5 days after Lyndale School closes, Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet will meet to decide on a further consultation on sale of Lyndale School and the playing fields
5 days after Lyndale School closes, Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet will meet to decide on a further consultation on sale of Lyndale School and the playing fields
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote to close Lyndale School L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan
Wirral Council’s Cabinet, who decided to close Lyndale School effective from the end of August 2016 (this month), will be making a further decision about Lyndale School at the first Cabinet meeting after it closes.
The decision to close Lyndale School was opposed by the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green Party councillors on Wirral Council, but supported by Labour councillors.
At a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Cabinet to be held on the 5th September 2016, the Cabinet will be asked to declare Lyndale School a surplus asset and to seek permission from the government to sell both the Lyndale School site and the playing fields. If agreed there will then be a further consultation on disposal.
The review of commissioning of high needs places, promised to parents during the drawn out process of closing Lyndale School (which many parents stated would conclude after Lyndale School had been closed) will report back to Cabinet on the 3rd of October 2016 (around 5 weeks after Lyndale School will have closed).
Elleray Park School (another primary school on Wirral in the special sector) has recently had internal alterations and an extension in a contract estimated at £1,028,109.84. It was stated by Wirral Council’s senior management that some of the remaining pupils at Lyndale School when it closed would be transferred to Elleray Park (although this appears now not to be the case as parents have chosen other schools) and an invoice for some of the recent building work (£170,798.74) at Elleray Park School is below.
Wirral Council Elleray Park Primary School Lyjon Company Ltd £170,796.74 28th September 2015 resized
Also in 2015 the former Foxfield School in Moreton (which is another special primary school on the Wirral but for clarity this is after the school was moved from Moreton to a new site in Woodchurch) was demolished (see invoice below).
Wirral Council Foxfield School Powell Demolition Ltd £82,050.25th November 2015 resized
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What are the details of the recommendation to Wirral councillors about a senior management restructure at Wirral Council (1 redundancy, 5 promotions, 4 posts created and 4 vacant posts deleted)?
What are the details of the recommendation to Wirral councillors about a senior management restructure at Wirral Council (1 redundancy, 5 promotions, 4 posts created and 4 vacant posts deleted)?
Surjit Tour (Monitoring Officer (Wirral Council)) at the Coordinating Committee held on 15th June 2016 (who is one of the employees recommended for an increase in pay)
Councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee will decide on changes to Wirral Council’s senior management next week on Monday 25th July 2016. If approved by councillors the restructure will take effect from November 2016.
This senior management restructure had been put on hold until Eric Robinson’s appointment by councillors as Chief Executive of Wirral Council in February 2015.
There is a recommendation that one senior manager (the Head of Housing and Community Safety Ian Platt) be made redundant, offered early retirement and his post is deleted. However the recommendation from officers is that his name and the financial details of how much this will cost are kept out of the public domain before the public meeting and that councillors decide on whether to release the information about Ian Platt after the meeting has been held.
The following senior managers are recommended to receive a promotion:
Tom Sault (who has been acting up to the s.151 officer role will be permanently appointed to it)
Surjit Tour (who has been Monitoring Officer since shortly after Bill Norman was suspended in 2012 will now receive extra pay for being Monitoring Officer too in addition to his other job)
Mark Smith (promoted from Head of Environment and Regulation to Strategic Commissioner for Environment)
Alan Evans (promoted from Investment and Business Manager to Strategic Commissioner for Growth)
Sue Talbot (promoted from Schools Commissioning Manager to Lead Commissioner for Schools)
Vacant posts deleted (4)
Strategic Director for Regeneration and Environment (formerly Kevin Adderley)
Director of Resources (formerly Vivienne Quayle)
Head of Neighbourhoods and Engagement (formerly Emma Degg)
Head of Business Processes (formerly Malcolm Flanagan)
Posts deleted because postholder being promoted (3)
Investment and Business Manager (current postholder Alan Evans)
Schools Commissioner Manager (current postholder Sue Talbot)
Senior Manager (current postholder unknown)
Posts created (if approved by councillors) 4
Transformation Director (grade HS2 (£68,011 to £75,567)) Assistant Director: Commissioning Support (grade HS2 (£68,011 to £75,567)) Assistant Director: Community Services* (grade HS2 (£68,011 to £75,567)) Assistant Director: Adult and Disability Services* (grade HS2 (£68,011 to £75,567))
*Note new posts marked with * are recommended to be recruited internally from existing Wirral Council employees.
