How much did taxis cost for councillors at Wirral Council through a contract with Eye Cab Limited between September 2014 and March 2015?

How much did taxis cost for councillors at Wirral Council through a contract with Eye Cab Limited between September 2014 and March 2015?

How much did taxis cost for councillors at Wirral Council through a contract with Eye Cab Limited between September 2014 and March 2015?

Eye Cab Ltd taxi invoice Wirral Council October 2014

During the 2014/15 audit I requested the contract between Wirral Council and Eye Cab Limited for LOT 4 (councillors taxis) called the Passenger Transport Contract. This is what the contract states about the invoices (pages 22 to 23):

2.3.8 Invoicing

Invoices should be submitted once a month for all journeys undertaken by Councillors for official business only. There will be no payment in advance for journeys. The invoice should contain the following information

Journey collection and arrival destinations

Date and time of journey

Name of the Councillor ordering the journey

Invoices will be paid at the price agreed between Wirral Council and the Contractor at the time of award of contract. If an overcharge is identified on an invoice a credit note will be required from the Contractor or a deduction for the amount owed clearly identified on the following invoice.

Invoices should be forwarded to:-

Carl Thompson
Legal and Member Services
Wallasey Town Hall
Brighton Street
CH44 8ED

However when I made a Freedom of Information request for the invoices for September 2014, October 2014, November 2014, December 2014, January 2015, February 2015 and March 2015, this was the response I got.

The invoices supplied don’t contain the times of journeys, or the journey collection or arrival destinations!

Wirral Council have also tried to black things out on these invoices (incompetently I might add with an image mask) because they class them as personal data.

All the underlying images of the invoices are still there as they’re using an image mask (that is the file contains two images that of the underlying invoice and over the top a further image used as a mask to black certain bits out).

Let’s start with the junior officer name at Wirral Council they blacked out which is Thompson, Carl S. [carlthompson@wirral.gov.uk].

Here’s the mobile phone number from this invoice: 0798 944 6652. I might point out that Eye Cab Limited publish this mobile phone number on their Facebook group page anyway.

Below are the totals by councillor for each invoice. The below are just journeys through this contract. It is possible for councillors to pay for taxi journeys themselves, then claim the money back from Wirral Council, in which case those figures would not be included below.

Invoice dated 27th September 2014 (LOT4/2)

Councillor Total Amount

Pat Hackett £5.20
Ron Abbey £43.40
Steve Niblock £9.40
Moira McLaughlin £42.80
Irene Williams £8.00

Invoice dated 4th October 2014 (LOT4/2)

Councillor Total Amount

Ron Abbey £56.60
Moira McLaughlin £16.00
Bill Davies £6.60

Invoice dated 4th October 2014 (LOT4/3)

Councillor Total Amount

Ron Abbey £34.00
Moira McLaughlin £31.00

Invoice dated 11th October 2014 (LOT4/5)

Councillor Total Amount

Moira McLaughlin £26.80
Ron Abbey £71.60
Bill Davies £6.60

Invoice dated 18th October 2014 (LOT4/6)

Councillor Total Amount

Moira McLaughlin £26.80
Pat Hackett £5.20
Ron Abbey £51.00

Invoice dated 24th October 2014 (LOT4/7)

Councillor Total Amount

Ron Abbey £76.00
Moira McLaughlin £31.50
Bill Davies £6.60
Muspratt £10.80
Pat Hackett £5.20

Invoice dated 31st October 2014 (LOT4/8)

Councillor Total Amount

Pat Hackett £5.20
Moira McLaughlin £18.80
Ron Abbey £71.00 *for two journeys includes waiting time of 5 minutes (£1) and 10 minutes (£2)

Invoice dated 8th November 2014 (LOT4/9)

Councillor Total Amount

Pat Hackett £15.60
Muspratt £12.20
Moira McLaughlin £33.40
Bill Davies £6.60
Niblock/Davies £10.80
Irene Williams £8.00
Ron Abbey £51.00

Invoice dated 15th November 2014 (LOT4/10)

Councillor Total Amount

Irene Williams £17.40
Pat Hackett £19.40
Steve Niblock £28.20
Bill Davies (down on invoice as W J Davies) £13.20
Moira McLaughlin £9.40

Invoice dated 22nd November 2014 (LOT4/11)

