I know in Wirral there’s been some damage to prices, but round about £80,000 to £90,000 for a plot of land for a house. So when I see £18,000 I mean I take it into account that it is a piece of land that’s been you know misused, fly tipping and everything else but it’s still a fair amount of land for £18,000. Surely you could have done a bit better than £18,000?

Tony (Merseytravel officer): Obviously that reflects the condition of the land. It’s actually derelict and it’s only a façade wall, it’s completely derelict land. Also …

Continues at EXCLUSIVE: Incredible £88,174 loss made by Merseytravel on sale of Liverpool pub (continued).

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What did politicians say when they put up Mersey Tunnel tolls and how did they vote?

Budget Meeting, Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority
Thursday, 6th February, 2014 2.30 pm

Agenda Item 4 (Tunnel Toll Setting 2014/15). The report for this agenda item can be downloaded from Merseytravel’s website.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair, (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Item four is the tunnel tolls setting process for 2014/2015, Gary and Frank do you want to introduce the report?

Merseytravel officer (Gary Evans, Head of Customer Delivery): Thank you Chair. Members will have the report in front of them, just to summarise the report it’s very consistent with previous year’s toll setting arrangements. Section two of the report details the legal process that the Authority must follow in considering and setting toll levels for the year. Section three actually details the authorised toll levels that were triggered in line with the Tunnels Act 2004 by RPI levels published in November 2013.

Section four covers the actual tolls that have been charged over the past five years and helps give Members a historical view around the authorised levels compared to actual levels charged along with the Fast Tag discount offered and that detail is in section four. Section five of the report, in determining the tolls Members must take account of issues of an economic and social nature in their decision making process. Section five details a range of economic and social data for the Merseyside region for 2013. This range of evidence will allow Members to have a considered opinion.

In section six Members will be aware that some of the principles of the Tunnels Act are to ensure that toll levels are broadly in line with other transport options in the region and section six details the cost of those alternative or comparable cross river transport services in place. Finally section eight of the report it details that any potential toll increase of ten pence, passed on vehicles in other classes generates the Authority approximately £2.4 million per an annum. I’m happy to take any questions on that report.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): OK thanks Gary. Are there any questions or comments for Gary in the first instance? Steve?

Cllr Steve Foulkes (Wirral Council, Labour): Thanks Chair and clearly as a Wirral representative it’s a highly sensitive issue and a difficult issue for Wirral Members to deal with because I think it is well accepted that the major impact of the tunnel toll increase does fall on Wirral residents and a great number of other residents indeed who use the tunnel on a daily basis as a commuter route or route to work. So clearly it is a difficult issue, I just want to lay out though a few issues.

This is my, having been new to the Authority last year this is the second time I’ve been confronted by this difficult decision and it is a decision we have to make because there’s a little bit of a clue in the name of this organisation, it’s the integrated transport authority and those people who want to separate the tunnel as a separate entity are missing a trick. The tunnel is integral to the things we do. Integrated transport means all routes whether it be bus, whether it be train, whether it be ferry, whether it be people who use the tunnel and the tunnel is in our ownership. So it falls upon us to make this, make this difficult, often very difficult decision.

One of the factors Gary referred to is the issue in and around the economy and whilst we are being told by the government everything’s great and the economy’s on the uplift. The economy always grows slower in the north-west. I think the economy at the moment is the, economic growth is so fragile that the tunnel toll in our sort of own mini economic scenario may be something that doesn’t help the economy, in fact hinders it and slows it down even further. At the same time as hailing that the economy is on the up, Chancellor Osborne consistently refers to further austerity packages.

Austerity for the north west, well austerity for local government means you are singled out and are hit with the biggest cuts. Austerity for north-west local authorities means that you are picked out for the most severe cuts and the highest percentages. I won’t quote the examples but we are always hit hardest, perhaps because we lack a number of Tory MPs. So therefore I think the tunnel tolls, partly by being part of the integrated transport network is also part of the overall budgetary position that the Authority finds itself in.

Now individuals can pick which topic they think extra money made from tunnel tolls is spent on, others can pick ones that are more favourable, others can pick ones that are less favourable, but nevertheless it does form part of the overall budget package. So any money that isn’t, is removed by any resolution today, would have to be found and replaced. So I’m glad that later on in the business the Authority is setting a freeze on the levy for the local authorities and that will certainly ease the position for any council tax payer over on the Wirral. And if the money, if the tunnel tolls say overnight were to be free and passed onto the council tax payer directly I think that would be an enormous burden for every single household particularly Wirral and elsewhere.

That would be impossible to bear and would not get through a referendum Chair I would add. People would vote against something that would lead to a ten percent hike on Council Tax simply to pay for the tunnels. So we are in a position where we have to make a budgetary decision in and around that based on the knowledge we have in front of us.

My argument has been since I’ve come on the Authority and before that position is that this link between across the Mersey or links across the Mersey is such of economic, national economic significance that it should have the right to be included in the national road network and therefore funded directly from national taxation as opposed to what is a local taxation situation. It appears our plea last year was unheard and it also appears that consultation that is taking place at the moment actually picks out estuary crossings for one that will always be tolled under this government’s consultation. So I think, if nothing else happened today, we need to get lobbying and make sure that that exemption is removed and that we have the right to campaign for the tunnels to be taken into the national road network and see how far we get with that. So clearly there’s those issues.

The other issue is that the overall budget of the ITA must be robust enough to maintain the running and safety of those tunnels because we would know that the economic damage done by say one tunnel going down or you know heaven forbid two tunnels in a state that they couldn’t remain open would be massively detrimental to our economic recovery, in fact it would probably see the economy off overnight. So we have to have a robust budget and people think that whilst the tunnels are well maintained, there’s a reason for that because the cost of the serious and major repair and damage to the infrastructure of the tunnel itself would exceed you know many people’s budget, we’d probably have to borrow money to actually do that. So it is well that we remember that, that this budget should be robust and a high level of reserves to dig your .. major repairs if necessary.

So having said all those things I do not believe that this is the right time in the economic cycle for us to increase the tunnel tolls for all the I can see the temptation to do so and from my part I haven’t prepared any resolution otherwise, but will probably unless someone convinces me in the next part of the debate will see myself actually voting against the increase based on the fragile economy that we are part of that the tunnel toll increase at this time would be the wrong route but I do believe, I do believe seriously that if we are serious about getting into the national road network we need to up our game and certainly we have one Conservative MP on Merseyside who should have the ear of government.