Penna will be advising Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee &Wirral Council officers on appointments to these four posts at a cost of £thousands per each post. If the creation of the new posts is agreed by councillors, councillors will also decide who the successful applicants are.
The councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee (although the councillors below can send a deputy in their place if they can’t make a particular meeting) are:
Cllr Adrian Jones (Chair) (Labour)
Cllr Phil Davies (Vice-Chair) (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour)
Cllr Moira McLaughlin (Labour)
Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative)
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Liberal Democrat)
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What did Bernard Halley tell Wirral councillors about a 7,000+ petition against the closure of Girtrell Court?
What did Bernard Halley tell Wirral councillors about a 7,000+ petition against the closure of Girtrell Court?
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Council (Wirral Council) 11th July 2016 Agenda item 4B (Petitions) Petition of over 7,000 requesting Council halt closure of Girtrell Court
Council (Wirral Council) 11th July 2016 Agenda item 4B Petitions Bernard Halley (right) speaks to a petition against the closure of Girtrell Court
As you can hear in the video above, Bernard Halley had five minutes to address Wirral Council’s councillors on the subject of his petition requesting that the closure of Girtrell Court be halted.
“….” refers to parts which are unclear due to his distance from the microphone and background noise. DASS stands for the Department of Adult Social Services.
Benard Halley said, “Thank you Mr. Mayor. I would like to take this opportunity to address the issues in this petition.
The petition that we refer to is on on change.org and it is about the closure of Girtrell Court.
The current statistics which have been very carefully balloted are 4,778 Wirral postcode signatures, 2,211 UK wide signatures and a 101 worldwide signatures, so it’s getting quite a bit of notoriety.
I would say at this stage that I have absolutely no political affiliation whatsoever, so I’m not grinding any of the traditional axes in this room.
In fact, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want, I don’t relish being regarded as a troublemaker, I would much rather support DASS in all their endeavours but this is an issue of principle that has to be followed through.
You are closing a service which whilst not perfect, enjoys the full confidence of parents and carers against their clearly expressed wishes.
Confidence that is held in Girtrell Court is vital when you ask us to entrust our loved ones to a third party.
Your process so far as carers are concerned have been flawed from the start. You decide an end product closure and then work backwards to find a solution that fits.
We find no evidence whatsoever that users called for change. We have objectively polled Girtrell Court users using an open question poll document and their data contradicts the …. . I challenge the Council to make full disclosure of their case to the scrutiny committee for independent evaluation.
Mr Phil Davies has repeatedly used the phrase, “equal or better”. That begs the question who decides what is equal or better? Surely it should be the users of the service?
Well Mr Davies you are a long way from equal to or better at the moment.
You have a potential building and a potential service provider. You do not have a service specification and terms of the contract which is absolutely vital for carers. We want to know that this is not a flash in the pan. There is no comparable staffing ratio data. There is no confirmation that users will have equal to time allocation, there is no information on the range or extent of user activities necessary to equal Girtrell or is this new service going to be just a baby sitting service?
In short you do not have or are far from the complete package which will enable anyone to evaluate equal or better.
Recent correspondence and press releases including emails from your Chief Executive claim that the closure decision has been made in partnership with carers. This is categorically untrue.
None of the carers have agreed to the closure of Girtrell Court.
Carers, including myself have often argued on the comparative virtues of three properties and provider combinations but with the sole motivation of ensuring any alternatives that originated was the best out of the limited choice available.
This was not and is not an agreement or approval for Girtrell Court closure.
The property chosen has some virtues but and this is a big but, the …. is on three floors and even with a lift there are concerns over evacuation capability in the event of a fire.
I am told that one of the principal reasons for closing Maplehome was an identical concern over evacuation capability.
Please do not use this as a Tory versus Labour slanging match which has characterised every debate on Girtrell.
Both propositions have occurred under the remit of DASS, so why is what was unacceptable then suddenly acceptable now?
I come to timescales. We were told at the start that the end of March was unachievable. My position cited the end of September as a possible appropriate date.
Now work on the property is unlikely to be completed by the end of November at best and only then can the Care Quality Commission’s approval be sought. So even with a fair wind, it might be the end of December it seems optimistic.
This ill-managed project has caused worry, distress and concern not only to service users, but to their carers. Many of whom are much older than I, have greater burdens to carry and who do not need Wirral Borough Council subjecting them to 9 months or more of added stress.
