Cllr Phil Davies | A blog about Wirral Council, Wirral Council's councillors & officers

The £1,092,160.12 PFI invoice connected to Lyndale School & why Wirral Council can afford to keep Lyndale open

To the left is a £1,092,160.12 invoice for Wirral Council for paying a company called Wirral School Services Limited under a PFI agreement. This is a monthly invoice, so the yearly total comes to about £12 million. As previously reported this is a story about money and education that is rather complex, but does connect to Lyndale School.

The current PFI contract was signed ten years ago, when Cllr Phil Davies was Cabinet Member for this area. It was originally supposed to run for 25 years in 2001 but was extended in 2004.

For many of these years, if I am getting this right, it was funded from general Council resources and not through the Schools Budget. This year £600,000 of costs for the PFI agreement are paid for by an £1.4 million underspend in money that it was agreed would be spent on special educational needs.

Next year, it’s been stated that Wirral Council want to reduce its contribution to the PFI agreement by £2 million, which led to some angry exchanges at a recent Wirral Schools Forum meeting about the consequences of this decision.

Basically it means that for 2015-16 (the year that there’s been the recent consultation on closing Lyndale) that £2 million of extra compensatory savings will have to be found because of a political decision. The actual funding from one year to the next that Wirral Council is receiving for education isn’t really changing that much so this £2 million issue has dare I say it ruffled some feathers.

I state political decision because (yes there was a U-turn on this last year so who knows really) statements already made are that Labour want to freeze Council Tax in 2015-16 at 2014-15 levels.

However, going back to Lyndale School (soon to be discussed at a special Cabinet meeting). This underspend on special educational needs (money already agreed that should be spent in this area) was shifted out of that budget to pay for the PFI costs. I have requested the actual contract between Wirral Council and Wirral School Services Limited, first by a freedom of information request (denied), now as part of the audit (I’m still waiting).

Based on what I do know, I can tell you this. Part of the PFI cost is funded by a fixed grant Wirral Council get of £5.5 million a year. There are facilities management support costs built into the contract that Wirral Council charge the schools for which total about £3.3 million a year. However this leaves a gap of £2.5 million.

Until this year (although strangely at the Lyndale call in officers stated that funding educational items from outside the schools budget would cause problems and as far as I remember somewhat glossed over the fact that they were already doing this to the tune of £millions for the PFI schools), Wirral Council have plugged this gap.

The problem is essentially due to a political decision not to raise Council Tax in 2015-16 and not carry on with this arrangement (diverting an underspend from special educational needs to plug the gap this year) that although the education money Wirral Council receive is hardly changing that from next year (when there’s a General Election on) the cuts to education can be blamed on the national coalition government despite this being a local decision that’s been made.

I’ve looked at what happened in another borough on Merseyside at their Schools Forum when there’s an underspend in special educational needs. The money didn’t get diverted in this way and was carried forward to the next year to be also spent in that budget area.

There’s no legal impediment in money between different budget headings in the schools budget being shifted around in this way, but as far as I can tell not one of the schools covered by the PFI agreement fall into the special schools category (please correct me if I’m wrong on this point). Therefore there is the moral question to be asked should money previously agreed to be spent on special educational needs be diverted to pay for PFI projects in this way?

Obviously if you’re a parent or member of staff at Lyndale School the answer to that would probably be no. Yes, I have somewhat simplified matters and there are complicated factors involved also in schools funding such as the minimum funding guarantee which for example for this year guarantees that the money schools receive from Wirral Council won’t drop by more than 1.5%.

Interestingly as Wirral Council wanted to bring in its “banding” for special educational needs this year, it asked the Education Funding Agency for permission to drop school budgets by more than the minimum funding guarantee (which is a legal requirement) allows. However this request was withdrawn.

There is also a little confusion as to what was agreed by the Wirral Schools Forum in its five bands for special educational needs. There’s £10,000 for each child, then bands depending on need that go up to £16,000 (band five). However band five was never an absolute limit and from what I remember there was flexibility to go above this in certain circumstances. In fact I doubt putting funding into bands would have ever been agreed by the Wirral Schools Forum without that uncapped band.

You see there is an uncapped band that applies to independent schools, non-maintained schools or schools located outside of Wirral. If Lyndale closed and some children were transferred to schools outside of Wirral there wouldn’t be a cap on their education funding. In fact it almost seems wrong to cap funding to Wirral’s special schools, but not outside of the Wirral.