It would appear that the ground can change overnight, when we look at the decision on the A14 which was to be financed by tolls and it so happens that the Tory MP had the ear of government and that decision was reversed so they can change their mind if the right people use the right amount of influence. So my view is that we should continue the campaign for the national road network to take over the funding of the tunnels. In the absence of that, I understand the very difficult decision that we make today but I don’t feel on the basis of the evidence that I’ve got in front of me that I could support it today. Thank you, Chair.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Thanks Steve, that’s a very helpful contribution at that.

Cllr Les Rowlands (Wirral Council, Conservative): Thanks Chair. I’m not going to rehearse the story because quite frankly I agree with a lot of what Councillor Foulkes has had to say today. I do have a proposal to put forward, I think just to add to what Steve has had to say is that constantly on Merseyside, Wirral as well as a lot of the other surrounding councils are statistically below the national employment levels and have been for some time and quite a difference between those two levels. So it is an area that is actually under the cosh as it were.

Austerity I agree with Steve has hit us for whatever reasons us a lot harder up in the north-west and we’re all feeling it to all the councils and that means right down to the services that we’re giving and to the general public that have to pay for those services. It is really, really tight. Our councils locally will have to pull up their belt certainly and taking difficult decisions to actually keep those services running and to make decisions that are on a lot of occasions non political but have to be made to actually keep those services going to the people and if that means increasing you know they’ve had to do it but in other areas they’ve had to cut the cloth according to their need and take that service and the cost of that service down.

I think Merseytravel should be giving a message out at this time too, I agree again with what Steve said. I think this is the year, this is the time when we as Merseytravel, whilst still being safe in our tunnels, completing all the jobs that we’re expected to do health and safety and all that, should be sending out a message to say look we realise that this is hard, we realise that this is going to have an impact on the local economy ie people going to work it is going to be a hard time to put an extra ten pence on the tunnel tolls. It may not seem a great deal to us but it is to the people who have to travel every day through the tunnel to go to work. It’s a lot of money on their wage packets at a time when their wage packets are not going up, they’re going down.

So I’ve got a proposal that we keep and freeze the tunnel tolls to the level that they are now and then relook at it next year. At the same time I would like to see and I’ll reiterate what I said last year, a discount scheme and I am not talking about Fast Tag which is for everybody, I am talking about a Merseyside discount scheme which I know operates in other parts of the country. I would like to see that looked at and see whether we can do something for the people of Merseyside to have a local discount scheme. Now that’s my proposal to the meeting today. Thank you Chair.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): OK thanks for that. I appreciate you’re putting forward a motion. I’m going to suggest that we take your motion at the end of the debate and allow all Members who wish to have their contributions first but it is being circulated around the chamber. Does anyone else want to make any contributions? If there’s no other Members from the, oh go on Steve.

Cllr Steve Foulkes (Wirral Council, Labour): It is helpful now to see it in print. Errm, right ok well we do I mean yeah looking at paragraph d it’s probably something I missed out in my contribution before. I you know, in my every day life I have to turn up at Unilever which is an international company and we have many colleagues and employees that travel from this side of the water and beyond through the tunnels to go to work. I’m amazed actually the number because I do think I’m getting a bit obsessive about Merseytravel now, I’ve done my own mini survey and out of nine people I asked who do that trip on a regular basis in their car only one of them had got a Fast Tag and they’d let it run out.

So I have to asking myself Fast Tag there, which is a signficant saving every day, why is these barriers up or why are these people not engaging with something that immediately saves them money. I just wonder if our marketing of the Fast Tag is as great as it should be, because there is an alternative out there. So I actually have no problem supporting Les’s motion, it doesn’t say who’s seconded it. I believe that John has seconded it, so that’s fine and dandy by me so just the issue about Fast Tags, that there is an alternative for people to save money but I’m amazed by the number of people that don’t take them up.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Yeah I think that’s a very good point Steve because I was going to say from my position sat here as Chair that I heard everything that you both have said and I think we all take the same view that this always a very difficult and challenging decision and process that Members go through every year. It’s not an easy process and inevitably some of the recommendations that come to us are challenging. Steve’s point is exactly right in the sense that if we were ever to get a free crossing across the river the only practical way of that ever happening would be for the government to take the tunnels into the national road network.

When we’ve asked in the past, government ministers and Department for Transport officials have been unequivocal in the fact that there is no government thinking of taking the tunnels into the national road network and furthermore and I’m glad Steve pointed it out in the government’s consultation on the national network’s proposals for both the road and the railway networks it actually singles out on page fifty-two of the document that estuarial and river crossings will remain on a tolled basis under the government’s policy. Added to that it also makes the point that new road schemes will be looked at under a tolled basis which is government policy but apparently doesn’t seem to count if the proposed road runs through John Major’s former constituency.

So with the government having no clear intent of taking the tunnels off our hands that leaves us in a bit of quandary doesn’t it you know in terms of the way you could finance the tunnels? Either it would be via the levy and the county taxpayer which in any circumstances would be challenging but in its current circumstances where finances for local government are so excruciatingly difficult because of the way the government is behaving. He’s absolutely right that on balance then the cost of the tunnels does fall to the users in that very difficult situation and obviously although the cost of running those tunnels is always significant to make sure we operate them not just in a way that is fit for purpose, but those key assets that they are for the Liverpool City Region but in doing so in a way that actually provides them to be some of the best operated in the world and some of the safest in the world. That does come at a price, but it comes at a price and we’re always very conscious and keen that we operate those in the most cost-effective and most cost efficient way accordingly.

I also take on board everything that’s been said about the state of the local economy. Whilst I think there’s been some elements of encouraging news and some elements of employment growth locally particularly some elements in terms of a report that came out last week about private sector employment increasing .. in the local area. I fully take on board just how fragile things are in the local economy and that remains a very, very difficult and challenging situation that we find and it would be nice to see the government taking a more thorough approach in terms of the way they look to support our region accordingly.

But I think it’s also important when we look at this debate that we don’t just view the tunnels as an isolated part of our transport network. You know we are an integrated transport authority and the tunnels are not only integral to the transport network of the Liverpool City Region but it’s actually vital that they operate in an integrated way and that the decisions we take in regard to the tunnels are not in isolation to the overall transport network as a whole and equally the decision that we take when we go through this process of setting the tolls we can’t take in isolation of our overall budget setting process which we’re going to deal with as the next item which we know is as challenging as it is this year and inevitable that it will get even more difficult as we go into the future.