Councillor Total Amount

Steve Niblock (down on invoice as S. Niblock) £28.20
Moira McLaughlin £40.40
Bill Davies (down on invoice as W J Davies) £6.60
Irene Williams (down on invoice as I. Williams) £8.00
Muspratt (down on invoice as C. Muspratt) £12.20
Pat Hackett (down on invoice as P. Hackett) £11.80

Invoice dated 29th November 2014 (LOT4/12)

Councillor Total Amount

Moira McLaughlin £18.80

Invoice dated 6th December 2014 (LOT4/13)

Councillor Total Amount

Moira McLaughlin £9.40
Steve Niblock (down on invoice as Steve Nibkock) £37.60

Invoice dated 13th December 2014 (LOT4/14)

Councillor Total Amount

Steve Niblock (down on invoice as Steve Nibkock) £49.80
Moira McLaughlin (down on invoice as Moira McGlaughlin) £18.80
Bill Davies £13.20
Muspratt (down on invoice as Clr Muspratt) £12.20
Taxi Share £12.20

Invoice dated 20th December 2014 (LOT4/15)

Councillor Total Amount

Steve Niblock (down on invoice as Steve Nibkock) £59.20
Muspratt (down on invoice as Clr Muspratt) £12.20
Denise Realey (down on invoice as Denise Reaty) £8.00
Pat Hackett £11.80
Moira McLaughlin (down on invoice as Moira McGlaughlin) £10.80
Irene Williams £8.00

Invoice dated 10th January 2015 (LOT4/16)

Councillor Total Amount

Pat Hackett (down on invoice as P. Hackett) £11.80
Moira McLaughlin £79.40
Bill Davies £16.00

Invoice dated 17th January 2015 (LOT4/17)

Councillor Total Amount

Pat Hackett (down on invoice as P.Hackett) £9.40
Moira McLaughlin £28.20

Invoice dated 24th January 2015 (LOT4/18)

Councillor Total Amount

Irene Williams £8.00
Bill Davies £6.60
Moira McLaughlin £9.40
Niblock/Davies £12.20

Invoice dated 31st January 2015 (LOT4/19)

Councillor Total Amount

Steve Niblock £10.80
Bill Davies £6.60
Moira McLaughlin £28.20

Invoice dated 7th February 2015 (LOT4/20)

Councillor Total Amount

Steve Niblock £31.00
Moira McLaughlin £73.80
Williams/Muspratt £12.20
Irene Williams £9.40

Invoice dated 14th February 2015 (LOT4/21)

Councillor Total Amount

Moira McLaughlin £9.40
Steve Niblock £9.40

Invoice dated 21st February 2015 (LOT4/22)

Councillor Total Amount

Bill Davies £19.80
Irene Williams £8.00
Moira McLaughlin £9.40
Davies/McLaughlin £10.80

Invoice dated 28th February 2015 (LOT4/23)>

Councillor Total Amount

Moira McLaughlin £18.80
Bill Davies £18.40

Invoice dated 7th March 2015 (LOT4/24)

Councillor Total Amount

Moira McLaughlin £59.20

Invoice dated 21st March 2015 (LOT4/25)

Councillor Total Amount

Moira McLaughlin £28.20
Bill Davies £13.20
Irene Williams £8.00
Niblock/Davies £12.20

Grand totals (September 2014 to March 2015)

Cllr Pat Hackett £5.20 + £5.20 + £5.20 + £5.20 + £15.60 + £19.40 + £11.80 + £11.80 = £79.40

Cllr Ron Abbey £43.40 + £56.60 + £34.00 + £71.60 + £51.00 + £76.00 + £71.00 + £51.00 = £454.60

Cllr Steve Niblock (figures for Niblock/Davies not included here) £9.40 + £28.20 + £28.20 + £37.60 + £49.80 + £59.20 + £10.80 + £31.00 + £9.40 = £263.60

Cllr Moira McLaughlin (figures for Davies/McLaughlin not included here) £42.80 + £16.00 + £31.00 + £26.80 + £26.80 + £31.50 + £18.80 + £33.40 + £9.40 + £40.40 + £18.80 + £9.40 + £18.80 + £10.80 + £79.40 + £28.20 + £9.40 + £28.20 + £73.80 + £9.40 + £9.40 + £18.80 + £59.20 + £28.20 = £678.70

Cllr Irene Williams £8.00 + £8.00 + £17.40 + £8.00 + £8.00 + £8.00 + £9.40 + £8.00 + £8.00 = £82.80

