What would ICO make of these 2 documents open to public inspection?

What would ICO make of these 2 documents open to public inspection?

What would ICO make of these 2 documents open to public inspection?

                                    

19th May 2017 Police and Fire Collaboration Committee Chief Constable Andy Cooke Merseyside Police (right)
19th May 2017 Police and Fire Collaboration Committee Chief Constable Andy Cooke Merseyside Police (right)
19th May 2017 Police and Fire Collaboration Committee Jane Kennedy PCC Merseyside center
19th May 2017 Police and Fire Collaboration Committee Jane Kennedy PCC Merseyside center

Above are photos of the Chief Constable of Merseyside Police Andy Cooke and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside. One has responsibility for the operational side of policing, the other for the political side of policing. It was a sixteen and a half minute meeting to discuss collaboration and can be viewed on Youtube here.

CCF22052017 00000 restricted email Estuary Park stamp duty
CCF22052017 00000 restricted email Estuary Park stamp duty

For some reason this email (see above) about a stamp duty amount of £103,200 is marked restricted.

So the following has been blacked out:

Blackburn Dawn
Riley John Michael Edward
John Riley
Chief Finance Officer
0151 777 5177
john.riley@merseysidepcc.info

So far, that information is in the public domain already.

So, that’s probably a one off you’re thinking. But what about this £2.58 million payment?

Oh yes they’ve done it again!

Estuary Park payment
Estuary Park payment

Bank Name: Lloyds Bank PLC
Branch: Merchants Court, 2-12 Lord Street, Liverpool, L1 1TS
Reference: PCCM Estuary Park
Sort Code 30-95-11
Account No: 01091450
Payee: DWF LLP

On the plus side, unlike the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service they didn’t accidentally release the specimen signatures for the bank accounts too!

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What’s in a ~500 page contract between the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and CRG for a private company to provide detained persons and officers healthcare and medical services?

What’s in a ~500 page contract between the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and CRG for a private company to provide detained persons and officers healthcare and medical services?

What’s in a ~500 page contract between the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and CRG for a private company to provide detained persons and officers healthcare and medical services?

                                

I have a big red box file in my office.

What’s in the box you may ask?

Here’s a sample.

letter Police Crime Commissioner for Merseyside citizen audit 2015-16 page 1 of 2
letter Police Crime Commissioner for Merseyside citizen audit 2015-16 page 1 of 2
letter Police Crime Commissioner for Merseyside citizen audit 2015-16 page 2 of 2
letter Police Crime Commissioner for Merseyside citizen audit 2015-16 page 2 of 2

Well it’s the result of my citizen audit of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside for the financial year 2015-16.

Just to show how long I’ve been a journalist for, you will find on this blog reports of public meetings of the Merseyside Police Authority. A few years ago the coalition government abolished the Merseyside Police Authority and replaced it with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside.

In the box are copies of 49 invoices and details of 10 contracts.

The largest contract at ~500 pages is a contract between the Police and Crime Commissioner and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t/a CRG for the “Provision of Forensic Medical and Healthcare Services for the period, 21st January 2015 – 20th January 2017 with an option to extend by a further 2 years.“ which is reference PCCM / PD / 026 – Bluelight ref. 9KBD-BXVLMV .

This is perhaps the most interesting document although like many of the documents is redacted in part.

There’s also a service level agreement with Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council and a secondment agreement with Liverpool City Council.

Some of the redactions were later challenged by myself and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner agreed with me that they didn’t have a legal basis to do so and released further information.

It is somewhat strange however that myself a journalist seems to have a better knowledge (from a legal perspective) over what can be redacted than the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner. However I shouldn’t be too harsh on the OPCC for Merseyside as legal advice is a matter contracted under a SLA out to Knowsley Council (but don’t get me started on Knowsley Council and flawed legal advice!)

However the public sector as a whole has a tendency to for want of an expression take the mickey with me over redactions.

Although thankfully I rarely have to involve the judiciary in such matters.

Anyway going back to the large contract, due to its size from a time element it would take some considerable time to scan in, resize, compress and publish on the blog.

Those of a more political bent, may point out that in the public sector paying a private company for medical and healthcare services, that this falls into the political arguments over whether public services should be provided by the public sector. If provided by the private sector, ultimately less is spent on the service as a proportion ends up in profit (and presumably a different amount in taxes). For example 20% of all the money spent on CRG goes on VAT.

However, from CRG‘s last published accounts for 2015-16, they have a turnover of £34.3 million with a gross profit of 23.1%.