So with that all in mind and it’s very, very difficult for us to take this decision, I’m on the balance of considerations of the opinion that the ten pence increase that is being proposed is proportionate and on balance the best decision that we can take in very difficult circumstances at this moment in time. However I’m still very conscious of the fact that that still represents a ten pence discount on the authorised toll that could be charged. It’s not going to up to £1.80, the proposal’s £1.70 and furthermore and Steve made the excellent point about the Fast Tag scheme, the Fast Tag scheme will still demonstrate a considerable saving for local users and your point about actively and proactively marketing the Fast Tag scheme is exactly right Steve.

Last year was the first time that we’d ever properly done that and I’m really pleased we’ve managed to get usage of the Fast Tag up to forty percent of all users and let’s remember the vast majority of those Fast Tag users are local residents and local businesses. There is a saving to be had and it works out that every seventh journey if you use the Fast Tag is free so it’s very strong I think from all of us that we want to make sure we continue that proactive marketing of the Fast Tag to make sure we maximise the uptake and make sure that local commuters and local residents and local businesses will get that benefit. If there’s no further contributions from the floor, Les do you want to move your motion?

Cllr Les Rowlands (Wirral Council, Conservative): Thank you. Chair, I take on board the protection that you’ve said and I agree with a lot of it and there is obviously frustrations on both sides but given that reserves are healthy, given there’s been an underspend in the capital program, the £2.4 million could be found and I think it’s important that we send out a message from Merseytravel that we’re not prepared to raise it every year, year on year, year on year and in times we can listen and we can help and that’s all I’m asking for not every year we go against .. item but let’s send a message … to do that Chair that’s all I ask.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): I think I’ll take that on board Les and I think whilst I’m conscious that reserves are healthy, we need to make sure that we’ve got healthy reserves to deal with any issue that may arise. Both in terms of any sort of significant issue with regard to the operational maintenance and operational things but also any other opportunities on the transport network and the way that we want to develop an integrated transport network that is fit not just for the twenty-first century but is fit for a world class city region which is what we want for the Liverpool City Region. If there’s no further contributions Les do you want to move your motion?

Cllr Les Rowlands (Wirral Council, Conservative): Yes Chair, I’d like to move the motion and if I can remove paragraph c) from the proposed motion to my motion which says maintain existing discount on authorised tolls for cash and Fast Tag tolls to the level that is effective from the 1st April 2014 and d) the authority asks the Director General and Chief Executive to investigate the cost implications as well as any implications under the Tunnel Act 2004 of bringing forward a further discount for Fast Tag users in order to reduce the burden of tolls on regular users of the tunnel.

Cllr John Dodd (Sefton, Lib Dem): Second that Chair

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Thanks John. Can I see all Members in favour?

Cllr John Salter (Wirral, Labour)
Cllr Steve Foulkes (Wirral, Labour)
Cllr Les Rowlands (Wirral, Conservative)
Cllr John Dodd (Sefton, Lib Dem)

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): All against?

Cllr Joanne Calvert (Liverpool, Labour)
Cllr Anthony Carr (Sefton, Labour)
Cllr Gordon Friel (Sefton, Labour)
Cllr John Fulham (St Helens, Labour)
Cllr Stephen Kermode (Sefton, Labour)
Cllr Ken McGlashan (Knowsley, Labour)
Cllr Mark Norris (Liverpool, Labour)
Cllr Marlene Quinn (St. Helens, Labour)
Cllr Mary Rasmussen (Liverpool, Labour)
Cllr Liam Robinson (Liverpool, Labour)
Cllr Malcolm Sharp (Liverpool, Labour)
Cllr Hayley Todd (Liverpool, Labour)
Cllr Jeremy Wolfson (Liverpool, Labour)

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): That’s lost. In that case can I move the recommendations in paragraph 11 of the report. Is that agreed?

Cllr Gordon Friel (Sefton, Labour): Can I second that?

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Do you want to put that to the vote accordingly? All in favour?

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): and against?

Cllr John Salter (Wirral, Labour)
Cllr Steve Foulkes (Wirral, Labour)
Cllr Les Rowlands (Wirral, Conservative)
Cllr John Dodd (Sefton, Lib Dem)

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): and that’s carried.

Cllr Les Rowlands (Wirral Council, Conservative): Can I have my vote recorded?

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Absolutely, that’s why we put it to the vote for you.

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House of Lords agrees to law on filming, tweeting and blogging local Council meetings

House of Lords agree to law on filming, tweeting and blogging local Council meetings

Cllr Harry Smith tells Wirral Council's Pensions Committee that £1 million is a lot of money to write off

A still from a video of Wirral Council’s Pensions Committee meeting which is an example of the sort of filming that a Coalition Government Minister has promised to give the public a right in law to

The penultimate stage of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill was debated in the House of Lords and the amendment on filming, tweeting and blogging from local Council meetings was agreed. Although this (when the Local Audit and Accountability Bill becomes law) won’t place an immediate legal obligation on local Councils it does grant the Secretary of State Eric Pickles the power to bring in legislation in the form of a statutory instrument (or regulations) two months after the Bill becomes law.

A government Minister in the House of Lords, Baroness Stowell of Beeston said that they “intend to work with partners such as the Local Government Association and the National Association of Local Councils on the detail of the regulations”. She also said that “we will carry out a process of consultation on these regulations and ensure that we take account of the points that have been made. We will not lay the regulations until we have completed that consultation. However, we are talking about a matter of months in terms of bringing those regulations forward. We do not want delay on this.” In addition to a promise of new regulations she stated that “alongside the regulations, we intend to produce guidance to cover such matters.”

As the issue of filming local Council meetings is of interest to a number of bloggers (and others) I include the Hansard transcript of the debate below. This information contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v1.0. For ease of reading I have edited out the column references to Hansard which are 21st January 2014 columns 632 to 640 and created links for the legislation referred to.

Motion on Amendment 26

Moved by Baroness Stowell of Beeston

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 26.

26: After Clause 38, insert the following new Clause—

"Access to local government meetings and documents

(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for and in connection with allowing persons—

(a) to film, photograph or make sound recordings of proceedings at a meeting of a body to which this section applies, or of a committee or sub-committee of such a body;

(b) to use other means for enabling persons not present at such a meeting to see or hear proceedings at the meeting, as it takes place or later;

(c) to report or provide commentary on the proceedings at such a meeting, orally or in writing, so that the report or commentary is available, as the meeting takes place or later, to persons not present at the meeting.