Cllr Bill Davies £6.60 + £6.60 + £6.60 + £6.60 + £13.20 + £6.60 + £13.20 + £16.00 + £6.60 + £6.60 + £19.80 + £18.40 + £13.20 = £140.00

Cllr Muspratt (does not include Williams/Muspratt) £10.80 + £12.20 + £12.20 + £12.20 + £12.20 = £59.60

Cllrs Niblock/Davies (note not included in Cllr Steve Niblock’s amounts above and there are three councillors with the surname Davies) £10.80 + £12.20 = £23.00

Taxi Share £12.20

Cllr Denise Realey £8.00

Cllrs Williams/Muspratt (note not included in Cllr Muspratt’s amounts above and there are three councillors with the surname Williams) £12.20

Cllrs Davies/McLaughlin (note not included in Cllr McLaughlin’s amounts above and there are three councillors with the surname Davies) £10.80

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Who are the 20 Pledge Champions and how has Wirral Council’s Cabinet changed?

Who are the 20 Pledge Champions and how has Wirral Council’s Cabinet changed?

Who are the 20 Pledge Champions and how has Wirral Council’s Cabinet changed?

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Wirral Council’s Cabinet meeting held on the 5th November 2015

Cabinet (Wirral Council) 5th November 2015 Councillor Phil Davies asks Surjit Tour to introduce the report on Cabinet portfolios and Pledge Champions

Yesterday’s Cabinet meeting agreed changes to which area each councillor on the Cabinet covers and some minor changes to how each Cabinet portfolio’s description.

Instead of two Deputy Leaders at Wirral Council (Cllr George Davies and Cllr Ann McLachlan) there will now be only one Deputy Leader (Cllr Ann McLachlan).

You can read a list of the revised roles for each Cabinet portfolio holder on Wirral Council’s website.

I thought it would be useful to explicitly state each Cabinet’s former title and its new title (along with the councillor that now holds that role). Old titles are in italics. New titles are in bold. None of the councillors on the Cabinet have changed.

Councillor Phil Davies Leader of the Council Finance
Leader of the Council Strategic and Policy Oversight

Councillor Ann McLachlan Joint Deputy Leader of the Council Governance, Commissioning and Improvement
Deputy Leader of the Council Transformation and Improvement

Councillor George Davies Joint Deputy Leader of the Council Neighbourhoods, Housing and Engagement
Housing and Communities

Councillor Adrian Jones Support Services
Resources: Finance, Assets and Technology

Councillor Christine Jones Adult Social Care and Public Health
Adult Care and Public Health

Councillor Tony Smith Children and Family Services
Children and Families

Councillor Pat Hackett Economy
Business and Tourism

Councillor Bernie Mooney Environment and Sustainability
Environmental Protection

Councillor Chris Meaden Leisure, Sport and Culture
Leisure and Culture

Councillor Stuart Whittingham Highways and Transport
Transport, Technology Strategy and Infrastructure

In addition to those changes, Cabinet will now meet on Monday mornings at 10.00am starting in 2016.

Also decided were a number of Pledge Champions. The role of each Pledge Champion will be to make sure there is action on a specific pledge in the Wirral Council Plan: a 2020 Vision (formerly called the Corporate Plan).

Twenty councillors (all from the ruling Labour Group) were appointed as Pledge Champions (a role that Cllr Phil Davies pointed out at the Cabinet meeting doesn’t mean these councillors receive increased allowances). A list of who the Pledge Champions are (along with which pledge they are the champion for) was handed out at the Cabinet meeting and is below (but without the bullet points next to each pledge which was on the original). The pledges are in three broad themes of people, business and the environment.

20 PLEDGES

PEOPLE	CHAMPION

Older People Live Well	Irene Williams
Children are ready for school	Walter Smith
Young people are ready for work and adulthood	Phillip Brightmore
Vulnerable children reach their full potential	Treena Johnson
Reduce child and family poverty	Angela Davies
People with disabilities live independently	Rob Gregson
Zero tolerance to domestic violence	Janette Williamson

BUSINESS
Greater job opportunities in Wirral	Joe Walsh
Workforce skills match business needs	Jean Stapleton
Increase inward investment	Matthew Patrick
Thriving small businesses	Denise Realey
Vibrant Tourism economy	Matt Daniel
Transport & Technology infrastructure fit for the future	Ron Abbey
Assets and buildings are fit for purpose for Wirral’s businesses	Denise Roberts