To give an example of a special education school on the Wirral that falls into the independent category, below is a three page invoice to Wirral Council for one term which totals £535,098.00. These fees range from £10,213 a term to £23,361.00 (or over a year would be from ~£31k to £69k per a pupil). Just for comparison, the consultation on closing Lyndale is because ~£33k a child per a year is seen as high, but when you compare that to what children at West Kirby Residential School cost Wirral Council is actually lower.

44 children at West Kirby Residential School cost £535,098 a term (£12,161 a term). There are three terms in a year, so that works out at about £36,483 a child there compared to ~£33k at Lyndale.

The truth is Wirral Council officers have made an artificial comparison between Lyndale School and other special schools were the needs of children (and therefore staffing costs) were far, far less than at Lyndale School which made Lyndale School look expensive by comparison.

What do you think? Below is a heavily redacted invoice (unfortunately as its double-sided some of the redactions come through on the other side) that backs up my argument that Wirral Council does have the money currently to fund special schools at Lyndale levels (or even in the case of West Kirby Residential School above Lyndale levels).

West Kirby Residential School invoice November 2013 Page 1 of 3 £535098

West Kirby Residential School invoice November 2013 Page 2 of 3 £535098

West Kirby Residential School invoice November 2013 Page 3 of 3 £535098

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Who were the 108 organisations & people (not councillors) that Wirral Council invited to the Open Golf?

Wirral Host of the Open Championship 2014

Previously I reported on this blog about the Chief Executive’s email to councillors inviting them to the recent Open Golf tournament. It was a slow news day then and I really didn’t think there would be the interest in it there was.

Since then, a number of people have made various Freedom of Information requests as there was scepticism from some people that the stated reasons given by Wirral Council’s press office applied to everyone that Wirral Council invited. In case you missed it here’s a transcript of what was said back then and Cllr Walter “I must say I enjoyed lavish hospitality” Smith’s take on it.

A partial list of those invited by Wirral Council has been released, however they’re holding some names back because of commercial negotiations.

The original response from Wirral Council stated was the purpose of inviting these organisations was “to attend key business days, which are aiming to attract significant inward investment into the area.”

Firstly, I am puzzled as to why Wirral Council have invited the local press (no Leonora and I weren’t invited so we happily report on this without any conflict of interest) as the local press could’ve applied for press passes for the tournament from the Open Golf’s organisers. The press in the list are the Daily Mirror (for three days), Sky, Liverpool Echo, Wirral Globe, Radio Merseyside and an entry just mysteriously put down as “press”. Why pay for tickets for these organisations when the conference organisers could’ve quite easily given them tickets instead as they were press?

Wirral Council also invited the Bishop of Birkenhead, High Sheriff of Merseyside, Esther McVey MP and guest and Jacqueline Foster MEP and guest.

Yes, a Labour Council using public money to invite Esther McVey to the golf (who let’s face it can afford to pay for her own ticket) isn’t likely to go down well with the unions, who were outside the very same tournament conducting a high profile protest calling for Esther McVey to be sacked (accompanied with a seven foot inflatable rat).

Other names on the list are Weightmans Lawyers and Grant Thornton. Weightmans Lawyers are a form of solicitors that Wirral Council spent £198,043.55 with in the last financial year, Grant Thornton are Wirral Council’s auditors and are paid large sums of money by Wirral Council too.

Neither of those two seem likely to suddenly decide to create hundreds of jobs on the Wirral and they already do nicely enough out of the taxpayer to afford their own tickets to the golf!

Sainsburys was also invited along to the golf too. Yes Sainsburys do employ people on the Wirral, but I’ve heard nothing about a flurry of new stores being opened providing new jobs, have you?

Nearby councils such as Knowsley, Chester West and Chester as well as the Department for Communities and Local Government were also invited. So were Lord and Lady Hunt of Wirral and the Isle of Man Government.

Now, don’t get me wrong, some names on the list DONG Energy (involved in offshore wind farms), General Motors (UK & Ireland) and organisations such as these, Wirral Council are obviously trying to persuade to make inward investment on the Wirral to create jobs. Employment is needed on the Wirral and I’m sure not many would criticise Wirral Council for making genuine attempts to increase local employment.

However there are also a bunch of organisations on the list that it is difficult to ascertain why they were there such as “Future of the North Conference” (that puzzles me perhaps as much as it puzzles you) and “Mere Brook House” (a B&B on the Wirral).

At this time, when Wirral Council is planning on shedding about five hundred staff, there’s a meeting coming up to discuss the possible closure of Lyndale School and Wirral Council spent at least £754,783.18 on its own councillors this is money spent on hospitality for many individuals and organisations that could have easily afforded to pay for themselves. This is at the same time that Wirral Council is dragging the poor through the Magistrates Court for unpaid council tax, when people are evicted because they can’t afford the bedroom tax*/spare room subsidy* (*delete as applicable depending on political preference) and is this really what the public expect of a Labour administration who proudly state on their election leaflets they are socialists?