(2) Regulations under subsection (1) may in particular make provision—

(a) for allowing persons to make available to the public or a section of the public using any medium (including the internet) things produced as a result of activities within that subsection;

(b) about the facilities to be made available by bodies to which the regulations apply to enable persons to carry on such activities;

(d) about the circumstances in which persons may not carry on such activities, including for enabling a person specified in the regulations to prevent them from doing so in the circumstances specified in the regulations.

(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision—

(a) for requiring written records to be kept of decisions that are of a kind specified in the regulations and are taken by an officer of a body to which this section applies,

(b) with respect to the information that is to be included in those written records (including information as to the reasons for any decision);

(c) for requiring any such written records, or any documents connected with the decisions to which they relate, to be supplied or made available to members of the body, to the public or to other persons;

(d) for the creation of offences in respect of any rights or requirements conferred or imposed by the regulations.

(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that any of the following may or must be given or made available by electronic means—

(a) any notice which is required by the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960, Part 5A of the Local Government Act 1972 (access to meetings and documents of certain authorities etc) or regulations under this section to be given by a body to which this section applies;

(b) any document relating to such a body which is required by that Part or those regulations to be open to inspection.

(5) Regulations under this section may, in particular, amend or repeal any provision of—

(a) the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960,

(b) Part 5A or section 228 (inspection of documents) of the Local Government Act 1972, or

(6) Subject to subsections (7) and (8), this section applies to—

(a) a district council,

(b) a county council in England,

(d) the London Assembly,

(e) the Common Council of the City of London in its capacity as a local authority or police authority,

(f) the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority,

(g) Transport for London,

(h) a joint authority established under Part 4 of the Local Government Act 1985,

(i) an economic prosperity board,

(j) a combined authority,

(k) a fire and rescue authority in England constituted by a scheme under section 2 of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 or a scheme to which section 4 of that Act applies,

(l) a National Park Authority for a National Park in England, (m) the Broads Authority,

(n) the Council of the Isles of Scilly,

(o) a parish council, and

(p) a parish meeting.

(7) In its application to subsection (1), subsection (6) is to be read as if it included a reference to an executive of an authority within paragraph (a), (b) or (c) of that subsection.

(8) In its application to subsection (3), subsection (6) is to be read as if the reference in paragraph (d) to the London Assembly were to the Greater London Authority.

(9) References in this section to a committee or sub-committee of a body include any committee or sub-committee of that body to which Part 5A of the Local Government Act 1972 applies or is treated as applying.

(10) References in this section to Part 5A of the Local Government Act 1972 include a reference to that Part as it applies to the London Assembly by virtue of section 58 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999.

(11) In paragraph 4(2) of Schedule 12 to the Local Government Act 1972 (notice of meeting of principal council), for "Three clear days" substitute "Five clear days"."

Baroness Stowell of Beeston: My Lords, in moving the Motion on Amendment 26, I shall speak also to the other amendments in this group.

Noble Lords will be aware that these are new provisions. These amendments insert a new clause into the Bill that would give greater rights to report at local government meetings and to have access to documents. We believe that this is an important extension to reflect greater enthusiasm and appetite among the public not just for transparency but also to have an element of control over the information and the access that they enjoy which allows them to continue discussion and debate beyond being just observers at meetings.

Commons Amendment 26 gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations that would allow members of the public to report proceedings at public meetings, allowing people to film, audio-record, tweet and blog at a meeting of a local government body. This will allow those who are unable to attend the meeting to follow the proceedings and, as I have just said, perhaps promote discussion about proceedings thereafter. It will also give the public access to documents of local government bodies. These documents may, for instance, include records of decisions taken by officers acting under delegated powers; the reasons for the decisions, details of any alternative options considered and rejected, and any other documents connected with the decisions to which they relate.

The regulations may set out possible conditions to be met before such activities can be carried out. Likewise, they may specify the circumstances where activities such as filming or audio recording might not be permitted. The Government intend to work with partners such as the Local Government Association and the National Association of Local Councils on the detail of the regulations. They will be subject to the affirmative procedure if there is provision in the regulations amending or repealing primary legislation; otherwise the regulations will be subject to the negative procedure.

Local people are currently enjoying more rights under the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 when they attend meetings of a council’s executive and access information relating to decisions made in those meetings. Unfortunately, these same people cannot enjoy the same rights when they attend the public meetings of full council, its committees, sub-committees and joint committees, parish and town councils and other local government bodies. Some councils have used this inconsistent approach to refuse the public access. We are aware of some recent examples of councils ejecting members of the public from meetings for filming or tweeting from those meetings. That is why we have decided to bring forward these amendments now.

Since the 2012 regulations came into force, we are not aware that they have caused any particular problem for local authorities, other than some needing to update their standing orders to reflect the change in access rights by the press and public. We do not believe that this greater access should create additional burdens. However, I am aware that some may be concerned about the possible disruption that filming in council meetings might cause. Therefore, we will consider possible steps that have to be taken by people attending the meeting for the purpose of reporting the proceedings so that activities such as filming or taking photographs might not disturb the good order and conduct of a meeting. As I say, we intend to work with partners to ensure that the regulations and any guidance address this.

We are in a digital age where technology has significantly evolved and we need to acknowledge that it will continue to advance swiftly. With this in mind, we must widely embrace the use of modern communication methods such as filming, tweeting and blogging at public meetings. On top of this, opening up these bodies would help the public to have a better understanding of their local decision-making process and, as I said, potentially encourage them to be more involved in local affairs. I beg to move.

Lord Tope: My Lords, I expect we all welcome the intentions of the amendments: I certainly do. I must confess that my first response when I read about this was a little surprise that they were considered necessary. I am sure the vast majority of authorities of all persuasions are already doing this. It may well be that, in some cases, their standing orders have not been brought up to date, but I am sure that most are doing it very willingly. However, I then reflected on my early days as a councillor, quite a long time ago, when all council and committee meetings were open to the public, as required — if I remember rightly — by a Private Member’s Bill introduced by the then new and young honourable Member for Finchley, Mrs Thatcher. The one committee not open to the public was what was then called the planning committee; it would now probably be the development control committee. This was, arguably, the committee of greatest interest to members of the public but it was the one to which they were not allowed access.