ENVIRONMENT
Leisure and cultural opportunities for all	Christine Spriggs
Wirral residents live healthier lives	Steve Foulkes
Community services are joined up and accessible	Christina Muspratt
Good quality housing that meets the needs of residents	Steve Niblock
Wirral’s Neighbourhood are safe	Brian Kenny
Attractive local environment for Wirral residents	John Salter

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Notice of Motion on flooding in Moreton to be debated by Wirral’s councillors tonight

Notice of Motion on flooding in Moreton to be debated by Wirral’s councillors tonight

Notice of Motion on flooding in Moreton to be debated by Wirral’s councillors tonight

Cllr Chris Blakeley (foreground centre) the proposer of the Notice of Motion on flooding in Moreton at a public meeting last month

Wirral Council has a sub domain (democracy.wirral.gov.uk) on its website which is used to publish information to do with public meetings.

Due to the way its configured, the search engines (at least the search engines that respect such rules) are barred from searching pages on its website.

I have to declare at this point that I earn money from Google. However to illustrate this point a quick search of the site in Google will only show one page even though there are many more pages than that.

So I used a program called Xenu Link Sleuth to create an index of pages on that part of Wirral Council’s website. This has thrown up many interesting (and some quite frankly dull pages).

For example, one of the larger files on that part of Wirral Council’s website at nearly 17 megabytes is the Mersey Heartlands Water Cycle Study (January 2014) (100 pages) which was done for Wirral Council and Liverpool City Council by URS Infrastructure & Environment UK Ltd. The report is connected to this delegated decision made by the Cabinet Member for the Economy made on the 26th February 2014 and is a material consideration when deciding on planning applications.

Pages 65 to 72 of that report deal with management of flood risk and Notice of Motion 4 to tonight’s Council meeting is about flooding in Moreton. Labour have submitted an amendment (amendment 2 on this list) that adds an extra two paragraphs to the original motion.

That report mentions in detail the risks of various types of flooding and refers to the River Birket. As it states in the report:

"The main river draining the Wirral Mersey Heartland, the River Birket, relies on pumping, and the area is reliant on flood defences to minimise flood risk to the existing development both from fluvial and tidal flood risk and surface water drainage channels. Failure of these defences constitutes a residual risk of flooding to the area."

If you’re wondering what fluvial means, it means “of or relating to a river”.

The report also details what how new homes should be more water efficient through the Water Efficiency Targets such as through water efficient showers, rainwater harvesting and other measures to cut down the amount of water used by households.

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People power leads to Wirral Council U-turn on sale of Rock Ferry High School woodlands

People power leads to Wirral Council U-turn on sale of Rock Ferry High School woodlands

People power leads to Wirral Council U-turn on sale of Rock Ferry High School woodlands

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Wirral Council’s Cabinet meeting of the 10th September 2015. The item on Rock Ferry High School starts at 17 minutes and 16 seconds

Cabinet discusses the future of Rock Ferry High School 10th September 2015 L to R Cllr Chris Meaden Cllr Pat Hackett Cllr Adrian Jones

The issue of what happens to the former Rock Ferry High School site was on Wirral Council’s Cabinet agenda for a decision at last Thursday’s meeting.

Included with the reports for the meeting were details of the public meetings held. In case anyone has forgotten, one of the public meetings sparked a series of bizarre stories in the Liverpool Echo about what happened in the lead up to the 2015 General Election. The story continues with a Wirral Globe article and a Green Party investigation clearing its members of what Frank Field accused them of doing (which is that exceptional case of a party sticking by and believing its own members and not throwing them to the wolves when an influential member of another political party complains).

Maybe the Green Party aren’t like other political parties who take a "guilty until proven innocent (and we the party will decide upon what prove innocent means)" approach and grill the party member when a complaint happens. No I’m not referring to the recent suspensions of councillors in the Wirral Labour Group… but my own personal experience of the Lib Dems taking seriously a party political complaint about me from former Labour Cllr Harry Smith (sent to both me and the party with a Wirral Council "With compliments slip").

In essence his complaint was that when he was Vice-Chair of the Pensions Committee (the Pensions Committee manages the Merseyside Pension Fund worth £billions which has over a hundred thousand people either pensioners or employees part of it) I put in a leaflet to people in the Bidston & St James ward that he didn’t go to a meeting that reported the Merseyside Pension Fund had dropped by hundreds of millions of pounds.