So out of £100 spent by the public sector with CRG, I estimate £16.69 will go on VAT, £23.10 on profit, leaving ~£60 out of every £100 on providing a service.

The contract is signed by Jane Kennedy (the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) and Laura Hale (a director of Castlerock Recruitment Group Limited).

Moving on to the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire it states that it’s for the provision of forensic and healthcare services (excluding SARCS).

SARC refers to Sexual Assault Referral Centre.

It explains that police forces and NHS Local Area Teams are working towards the transfer of commissioning responsibility for healthcare in police custody from the Home Office to the Department of Health and that the work of these Police/NHS Partnerships sits within the National Police Transition Programme.

If this happens during the life of the contract it is anticipated that the commissioning authority changes from Merseyside Police to the NHS England Lancashire Area Team and the contract will be novated.

However police forces and the NHS share contract governance, even after this change. This is done through the Strategic Healthcare Joint Partnership Board, at the time chaired by Chief Superintendant Carl Krueger, with representatives from NHS England Lancashire Area Team and NHS England (Merseyside).

PCC in the contract refers to the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside.

The background explains that Merseyside Police was formed in 1974, serves a population of ~1.5 million people, covering an area of 647 sq km and five Metropolitan Borough Areas (Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley, St Helens and Wirral).

It then describes the BCUs (Basic Command Units) in operation at the time, which was one for each borough except Liverpool split into two.

The contract refers to the three universities, two premiership football teams (Tranmere Rovers doesn’t get a mention or maybe its fans are better behaved), a rugby league team and two major racecourses. It states that in 2013, Liverpool received 57 million visitors to the region (referring to tourism). At the time of writing Merseyside Police employed over 6,000 people (*although technically police officers aren’t employees but officers of the Crown) ranging from police officers, PCSOs, support staff, Special Constabulary Officers and volunteers).

The custody suites are listed as follows (five in total) with 131 cells. There are also two mothballed custody suites which can be opened for pre-planned events and operations (which is an extra 32 cells).

Here is the list in the following format
location – BCU – Cells – Current operation

St Anne Street – Liverpool – 33 – 24/7
Wavertree – Liverpool – 20 – 24/7
Copy Lane – Sefton – 24 – 24/7
Wirral – 32 – 24/7
St Helens – 22 – 24/7 (Mothballing or reduced opening hours are currently being considered for this suite)
Southport – 12 – Mothballed
Belle Vale – South Liverpool – Mothballed

The contract states that services at the time of the contract award were provided by Medacs Healthcare (contact details Helen Kelly (Director of Managed Healthcare)) and that staff employed by Medacs may need to be TUPEd over to the new provider.

There is a list of how many detainees there are for each month from April 2013-14, how many calls there were for a healthcare professional, along with a percentage of HCP calls vs No of detainees.

The total number of detainees varies from 3,510 in April to 3,927 in July. The number of HCP calls varies from 1,698 in March to 2,217 in July. The percentage varies from 46.3% in March to 56.5% in July.

There is then a table for December 2013 of various categories of call out, split by custody suite location with totals.

For example one of the categories, category 6 is Death (All) of which there were 4 in December 2013. This is 4 out of a total of 2,011 calls for a healthcare professional.

The six major categories (all with totals over 100 call outs in that month across Merseyside) in order of calls were:

Injuries (All) – inc Officer Injury,
Fitness to – Detain, Interview, Release, Court, Travel etc,
Medication Administer / Review,
Drink / Drug Withdrawl,
Reassessment / Mental Health Reassessment,
Detainee’s Request / Complaint against police

There were also 27 listed as Taser Removal / self harm / suicide risk.

Below are the first pages of the contract that I’m referring to. Are people interested in the rest or is police officer healthcare and detained persons’ healthcare an issue you assumed was provided by the NHS?

Just to be clear, these pages are published relating to rights in the Re-Use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015, Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015, Data Protection Act 1998 and Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014.

contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 1
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 1
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 2
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 2
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 3
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 3
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 4
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 4
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 5
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 5
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 6
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 6
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 7
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 7
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 8
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 8
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 9
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 9
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 10
contract Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Castlerock Recruitment Group LTD t a CRG 10

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What do a car crash, road safety, A-boards, Wirral Council and the Merseyside OPCC have in common?

What do a car crash, road safety, A-boards, Wirral Council and the Merseyside OPCC have in common?

What do a car crash, road safety, A-boards, Wirral Council and the Merseyside OPCC have in common?