Those days are, fortunately, long gone but it reminded me that we need to ensure we keep up to date with the times. I am sure all noble Lords welcome the good intentions of these amendments. The key will be in the drafting of the regulations. I am not sure why any local authority or council would wish to stop someone tweeting during a meeting or, if they did, how they could implement it without the most draconian measures. That is well and good, but the difficult part will be making regulations that require the greatest openness but do not allow the avoidable disruption of meetings.

I hesitate a little, because a fundamental part of our democracy is the right to be irritating and to annoy. I think the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is suggesting that I am doing this at the moment. We all know from our local authority experience that there are some people whom everyone agrees are simply a nuisance. It will be quite tricky to balance the regulations to ensure that the person—it is usually an individual rather than a collection — has a right to be a nuisance and be irritating but does not disrupt the good order and procedure of the meeting. I imagine that the decision will be in the hands of whoever is chairing the meeting. They have the right now to have disruptive people ejected, as happens occasionally, and this will, no doubt, still be the case. However it will be quite difficult to draw the balance between allowing the maximum openness and transparency at meetings, which we would all endorse, with not allowing individuals — I stress, individuals — with a cause from unnecessarily and avoidably disrupting proceedings.

We look forward with interest to seeing the regulations. I am delighted that the Minister has made clear that there will be wide consultation with the local government associations, NALC and other bodies in the drawing up of these. We look forward to seeing the result.

The Earl of Lytton: My Lords, I relate to what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has just said. I have a mental image of the small parish or town council, with its quite limited premises, taking on progressively more functions and finding itself in the centre of some awfully controversial measure. The premises might, quite literally, be crowded out by people with cameras or wanting to record: the sort of thing one sees on television outside the courts of justice when a person of fame—or infamy, as the case may be—has received a decision. The scrum that goes on out there is the sort of thing that slightly worries me, particularly, for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, with development control, which in many instances is highly contentious.

I will not ask the Minister for an answer at this juncture, but could she bear in mind that uniformity of regulations across the whole of local government might be difficult to achieve, for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Tope? There is also a question of how open-ended this public right is. There will clearly be instances — I am sure we have all witnessed meetings of this sort — where it can be thoroughly disruptive and an impediment to the sober and conscientious consideration of matters on the agenda. Perhaps there must be some limitations. Like the noble Lord, Lord Tope, I look forward to seeing the draft regulations in due course. I appreciate what the Minister has said about the process for that: would she perhaps clarify the timescale for it? That would be very helpful, particularly for parish and town councils, a bigger proportion of which may be affected by this measure than principal authorities which, in many cases, already have generous facilities for public access and the recording of proceedings.

Lord Beecham (Lab): My Lords, I occasionally encounter some unfortunate being who has apparently had nothing better to do than watch me on Parliament TV. It is possible that others of your Lordships may have had similar encounters. Oddly enough, although Newcastle City Council — on which both I and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, have served — has webcast its meetings for many years, nobody has ever claimed to have seen me on those broadcasts. Perhaps that says something about the medium not quite having conveyed the message thus far.

I join my honourable friends in the House of Commons in welcoming these changes. It is fair to say, and was said by the Minister in the debate on this provision in the Commons, that the Opposition Front Bench there were very supportive of the concept. It is welcome that these proposals come here and, as the Minister pointed out, that they include the potential for safeguards. I presume that these will, as she has implied, be negotiated, or at least discussed, with the Local Government Association so as to avoid conduct which might disrupt meetings and to provide clarity about what happens when, for legitimate reasons, the press and public may be excluded. Examples might be if there are matters of commercial confidentiality or confidential personal details to be discussed in certain areas. I might like to suggest, though it may not reach into regulations, that selfies might be prohibited, but that is a matter of taste rather than democracy.

It would also be helpful if, alongside any regulations, the Government gave some information, in guidelines or otherwise, about the risks that may be attendant on people filming, tweeting or otherwise relaying actual events. Although one hopes it would not happen, what is said in council may sometimes stray into the area of defamation and those relaying matters of that sort could find themselves in a difficult situation. Some guidance about the need to be careful would help those who might otherwise run into difficulties. It is not likely to arise in a large number of cases but it is conceivable it might happen. Broadcasting authorities and so on are very alert to that danger. In Parliament it is privilege but that does not apply to local authorities.

I also wonder, although it is not a matter for the Minister or the Department for Communities and Local Government, whether the principle embodied in these amendments, which will eventually be subject to guidelines, might not be extended to some other public bodies. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, referred to health and well-being boards. It is true that they are technically part of local authorities, but health is generally a matter that clearly engages the interest of a community. Many bodies such as clinical commissioning groups, health trusts and so on are open to the public. A similar regime might be useful there, and perhaps the noble Baroness can take back to ministerial colleagues the thought that this principle — after it has run for a period and people can see how it works — may usefully be extended.

I find some irony in the Government’s general position on this issue. They talk about democracy when, at the same time, they are not only imposing a council tax cap on local authorities which can be exceeded only if there is a referendum, they are also intending to impose a lower cap than would otherwise be the case because some authorities have levied just under the prescribed level for a referendum. The Government seem to be taking an absurd position. Indeed, at least part of the coalition appears increasingly to favour referendums over elections. In this House we will be debating at some length the proposals regarding European referendums. This process was started by Louis Napoleon in the 19th century and has since been extended to various other unsatisfactory regimes.

However, the current proposals are regarded as potentially helping to revive interest in the established local democratic process. That is necessary given—as many of us have remarked during the debates on the Bill—the almost total lack of coverage of local affairs not just by the printed press but by the media generally compared with what used to be the case. If that lack of coverage means that people are unable to read such coverage in their local paper or see it on the local broadcasting media then it would be useful if this information could be disseminated from meetings. I hope that people will take advantage of that opportunity as it can only be for the good of local democracy. We support the amendments.

Baroness Stowell of Beeston: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his and the Opposition’s support for these amendments. I am also grateful to have been reminded by my noble friend Lord Tope that I am following in the proud tradition of my late and noble friend Lady Thatcher in terms of increasing access to public meetings.

As my noble friend Lord Tope pointed out, many local authorities now provide the kind of access and opportunity to local people in the way that we are seeking to require through these measures. He is right, there is extensive use and availability in this area. However, some local authorities are not providing that kind of access. As we think that that is important and the precedent is there in other kinds of public meetings, it is only right to extend such provisions. For example, I am told that Tower Hamlets Council barred a 71 year old resident from filming because it claimed a risk of reputational damage to the authority. Keighley Town Council blocked some residents from filming as it would have amounted to a breach of standing orders. Stamford Town Council placed a ban on journalists tweeting from meetings due to the risk that the journalists would not accurately portray the debate. So there are examples and evidence of inconsistency in approach and we want to address that.