His complaint was that he decided to go on holiday instead (he didn’t send a deputy to the meeting) and that my leaflet wasn’t unfair personally to him because it led to people going to his surgery and asking him questions (because and I mean this with a lot of dripping sarcasm of course, obviously the last thing a local councillor is paid a generous allowance of thousands of pounds a year for is to actually have to deal with the public and see what I write below for why the Labour Group of 2015 takes a different view on representing the public to Harry Smith). Therefore former Cllr Harry Smith (around the time of a one week suspension as a councillor for not apologising properly for bullying) wanted disciplinary action taken against me by the Lib Dem Party for telling the Bidston & St James residents the truth.

Ultimately the Lib Dem Party (who then were always very keen to curry favour with other political parties) gave him and his fellow Labour party members their way in 2011 but the Lib Dems (under a lot of pressure to get rid of me) did it so badly, the Birkenhead County Court ruled one of the Lib Dem councillors, the local Birkenhead party and indeed the whole Lib Dem Party had broken the law in doing so.

Thus proving that politicians are terrible at realising that there are legal limits on what they should or shouldn’t do. As many will know, the political class have an arrogant view at times that rules and laws apply to everyone but them! The MP expenses scandal showed that.

However to be fair (and hopefully as balanced as I can be) to the Lib Dem Party, their view is that an unlawful decision still stands and court orders should be flouted (and then the Lib Dem Party wonders why it lost 49 MPs at the recent General Election?)

As former Cllr Harry Smith didn’t get his way over that complaint he tried to stop filming of a public meeting of Pensions Committee meeting stopped, telling others on the Pensions Committee it I was because I was a member of a political party (at the time a lie as I wasn’t a member of the Lib Dems then, due no doubt in part to his complaints and moaning about me "blotting my copybook" as one party member put it). A rather young fellow Labour councillor had the gall to tell him such a point was irrelevant which really got him going, however I am digressing into stories from yesteryear. It was suggested to me recently that I should be more positive (however remembering how former Cllr Harry Smith used to be is enough to spoil anyone’s good mood)!

Returning to the Cabinet meeting, Cllr Adrian Jones explained that Rock Ferry High School had closed in 2011. He outlined the process that had to be followed if the Rock Ferry High School and the playing fields were to be used for a different purpose and that this required government approval from the Minister. He summarised the efforts so far on finding an alternative educational use for the buildings which unfortunately had not panned out.

The costs (business rates and security) of managing the vacant site were costing Wirral Council money. The original intention had been for Wirral Council to sell the buildings and playing fields. However following public consultation and "opposition" to disposal of the site, a compromise position had been found or as Cllr Adrian Jones put it, “However, we are a listening Council and following extensive public consultation it was evidenced that there was a very significant amount of opposition to that proposal.”

He went on to say that this option would produce a reduced capital receipt to Wirral Council, but this would allow the Residents’ Association to bring forward proposals for the playing fields and woodland.

Cllr Adrian Jones proposed the following recommendation.

"It is recommended that:

17.1 Cabinet approves the submission of the application to the Secretary of State for Education for the disposal and change of use of the former Rock Ferry High School.

17.2 Approve the mixed use option for the site as outlined in 6.4

17.2 Approve officers to progress development proposals to site (area A) for residential development in accordance with local planning requirements

17.3 Work with the newly formed Rock Ferry Residents Association to bring forward proposals for the management of the site (areas B and C)"

For the purposes of information 6.4 (which recommendation 17.2) of the report refers to states:

6.4 Take account of local views and develop a mixed use option for the site

(i) area (A) i.e. the main school site, development for housing

(ii) areas (B) and (C) the former playing field site could be considered for community asset transfer for continued sport use and open space. This is of particular interest to the residents in the area and plans for the management and development of the area are being considered. Football clubs in the area have expressed an interest and there are opportunities for obtaining grant funding. This area was previously designated as school playing fields and the only community use was through lettings agreed with the school, general community access was not endorsed.

Areas B and C are detailed in the report. Areas B and C are playing fields and area A covers the buildings and part of the playing fields.

Councillor Chris Meaden pointed out that it was in her ward and referred to "slightly heated meetings" that she had attended and that they’d listened to the residents, changed the recommendations so that the woodland was kept and the sports field. She thanks the residents of Rock Ferry and that "we hope we’ve proved ourselves to you"

Cllr Meaden went on to thank Jeannette Royle (Senior Manager, Asset Management), David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive) and David Ball (Head of Regeneration) for attending the meetings and she wanted to thank them for their support and their efforts in listening to residents.