Or would “champagne socialist” be the way that those more critical of Wirral Council’s political class would describe it? In case you missed it here’s the link to the list of councillors and organisations/people that went to the golf. And doesn’t it just sum it all up when the “open and transparent” Council state “Some organisations have not been included on these lists due to ongoing commercial negotiations between Wirral Council and the organisations in question”. Oh really! So that implies Wirral Council are giving out gifts and expecting something in return!?

As usual your comments on this are much appreciated. Below is the list of 108 people/organisations that Wirral Council invited (if you want to see the list of councillors just follow the link above). Some I’ve never heard of so if you have any further information on who or what they are, please leave a comment.

Bibby Marine Ltd
British Chamber of Commerce
British Slovenian Chamber
Caldy Golf Club
Contact Group
Contemdum
CPL Training
Daily Mirror
DTZ
Helms Briscoe
Hermes
International Festival of Business
Sun Valley
IPW
KMGC Golf Consultancy
KPMG
Liverpool Chamber
Mere Brook House
Mersey Rural Leader
Merseyside Convention Bureau
Neptune Developments
Osiris Projects
Oxygen 8
PNH Consultancy
Regen Europe.
River Rich Media LLP
Sainsburys
Saudi British Joint Business Council
Sky
Solar Consulting Australia
Sovex
Stonegate Pub Company
Thwaites
UK Regeneration
Weightmans Laywers
Wirral Food Drink Partnership
World Corporate Games
All Our Bars
Beeline Ltd
Cammell Laird
Clear Edge Filtration Ltd.
Coca Cola UK
CPL Training
Daily Mirror
DONG Energy
Future of The North Conference
Grant Thornton
Havas Lynx
IoM Government
Keel Toys
Land & Marine
Insider
Osiris Projects
Rakuten
River Island
TecnoForm Associates‎ Ltd
Thorley Taverns
Wainwright and Gibson
Weightmans Lawyers
Aberdeen Asset Management
Bentley Motors
Briggs Automotive Company
Contact Company
Daily Mirror
DC Consulting
General Motors UK & Ireland
Havas Lynx
Hotel Bookings.com
IDH
JLR
Liverpool Echo
Marketing Liverpool
McLaren
Music Magpie
Oxygen 8
Pageant of Power
Palmer and Harvey
Press
Programme Direct UTV
Rakuten
Sainsburys
Shannon Airport
Toyota
Trimtech
Unipart
Wirral Chamber
Bentley Motors
Bishop of Birkenhead
Consul General of China
Dept for Communities
General Motors UK & Ireland
High Sheriff of Merseyside
Lord and Lady Hunt of Wirral
Knowsley Council
Cheshire West & Chester Council
LEP
Liverpool Echo
Lord Lieutenant of Merseyside
Mayoress of Wirral
McLaren
Jacqueline Foster MEP and guest
Merseytravel
Esther McVey MP and guest
Radio Merseyside
St Helens Council
Wirral Globe
Wirral Met College

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Wirral Council’s Cabinet to decide on one of 3 options for Lyndale: keep it open, close it or change it to an academy

Phil Ward (Wirral Council’s SEN Lead) at a later meeting of Wirral Schools Forum 2nd July 2014 (who chaired the consultation meeting at Acre Lane on the 16th June and is referred to in some of the consultation responses)

Well the papers for the special meeting of Wirral Council’s Cabinet to decide on the next steps about Lyndale School have appeared on Wirral Council’s website.

Despite an officer refusing a month ago my Freedom of Information request for the consultation responses on the basis that they would be published (which implies that they would be published as part of the papers for the special Cabinet meeting) the consultation responses (a majority of responses are against closing the school) aren’t included in the papers for the Cabinet meeting.

In an exclusive for this blog I did publish them on Tuesday, but that’s not really the point.

I hate to labour the point, but this is how consultations are “supposed to work”. An idea or policy is proposed, you have a consultation on it, you then publish the consultation responses in an open and transparent way so that the decision makers take them on board.

Not including the consultation responses with the Cabinet papers for the special meeting, gives the impression that officers don’t want material published that would lead to say “awkward questions”. Surely doing consultations isn’t rocket science, surely Wirral Council has run so many consultations they know how to do it by now?

The “bureaucratic machinations” go beyond just this “oversight” of not including the approximately three hundred pages of consultation responses. After all some of those responses are very critical of the way the consultation was actually run.