Noble Lords raised important points about risks, and the measures necessary to mitigate those risks, to ensure that proper conduct is able to continue. I re-emphasise that we will carry out a process of consultation on these regulations and ensure that we take account of the points that have been made. We will not lay the regulations until we have completed that consultation. However, we are talking about a matter of months in terms of bringing those regulations forward. We do not want delay on this.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, specifically raised concerns about whether guidance will be issued on matters such as defamation in order that members of the public do not inadvertently put themselves at risk. Alongside the regulations, we intend to produce guidance to cover such matters. As the noble Lord will know, there is some precedent in this area because journalists are now allowed to “live tweet” from some public court proceedings.

The noble Lord specifically asked whether this provision may be extended to other public bodies such as health bodies. I will take his point away and raise it with colleagues. We believe that if a public meeting provides access to the public we should ensure that they have the ability to record it appropriately, in the way that I have described.

That leads me to another point that my noble friend Lord Tope and others mentioned regarding the ability to maintain sensitivity and confidentiality during public meetings. Councils and other government bodies will still be able to exclude the public from the part of a meeting in which confidential or exempt sensitive information will be disclosed. The definition of confidential and exempt information is already covered in legislation. There are legislative rules that must be followed when excluding the public from a meeting. For instance, a resolution may be passed to exclude the public from a meeting at which exempt information would be disclosed. Again, measures are already there to inform on how we propose to operate in this area.

I think that I have covered all the points that have been raised. I re-emphasise that we will bring forward regulations and ensure that we consult. I am very much aware of the kind of concerns that have been raised by noble Lords and will ensure that proper account is taken of these issues when the regulations are drafted.

Motion on Amendment 26 agreed.

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Government publishes privacy (8), freedom of expression and assembly (10&11) human rights arguments on filming public meetings law

I thought it was about time to give a brief update on the filming issue and how the Local Audit and Accountability Bill is progressing through the Houses of Parliament.

On Tuesday it finished its last stages in the House of Commons (third reading and report stage) and is expected to become law around February 2014. Sadly when it becomes law in February 2014 it doesn’t settle the filming issue as section 40 (entitled access to local government meetings and documents) in the Local Audit and Accountability Bill around filming which you can read for yourself on Parliament’s website merely grants the power to the Minister to make further secondary legislation in this area.

Also in its commencement section (49(2)) which you can also also read in the same document on Parliament’s website the section on filming (as well as the more controversial section on local authority publicity) won’t come into effect until two months after the Local Audit and Accountability Bill becomes law (which if it does become law in February 2014 means it’ll be April 2014 at the earliest before there is secondary legislation on the matter).

As nobody really knows what the wording of the secondary legislation will be yet and section forty is open to a number of interpretations there have been some concerns expressed about what form it will take. I think it’s already been mentioned that the Government want to consult with the Local Government Association on this first.

Published this morning were the explanatory notes on the Commons amendments to the Local Audit and Accountability Bill which include at page 13 a statement on “compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights”.

I will quote from this section here (the quotes are in numbered bold paragraphs with my commentary below them), hopefully it allays some fears people had over what the secondary legislation is about and repeats the article 10 (freedom of expression) arguments I’ve been making to Wirral Council about filming for some time!

60. The amendments to the Bill which would allow residents attending meetings of the full council, its committees and sub-committees to act as citizen journalists potentially engage some rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (“the ECHR”).

This is just a statement of fact, written in the ever careful language of lawyers, in my opinion they don’t “potentially engage”, they do engage.

61. The provisions would enable the Secretary of State to make regulations which are either free-standing or amend the relevant provisions in Part 5A of and Schedule 12 to the Local Government Act 1972, the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 and the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and that mirror the following elements of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 (“the 2012 Regulations”):

The use of websites for the publication of information such as agendas, minutes and connected reports;

The ability of the public to attend meetings to act as ‘citizen journalists’ (facilitating the reporting of meetings by individuals on social media); and

Recording the decisions taken by officers.

Basically parts of the laws mentioned could do with being repealed to make the situation on filming clearer for both local Councils and those doing the filming. Otherwise there’ll be (once the secondary legislation is passed) about six different bits of law stating slightly different things about the filming issue which would be a recipe for confusion and misunderstandings (especially as each bit of law can be interpreted in different ways). Two of the acts were written before the Human Rights Act 1998 c.42 came into effect. Had they been drafted after 1998 the clauses about filming would have had to be drafted in such a way to take into account article 10 rights to freedom of expression.

The first bullet point I think refers to the media and bloggers publishing information such as agendas, minutes and reports on their blogs rather than linking to the official version on the website of the organisation they’re reporting on. This is already covered in respect of Cabinet meetings in the 2012 regulations, which also grants qualified privilege to publishers in respect of publication of these documents.

The second bullet point is about widening the definition of media to include those writing and publishing online. The current definition in the legislation of media (apart from Cabinet meetings n the 2012 regulations which already covers new media) covers newspapers, media agencies (those who supply stories to newspapers) and those recording sound or video for news broadcasts (local radio and TV) as well as those classed as programme services under the Broadcasting Act 1990. Curiously that last definition is so broad it covers publishing video footage of Wirral Council meetings online (or any public meeting of a local Council).

62. These changes follow what is already provided for in the 2012 Regulations.

My reading of this is that the secondary legislation resulting from this section of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill (apart from the potential for amending provisions of earlier legislation) will extend the regulations outlined in the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 (“the 2012 Regulations”) to all public meetings of local councils, as well as the other bodies specified in the Local Audit and Accountability Bill.

Examples of other bodies referred to in the Local Audit and Accountability Bill would be integrated transport authorities. Locally that would be Merseytravel (which may well be have changed completely and be absorbed into the Merseyside Combined Authority by the time the secondary legislation has effect) and the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority.

63. The Bill as amended would also provide that the Secretary of State has powers to ensure that the public can film, blog, or tweet at all meetings of a full council, its committees and sub-committees; meetings of an executive, its committees and sub-committees; meetings of parish and town councils and Greater London Assembly meetings. This is a new proposal which reflects the changes in technology enabling broader access to information and new methods of reporting and recording council meeting proceedings.