The recommendation were agreed by Cabinet.

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U-turn on Fort Perch Rock car parking charges and 2 other updates

U-turn on Fort Perch Rock car parking charges and 2 other updates

U-turn on Fort Perch Rock car parking charges and 2 other updates

Fort Perch Rock car park 29th June 2015 Photo 1 of 3

There have been developments recently with a number of stories I’ve written about on this blog so I thought I would give an update for each story.

New Brighton Fort Perch Rock car parking charges

A week ago I wrote a story headlined Over 3,000 people have signed a petition against car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock in New Brighton but what happens next?

Personally I thought nothing further would happen on this story until the September meeting of Wirral Council’s Highways and Traffic Representation Panel. However, since writing that story Wirral Council have issued a press release that’s titled either “Resort parking plans quashed” (when it’s linked to from their homepage) or “Wirral Council leader says no to plans to charge for parking in New Brighton” from the press release.

There is a very interesting quote in the press release from Councillor Phil Davies that states “Cllr Pat Hackett, our Cabinet Member for the Economy, has been meeting with traders and business leaders in New Brighton to discuss the proposals, and they made a powerful case for not proceeding. When we looked at the plan and the possible impact on parking and tourism across the whole of the resort, I made the decision to stop the proposal”.

On the 22nd December 2014, I wrote on this blog When Wirral Council introduces car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock, will 3 hours free parking end for a further 423 New Brighton spaces? (later updating it this year by including the public notice). I published the three pages of Wirral Council’s lease for the Marine Point development at New Brighton that detailed if Wirral Council introduced car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock car park, charges could be introduced at the supermarket car park and the “health and fitness” car park (originally Bubbles was going to be a gym but they couldn’t find a company that wanted to run it as a gym). This was plenty of time before the 2015/16 budget for Wirral Council was agreed on the 24th February 2015 for councillors to change their mind.

An article by Liam Murphy in the Liverpool Echo states “But Promenade Estates, who manage part of the successfully regenerated resort, say if the charges are imposed they would have little choice but to follow suit. This would mean parking charges on the car parks serving Morrisons, The Light Cinema, Bubbles play centre and other businesses.”

So it wasn’t just a “possible impact” but a “probable impact”. On the 9th December 2014, Councillor Phil Davies proposed and voted for this resolution at a Cabinet meeting, that was seconded and agreed by all councillors including Cllr Pat Hackett:

“We also feel that it is appropriate to introduce a modest charge for parking at Fort Perch Rock in New Brighton up to 6 p.m.”

“67.We also feel it is appropriate that a modest charge for parking up to 6 pm. at Fort Perch Rock in New Brighton should be introduced.”

So Councillor Phil Davies U-turned on his own policy! However it begs the following question, if the reason for stopping the proposal is the impact on parking across the resort (as stated in the quote from Cllr Phil Davies), then why wasn’t he told about the impact on parking elsewhere in Marine Point by his own officers before Cabinet made the decision? As you can see below from the first page of the lease that has the clauses about parking, Wirral Council is the landlord for the Marine Point development.

New Brighton Marine Point lease Wirral Council Neptune Wirral Ltd cover page

I’ll also draw readers attention to a leaflet from April 2015 from Tony Pritchard (the Conservative candidate for New Brighton ward and former councillor opposing parking charges at Fort Perch Rock car park.

The mysteriously missing Employment Tribunal judgement

I wrote previously about my failed attempts to get a copy of an Employment Tribunal judgement in a case involving Wirral Council. I have since been told by a clerk to the Employment Tribunal that the case hasn’t concluded and that there will be a final hearing listed for November 2015. After the final hearing I can request a copy of the judgement.

Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority and DHA Communications

An earlier story headlined Why did Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority pay a PR agency £650 + VAT a day? which involved Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority paying a £1,625 monthly retainer has led to a statement from Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority which I will quote here:

“I confirm that the Authority no longer retains DHA Communications and the use of their services ceased as of March 31st 2015. The Authority recognises that some parts of its relationship with DHA Communications was not fully formalised in some time periods. The Authority has reviewed its practices in relation to this type of contract and has now put in additional measures and monitoring in place to ensure that an accurate audit trail is retained.”

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