Let’s take how officers deal with the large petition. This gets a brief mention in appendix 5 on the last page.

I quote “A petition was received in support of Lyndale School containing 10,692 entries, of which 2,580 were duplicates, illegible or un-named, missing or non-existent addresses and 3,178 were resident outside Wirral. The remaining 4,935 entries comprised 702 “written” entries and 4,233 “epetition” entries.”

Last time I checked, Wirral wasn’t its own country with a big twenty-foot wall on the border and rumours of “barbarians” outside Wirral that well, you don’t have to listen to. The school is in Eastham which is on the edge of Wirral! Of course there are going to be people outside of Wirral are going to sign the petition (some of whom will probably live far nearer the school than I do living in Bidston). To callously state or imply that the views of over three thousand people don’t count because they don’t live here, I mean well doesn’t this sum up an attitude that has caused some of the problems and got Wirral nicknamed the “insular peninsula”? Family members of those attending the school could be living outside the Wirral, so could staff or other people closely associated with the school.

Moving on to duplicates, there was a written petition and an e-petition, obviously some people will have signed both versions. As to “illegible or un-named, missing or non-existent addresses”, well (I’m writing this as someone who has in the past gone door to door collecting petition signatures but I’ll point out not this petition) there are many adults in today’s society that couldn’t write their own name and address even if they wanted to (a sad reflection of our education system). It doesn’t mean their views don’t count!

The report goes on to state “Note that the Wirral Council Petition Scheme says a valid e-petition entry requires name, postcode and e-mail address. The e-petition was submitted as part of the consultation with name and postcode but without e-mail address”, so basically what this is saying is that out of 10,692 petition signatures, a Wirral Council officer only classes the 702 on a written petition as “valid” and feels happy enough to just disregard the views of the other ten thousand people.

There is a breakdown of the petition signers by ward, obviously the ward where the school is based Eastham attracts the highest number.

However moving on to the crucial question of what is the actual recommendation of officers as to what to do next (and what’s the result of the independent report into whether the options meet the SEN Improvement Test)?

Well in a U-turn from previous statements about being minded to recommend closure, page 19 states “In January 2014 Cabinet agreed to undertake a consultation on the closure of The Lyndale School, the consultation closed in June 2014. This report recommends that Cabinet considers the contents of this report and makes a decision on this matter.” which probably to most people is a recommendation that is about as clear as mud as to what officers want but at least they’re trying to be impartial.

The reason given is “The Council has a responsibility to manage resources effectively for all schools and the school population. We would like to affirm our continued intention to work positively with the children and families affected by any recommendations, and reassure parents of our continued commitment to their child’s wellbeing and education.”

I will translate these two into plainer English for those not as familiar as myself with “Council speak”:

“In January* politicians decided to ask the public for their views on closing Lyndale School. Consultation with the public happened and finished in June. This report (written from the perspective of officers) tells you what we think happened during that consultation and it’s now time for politicians to make a decision.”

* Note: since January the politicians on the Cabinet have changed as Brian Kenny lost his seat in the May elections to the Green Party and Cllr Harry Smith has also left meaning there are two different Labour councillors taking these places (Cllr Stuart Whittingham and Cllr Bernie Mooney).

“It is about money, but don’t blame us senior officers for all this as we’re trying to put children first.”

So, what’s likely to happen and which of the options have been ruled out as they don’t meet the SEN Improvement Test?

Well this is detailed in the “independent” report.

This report states in section 5.2 “In reality the only viable course of action is Option 7, to close the Lyndale
School and expand Stanley School and Elleray Park School to provide 220/230 places.”

However the report is more detailed than that. Let’s analyse each of the options in detail:

Option 7.1 which are variations on retaining Lyndale

Retain Lyndale and change funding bands

The report states that it is unlikely that the funding bands will be reviewed until after the end of financial year 2014/15, which let’s face it by the time a review and consultation is undertaken on this, Lyndale could’ve been closed down. Even though the banding decision is a political one that politicians could change their minds (if they so wished) on at any time and a final decision on next year’s school budget has yet to be made. The independent report refers to the deficit, but many schools operate with a surplus or a deficit (they don’t get earmarked for closure though). As this is “no change” option, the SEN Improvement Test is met.

Retain Lyndale School and restrict places at Elleray Park and Stanley

The report author seems to be against this option on grounds of parental choice “Restriction of places at either of the schools will restrict parental choice. This may result in appeals by parents to the SEN Tribunal. Restriction of places also goes against Government policy which encourages the expansion of popular schools.”