Personally I don’t have a mobile phone so I can’t blog or tweet live at a public meeting. If I remember correctly the guidance previously issued by the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP on filming meetings relied on legislation that technically didn’t cover parish and town councils which caused some issues. I don’t know of any parish or town councils in the Wirral and as far as I know Greater London Assembly meetings are already filmed as I’m sure I’ve previously seen Boris Johnson facing questions as the Mayor of London on the BBC Parliament channel.

64. Articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and 10 (freedom of expression) of the ECHR may be engaged in relation to the provisions regarding openness of council meetings. Neither of these rights is absolute and they include in their respective second paragraphs details regarding the basis on which the right may be limited.

65. Article 8 has potential to be engaged but it appears unlikely in these circumstances. The meetings being open to public attendance are unlikely to fall within the definition of “private and family life”. Lord Hope and Lord Nicholls in the case of Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd [2004] UKHL 22 both made clear in their judgements that the first step to consider if the matter falls within the sphere of private and family life. The latter described the approach to take as follows: “the touchstone of private life is whether in respect of the disclosed facts that the person in question had a reasonable expectation of privacy”. The court in HRH Prince of Wales v Associates Newspapers Ltd [2006] EWCA 1776 highlighted that whilst there was a division over the conclusions in Campbell there was no division regarding the relevant approach in law. Given that the council meetings considered by the Bill would be held in public (unless there was a justifiable reason to exclude the public), it is difficult see a sustainable argument that attendees would have a reasonable expectation of privacy so as to engage Article 8.

Article 8 is a red herring really, as pointed out there can’t be an expectation of privacy at a public meeting open to anyone to attend where there could be over a hundred present (if it’s a particularly controversial planning application) who would hear what was said and see what was going on. From what I remember, even Wirral Council’s councillors have never claimed filming can’t happen on privacy grounds.

66. Whilst it is unlikely that the attendees’ Article 8 rights would be engaged, if a successful argument were to be made, paragraph 2 of Article 8 allows for the limitation of these rights. The Article 8 rights of those who are attending the meetings (cf. to those attending and reporting) can arguably be qualified on the basis that the limitation is:

a. in accordance with the law; as prescribed by the Bill and regulations made using the powers it contains.
b. is necessary in a democratic society. This is on the basis that wide public access to meetings and reporting on meetings increases accountability. The level of scrutiny which the public expect is influenced by the availability and ease of using different reporting methods, and this has increased since the advent of social media including blogging, tweeting etc and is further influenced by the ease of access to this technology. There is an expectation now that the public should have the ability to subject their representatives to closer and more direct scrutiny; an expectation that is shared both by members of the public and their representatives.
c. is for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others; namely the Article 10 rights of those reporting the meeting.

As pointed out above, article 8 is a qualified right and the rights of people to report public meetings has to be protected.

67. The provisions which would allow for regulations to be made on the prevention of the public from filming, reporting etc of council meetings may engage Article 10. However, it should be noted that it is envisaged that prevention of filming, reporting etc will largely be in the same circumstances in which the public would also be excluded from the meeting. As such the new provisions regarding prevention of filming, reporting etc would reflect the existing provisions on exclusion, including the common law right to exclude the public from meetings to suppress disorderly conduct. Insofar as there is a limitation on the Article 10 rights of potential attendees, this restriction can be justified on the basis that the prevention of filming, reporting etc and exclusion from meetings provisions are drafted in a manner to ensure those decisions are not arbitrary. For example the existing provisions on exclusion state the grounds on which a council may decide to hold a closed meeting, which include: where confidential or sensitive information is to be disclosed or discussed; or where the public are excluded under the common law right to suppress disorderly conduct. These reasons fall within the exceptions included within paragraph 2 of Article 10. Such reasons would be necessary in a democratic society if by not having the option to exclude public attendance would prevent the council from effectively carrying out its business. Furthermore, the exclusions would be prescribed by law as the justifications for preventing filming will be set out in the regulations and the justifications for exclusion from meetings are set out in primary legislation.

Firstly the issue of the press and public being excluded from a meeting, the suggestion that if the right to film covered the whole meeting meaning that recording equipment could be left behind and record the private part of the meeting is frankly a little ridiculous! However there are people that can stay and observe the private parts of meetings (such as other councillors and officers) that if the secondary legislation was poorly drafted would have a right to film or record these private sessions when the press and public were excluded.

I have no problem (and I don’t think anybody else would) with filming being prevented during parts of the meeting that the press and public are excluded from, however the phrase “largely be in the same circumstances” hints at other reasons to prevent filming which is worrying.

The common law right to suppress disorderly conduct is referred, yet it states “provisions are drafted in a manner to ensure those decisions are not arbitrary”. Last year at a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee, a Wirral councillor (Cllr Jerry Williams, Labour) (you can read the minutes for yourself here) went so far as to suggest that filming itself to him is regarded as disorderly conduct (rather embarrassingly six members of the Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee then went on to use a piece of legislation that only applies to Cabinet meetings as a rationale to prevent filming).

An opinion as to what or what isn’t disorderly conduct is (as shown in the previous paragraph) entirely arbitrary and I hope the secondary legislation states explicitly that silently filming a meeting can’t be seen as grounds for exclusion from the meeting under the disorderly conduct provisions already in the legislation.

So repeating somewhat what I said above, in my view the justification of preventing filming by excluding the press and public from the meeting is fine, the issue of preventing abuse of the disorderly conduct provision in legislation to prevent filming needs to be explicitly stated and I can’t see there being any other justifications for preventing filming.

68. Article 11, freedom of assembly and association, should also be considered. The right to freedom of assembly includes participation in public meetings. However, Article 11 is a qualified right which can be restricted. The basis of the restrictions include that is in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. As such the position in relation justifying qualification of Article 11 is much the same as it is for Article 10 freedom of expression.

The right of the public to be at public meetings is already in legislation and the fact that Article 11 specifically states “peaceful assembly” means that article 11 isn’t engaged if people engage in disorderly conduct. I presume this is referring to the public and press being excluded from private sessions of meetings.

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What’s a Wirral Council councillor worth?

Oliver asks for more porridge

Recently there has been a lot of anger expressed by the public over a proposed 11% pay rise for MPs from 2015. Wirral Council’s councillors (unlike MPs who after the expenses scandal agreed that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority would set their pay) still decide on what they’re paid. In fact the legislation states that when voting on this matter they don’t even have to declare an interest!