                                        

Councillor Michael Sullivan (Chair, Wirral Council's Business and Overview Scrutiny Committee) at a public meeting held on the 13th September 2016. His microphone is now... on!
Councillor Michael Sullivan (Chair, Wirral Council’s Business and Overview Scrutiny Committee) at a public meeting held on the 13th September 2016. His microphone is now… on!

Yesterday evening’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Business and Overview Scrutiny Committee was for once quite literally car crash TV.

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Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 14th September 2016 (Agenda item 4 Road Safety – Reducing Pedestrian Casualties starts at 2m:21s) Part 1 of 5

However, the first main item at the public meeting was about reducing pedestrian casualties and road safety. You can read the reports for this agenda item that are linked to from this page on Wirral Council’s website.

Cllr Warren Ward reminded those present at the start of his declaration of interest by saying,

“Chair, I’ve got a declaration of interest.

In the report it mentions a quote from the Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner.

In 2014, I was employed as a private secretary to errm the Police and Crime Commissioner Panel.”

 

I am of course welcome that Cllr Warren Ward brought this up, as Wirral’s criminal justice system caught up with Merseyside’s former Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner on the subject of road safety (although the embarrassing incident below wasn’t mentioned at last night’s meeting). At the time of the offence she was Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner.

Cllr Ann O’Byrne (who for the purposes of clarity and avoidance of doubt is a completely different councillor to the current Merseyside Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner Cllr Sue Murphy) according to a report in the Liverpool Echo pled guilty at Wirral Magistrates’ Court to two driving offences which were

driving “without due care and attention”

and

failing to stop after a road accident

 

after crashing into an orange BMW Mini. She pled guilty, was fined and had to pay prosecution costs of £565.

Of course there will be many regular readers who will see parallels between this behaviour and that of some politicians.

In the past some councillors have been accused of failing to stop going on after political accidents (such as the library closure programme only halted by a government ordered public inquiry), of generally being politicians behaving “without due care and attention” and also in the process of being more interested in scoring petty party political points and damaging the peoples’ trust in democratic systems in the process.

But then I shouldn’t be too critical as there are plenty of good politicians too that unfortunately get tarred by the same brush by association!

Certainly there is a lot of car crash TV I have filmed at public meetings over the years!

Moving swiftly back to the subject of the current Police and Crime Commissioner Jane Kennedy. She was asking questions on Monday afternoon about the effect on jobs of a joint Merseyside Police and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service project (involving consultants Deloittes are doing) at an eleven minute public meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (see video of the meeting below). You can read the agenda and reports to do with that on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority’s website.

As this is a committee of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, I had better declare an interest as an Appellant in a First-tier Tribunal case in which Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority are Second Respondent (case reference EA⁄2016⁄0054).

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Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority) Monday 12th September 2016

On the subject of legal action, at the meeting of last night’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee, the subject of A-boards and pedestrian safety was raised with respect to a display outside a fruit and vegetable shop in Moreton which was previously covered by this blog in 2012 (including a photo of the shop display in question).

David Rees (a road safety manager at Wirral Council) made it clear at the meeting that Wirral Council hadn’t received any legal claims for compensation from pedestrians arising from A-boards on the footway.

Conservative councillor Gerry Ellis stated that the person who had raised the issue with Wirral Council about the A-board outside a Moreton shop had been threatened with legal action by Wirral Council and asked a senior manager at Wirral Council (the Head of Environment and Regulation Mark Smith) to explain why.

However the Labour Chair of the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee Councillor Michael Sullivan intervened before Mark Smith had a chance to answer. I will also point out that from my recollection at least one Labour councillor expressed the view at the meeting that Wirral Council employees should not be criticised by Wirral Council councillors.

The Chair decided unilaterally that in his view the report was purely about pedestrian casualties and that as he knew of no recorded accidents known to Wirral Council involving A-boards, Cllr Sullivan told Cllr Ellis that Wirral Council’s Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee wasn’t the forum for discussing such matters and ended any debate on the matter.

Finally, the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner have been in touch with me.

During the 30 working day inspection period this year (which finished mid-August 2016) I requested some invoices. However I challenged whether some of the blacked out bits were done properly in accordance with the legislation. Technically not providing the information inside the 30 working day inspection period is unlawful (although it’s a civil law matter).

So I challenged it and around a month later got back three invoices from the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside with less redaction.

Can the citizens of Merseyside expect the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside to understand the law? Would that be expecting too much considering these invoices are to their “legal services department”? Or was this a genuine mistake? Or am I too robust in press scrutiny of the local public sector?