We come back to the starting point, you should have and could have used this financial year to plan and a design for a replacement service, while allowing users the confidence that Girtrell will continue seamlessly until an equal to or better than service can be constructed.
Instead, you reverse engineered a flawed solution which does this Council and its officers no credit whatsoever.
The petition has attracted over 7,000 signatures.
If you should ignore this level of public support moreover to do so by muscling your own councillors using a three line whip to stifle those points of view with compassion and conscience is a travesty of democracy for which this Administration should be truly ashamed.
(loud applause and cheers from the public gallery)
The bare minimum for the hard pressed carers should be afforded is consultation on the full package solution as I identified earlier.
If I may read a portion of the petition because it is pertinent, “Our demand is simple, retain the excellent Girtrell Court and its professional caring staff until the Council has researched carer and cared for needs, analysed, researched, costed and fully consulted on the suitability of any replacement offering.”
Solution before dissolution! Thank you for your time.
(loud applause and cheers from the public gallery)”
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Do Cllr Christina Muspratt’s election expenses add up (a councillor who is on Wirral Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee overseeing £billions of public money)?
Do Cllr Christina Muspratt’s election expenses add up (a councillor who is on Wirral Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee overseeing £billions of public money)?
I’ve decided to publish the election expenses by ward alphabetically. However these are only for candidates who got over a quarter of the vote.
There was a small delay in inspecting these returns due to the pressures on the election side at Wirral Council due to the EU Referendum.
The first one is for Bebington ward and that of Christina Muspratt (the Labour candidate) who was elected as a councillor.
Cllr Christina Muspratt sits on Wirral Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee overseeing hundreds of millions of pounds of public expenditure and also (as Wirral Council is the Administering Authority) the multi-billion pound Merseyside Pension Fund Wirral Council runs (although the Pensions Committee also have oversight of the Merseyside Pension Fund)).
However her donations and spending don’t match in the pages below.
Her campaign lists £243.06 of spending (although some notional spending should’ve also been declared but mysteriously wasn’t as the printing of leaflets at Alison McGovern‘s office (the Labour MP for Wirral South) was done at below commercial rates)).
Indeed the use of taxpayer-funded resources at Wirral Council and at Alison McGovern’s office (the Labour MP for Wirral South) is odd as generally there is a bar on taxpayer-funded elements to party political activity during elections and indeed if people would like to leave comments explaining this it would be welcome.
As a general rule having the taxpayer fund elements of an election campaign (a party political matter) is seen as wrong.
There are however only £150 in donations to cover this spending though. I hope Labour aren’t applying this kind of voodoo economics to Wirral Council too!
The declarations signed by herself and her agent are also included. As she was well under the spending limit (even if you include what the notional expenditure should’ve been) of £1,456.16 it’s unlikely anything that this will result other than mild embarrassment as in future (hopefully) she will read things before signing them!
I’ve included the originals as a zipped file below, thumbnails of the return (which as a lot of it’s handwritten may be hard to read) are below that.
I’ve linked each thumbnail to a higher resolution image which should show if you click on the thumbnail.
Good afternoon Phil
I have begun to pick myself up after the outcome of the Referendum, an outcome neither of us desired.
However the result is what it is and I’ve no idea when the Government will set Article 50 in motion.
In the meantime I would welcome any briefing papers you can supply on the on the European funding stream that exist currently
I expect there will be streams we have expected and planned / hoped for and still are working to gain for Wirral and the region.
I say working to gain as I feel we have to start work on this!
With Cabinet coming up on Monday morning I expect you will want to address this, possibly under any other business / urgency.
Thinking on these lines would suggest that a statement to Cabinet, a referral or Motion to Council might run along these lines…
. Council/Cabinet recognises that funding is currently available for a range of projects, training and investments to support our local and regional economy.
Council is, as with many other bodies, is uncertain on how the funding streams might be replaced, and when but believe arrangements must be made to
secure equivalent replacement funding.
Council therefore calls on the present Government to clarify the situation, offer certainty to our region, and continue the programmes as
envisaged. Council asks for assurances that the UK Government and any successor will match pound for pound any funding stream that are now at risk as a result of the Referendum.
Ideally each group on the Council would accept a formula to present a united approach from Wirral and the region. I would be happy to develop the wording in consultation.
. At various times in the recent campaign various ‘Leave’ people suggested that money would be ‘freed’ for the NHS, Agriculture, etc.
I cannot recall seeing whether ‘regional’ aid got the same treatment!
I will be home on 334 1923 on Sunday evening if you would like to have a word.