In a parallel with MPs, in order to keep the base amount that councillors get low over the years and presumably avoid a similar kind of bad publicity that the proposed pay rise for MPs is receiving, the base amount for being a Wirral Council councillor is currently set at £8,712 (equivalent to ~168/week). There are (in many cases similar to the MP’s expenses system) a bewildering amount of ways that Wirral Council’s councillors can increase this.

Each year what Wirral’s council’s councillors are paid is published on Wirral Council’s website. These figures I link to are from 2012/13. As Wirral Council’s financial year finishes about a month before we usually have elections (apart from next year when local elections will be combined with the European elections) there are some small amounts for people that were councillors for only a few weeks in that year or were elected part way through the financial year. If you discount these part year amounts, the amounts range from the basic £8,712 to £30,437.60 for the Leader of the Council Cllr Phil Davies.

In addition to the amounts in that list councillors receive extra if they represent Wirral Council on certain outside bodies such as Merseytravel or Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority. Both of these bodies decide themselves on their own allowances scheme.

So what is proposed at Wirral Council? Well periodically the allowances scheme is reviewed by the “Independent Panel on Members Allowances”. The Independent Panel doesn’t meet in public and there isn’t any public consultation on its findings.

Reading its report its conclusions are based on the input of councillors (a census of councillors on pay, other authority’s independent reports and the direct input of Cllr Phil Davies, Cllr Jeff Green and Cllr Phil Gilchrist) as well as senior officers at Wirral Council.

In distinct echoes of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority proposed 11% pay rise for MPs, Wirral Council’s independent panel recommends “When the financial climate allows, due consideration should be given to reinstating the 5% austerity cut in the basic allowance.”

However the rest of the recommendations remain relatively uncontroversial and are unchanged to what they were previously. The allowances for the Mayor and Deputy Mayor (of £10,700 and £1,500) remain the same. Both the Mayor and Deputy Mayor attend a lot of different events during their year in Wirral. The Mayor also has to chair Wirral Council Council meetings. Keeping order and making sure Council meetings don’t degenerate into people speaking being drowned out by heckling, requires courage, tact and a sense of humour as well as the respect from other councillors.

About a year ago, much of the work of the Employment and Appointments Committee (such as appeals against dismissal, grievance hearings etc) was delegated to the Chief Executive Graham Burgess so the special responsibility allowance of its Chair of £2,751 is proposed to be scrapped.

The Chairs of the new Constituency Committees won’t receive any extra for their role, but this will be reviewed once they are “up and running” (suggested for October 2014). Pensions for Wirral’s councillors have been ruled out until the end of the current Government/Treasury consultation exercise.

The panel estimated that the average councillor spends twenty-three hours a week on the role and that any future increases in allowances should be linked to staff pay.

Finally I’ll make a number of what could be termed party political points (*breaking a general rule of mine on this blog and no I’m not a member of a political party despite rumours to the contrary) about councillors allowances and elections.

The arrangements that the political parties on Wirral have with their councillors (as far as I know and please leave a comment to the contrary if I am wrong) is that their councillors contribute a share of their allowances to their political party. This money is then used at election time (in conjunction with sources of other money) by that political party to help their candidates win votes from the public and get re-elected.

This is why there is only one independent councillor on Wirral Council (who was elected as a Lib Dem). Any independent candidate would have to either be independently wealthy in order to fund their own campaign or have a wealthy patron in order to stand a chance financially against the taxpayer funded political parties.

It leads to a system of safe seats on Wirral where one political party holds all the seats in a ward for a very, very long time. Voters are in such wards can become apathetic of voting as they feel the election is a foregone conclusion and their vote won’t make a difference to the outcome. The only thing that tends to shake things up are boundary changes.

Personally I view this current situation as bad for democracy (although those who it benefits may disagree). As much as some politicians may not like scrutiny, they make better decisions more in tune with public opinion when other political parties (and individuals) are scrutinising them. If a politician feels they may in the future either suffer the embarrassment of losing an election (or not be reselected by their party as their candidate) it can lead to them working harder in the public interest for the full term of their office (and not just at election time).

We have a system on Wirral where politicians’ future career prospects are based on reselection by their party who then goes on to fund their campaign (subsidised by the taxpayer). Comments on the system of democracy we have are welcome.

P.S. I’ll also formally announce something here I decided a while ago. I won’t be standing as a candidate in the Wirral Council elections in 2014.

Writing this blog and publishing the footage of public meetings (only possible because of media and consultancy work I do that is better paid than writing about Wirral Council) is in my view more in the public interest than the commercial work I do.

To be honest with you I’m much better at being a blogger with the freedom to say things as I see them rather than get bogged down in the party politics of Wirral (which is tarnished by a past reputation for doing things for party political reasons rather than acting in the public interest).

On a related matter the proposed legislation which includes a clause about filming Council meetings (the Local Audit and Accountability Bill) reaches its third reading and report stage tomorrow (17th December 2013). These are the last of its stages in the House of Commons.

There are two more stages to go after that before it becomes law. Once it becomes law there will be secondary legislation on the filming issue (the Local Government Association wants to be consulted on it), which will hopefully make the current unsatisfactory situation much clearer.

If the only result of starting this blog (and no it wasn’t just me getting angry about this issue but other people too I’m not going to take the sole credit despite this blog being cited in one of Pickle’s press releases about it) is that a change in the law will mean councils (and other bodies spending public money) in England won’t have any spurious legal grounds be able to justify banning audio or video recording of their meetings, then hopefully the greater openness and transparency that results will be a greater contribution to democracy than I could have ever achieved had I been elected as a Wirral Council councillor. Personally I would’ve preferred to try out the human rights arguments about the filming matter in a court of law, but a change of legislation is a better long-term outcome.

On the subject of courts of law, the libel case involving Jacqui Thompson (the woman who was arrested for filming a Council meeting in Wales) has a hearing in the Court of Appeal today. Update 14:40 Permission to appeal was refused. There have been reports in the press about the legality of Carmarthenshire County Council’s paying for its Chief Executive Mark James’ legal costs in this case.

In more local legal matters the issue of Wirral Council’s request for a possession order for Fernbank Farm will be decided at Birkenhead County Court some time in the New Year.

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House of Lords agree to law on filming, tweeting and blogging local Council meetings

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Government publishes privacy (8), freedom of expression and assembly (10&11) human rights arguments on filming public meetings law

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What’s a Wirral Council councillor worth?

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