As it’s a related topic to the issue of police appeal tribunals I’ll point out that Cllr Mary Rasmussen is proposing at a meeting of Liverpool City Council tonight at the time of writing (14th September 2016 if you’re not reading this on the day it is published) a boycott by vendors and retailers selling the Sun newspaper in Liverpool over its reporting of matters involving the police Hillsborough. The three invoices are for the following:

1) An invoice from Drystone Chambers (based in London) for the services of Mr Gregory Perrins (a barrister) at a Police Appeals Tribunal held on the 4th December 2015 for £1,632.

2) An invoice from Mishcon de Reya (a London-based firm of solicitors) was for £6,000 for supply of legal services in the matter “Royal Mail – VAT Invoices for Postage Services”)

3) An invoice from Slater and Gordon UK LLP for £2,221.92 (a Manchester based firm of solicitors) for professional charges involving criminal defence and disbursements.

 

Each invoice is an A4 page and all 3 invoices involving the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for legal services 2015-2016 financial year are provided here.

I am of course grateful to the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for resolving these issues so quickly in a month, rather than the over three years it takes Wirral Council to properly consider the redactions on an information request (request made 29th March 2013, information provided in redacted form 19th May 2016)! In the interests of openness and transparency I had better declare I was Appellant in that case where Wirral Council was Second Respondent.

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Why did the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside need a seconded part-time Private Secretary costing £16,828 a year?

Why did the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside need a seconded part-time Private Secretary costing £16,828 a year?

Why did the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside need a seconded part-time Private Secretary costing £16,828 a year?

                                                

Job Description Private Secretary to Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner seconded from Liverpool City Council
Job Description Private Secretary to Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner seconded from Liverpool City Council

A few years ago, before Jane Kennedy was re-elected as Police and Crime Commissioner earlier this year, the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel agreed to her request for a Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside in June 2014. Previously Jane Kennedy had stated she wouldn’t need a Deputy but changed her mind.

The appointment of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner (a part-time role of three days a week work with a salary of over £30,000) was first made to Cllr Ann O’Byrne (at the time also Liverpool City Council Cabinet Member for Housing), then in August 2015 the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner changed to Cllr Sue Murphy (a St Helens Council councillor). Cllr Sue Murphy continued as Deputy PCC until the end of Jane Kennedy’s term of office in May 2016. After Jane Kennedy’s re-election Sue Murphy was then was re-appointed as Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner by the councillors on the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel on the 14th July 2016.

In addition to the £31,800 paid to the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner (from June 2014 to the 1st May 2016, then from 14th July 2016 onwards) Liverpool City Council had been providing a seconded employee (part-time) to be a “Private Secretary” to the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner at a cost of £16,828 a year.

I requested the contract during the audit. In the interests of transparency here is the Secondment Contract Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside Liverpool City Council Private Secretary to Deputy PCC (zipped file). It’s provided as a compressed (zipped file) in case you want to read it (apologies for the poor contrast on the first 5 pages but that’s how it was provided to me).

However here’s one quote from the “Principal Accountabilities” bit of the job description, “Vet incoming correspondence addressed to the Deputy Police & Crime Commissioner/Chief of Staff, deciding on the most appropriate manner by which it should be dealt with, this ensuring that only relevant correspondence is filtered through to the Deputy Police & Crime Commissioner.”

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Why did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend “up to £16,474” on an “austerity” review with Liverpool John Moores University?

Why did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend “up to £16,474” on an “austerity” review with Liverpool John Moores University?

Why did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend “up to £16,474” on an “austerity” review with Liverpool John Moores University?

Jane Kennedy (left), the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Labour Party candidate in the 2016 elections for a Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside at a public meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (2015)
Jane Kennedy (left), the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Labour Party candidate in the 2016 elections for a Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside at a public meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (2015)

The author of this piece was briefly employed by Liverpool John Moores University on work experience in February 1997 (although this was 15 years before Police and Crime Commissioners existed). However in the interests of transparency I’m declaring it as an interest.

The recently reelected Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) who is pictured above to the left of the photo has often spoken in public about her views on the Merseyside Police budget, the funding of the Merseyside Police and has even referred to her “sleepless nights” worrying about it all.

The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spent up to £16,474 (see the purchase order below) with Liverpool John Moores University to “commission a scoping review of the scale, dimensions and implications of austerity on community safety, crime prevention and diversionary services within Merseyside.”

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside purchase order 20th October 2015 Liverpool John Moores University up to £16474
Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside purchase order 20th October 2015 Liverpool John Moores University up to £16474

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