Retain Lyndale School and extend to full range of CLD

The report author states that if Lyndale School took on children with CLD then these would be children they would receive less money for (per a child) than the children with PMLD which would worsen their financial situation rather than improve it.

Retain Lyndale School and school commits to take full range of CLD. Stanley and Elleray Park admissions kept to place numbers

This option also includes changing the funding bands for children at Lyndale. There aren’t any major quibbles the report author seems to have with this option and quotes statistics (based on July 2014 figures) of Stanley with 100 children and ninety places, Elleray Park has 94 children and 90 places. So both schools are currently oversubscribed based on their places.

It mentions that Stanley School could take as high as 120 children and once the building work at Elleray Park is completed in September 2015, that its capacity will increase to 110.

Option 7.2 Lyndale becomes a 2-19 school

The report author goes into detail as to this option, but points out that it could take about seven years for numbers to reach about fifty. The report author sees this as a “high risk option” as it would require capital investment in the school and run the risk of not working out. Four parts of the SEN Improvement test are quoted as not being met for this option. Although this is an option parents want, it seems highly unlikely this will happen.

7.3 Federate (hard or soft) with another school with Lyndale remaining on current site

There is nobody obvious that Lyndale would federate with and this option is ruled out as not meeting three of SEN Improvement Test requirements.

7.4 Co-locate Lyndale School with another special school (which also covers co-locate and federate with another special school)

As with 7.3 there’s no-one obvious that Lyndale would federate with, this option is looked at in detail and ruled out as not meeting three of the SEN Improvement Test requirements.

7.5 Lyndale becoming an Academy/Free School

Such a decision is for the Department for Education and parents, the report author still thinks that Lyndale will have problems with funding but cannot demonstrate how it would/wouldn’t meet the SEN Improvement Test.

7.6 Close Lyndale School. Open two SLD bases in Primary schools for 6/8 pupils each. Expand
Elleray Park and Stanley schools to 100 each

This has a number of sub options which are

Close Lyndale
Close Lyndale and open SLD bases in two primary schools
Close Lyndale, open SLD places in two primary schools and expand Elleray Park and Stanley to 100 each
Close Lyndale and open a PMLD base on the new Foxfield site

However this is ruled out as it doesn’t meet four of the requirements in the SEN Improvement Test.

7.7 Close Lyndale. Expand Stanley/Elleray Park schools to provide 220/230 places

This option also contains the option “Close Lyndale and expand either Stanley or Elleray Park”.

The report author considers the first option as meeting the SEN Improvement Test (however doesn’t go into much detail). The second option is considered to not meet the SEN Improvement Test because of parental choice grounds.

7.8 Close Lyndale School but retain the site making another school a split site school. The Lyndale site would be retained for as long as felt necessary

The suboptions are “until children currently at the school had left” and “until the receiving school no longer required it”.

This is ruled out as not meeting four of the requirements of the SEN Improvement Test.

So the options Cabinet will be considering next Thursday that aren’t ruled out as they breach the requirements of the SEN Improvement Test (which can be quite subjective but this is based on the report author’s opinion are):

Option 7.1 Retain Lyndale

This is further split into sub options such as retain Lyndale and change funding bands, retain Lyndale School and restrict places at Elleray Park and Stanley, retain Lyndale School and extend to full range of CLD and retain Lyndale School and school commits to take full range of CLD. Stanley and Elleray Park admissions kept to place numbers.

Option 7.5 Lyndale becoming an Academy/Free School

The author can’t say one way or the author as to whether this option breaches any of the requirements of the SEN Improvement Test.

Option 7.7 Close Lyndale. Expand Stanley/Elleray Park schools to provide 220/230 places

This is the option that people associated with Lyndale School don’t want. However if Cabinet chose this option it would trigger a further consultation and a future decision to be made following that consultation.

So therefore the three options that aren’t ruled out by in some way breaching the SEN Improvement Test (according to the report author) are:

1) various options on the theme of keeping Lyndale,
2) the Academy/Free School option (which depends on the Department for Education agreeing to it) or
3) closing Lyndale.

Wirral Council’s Cabinet will meet in Committee Room 1 at Wallasey Town Hall in Brighton Street, Seacombe starting at 6.15pm for a special meeting just to make a decision on Lyndale School (which will be a public meeting).

If you would like to contact the people who will be making the decision, contact details are below (although it is always possible that some of these people will not be able to make it to the meeting, however even if not present at the meeting they are bound by collective responsibility for decisions taken). Please note the addresses below are home addresses in case you want to write to them in advance of the meeting by post.

The papers for this meeting have been published on Wirral Council’s website and the consultation responses can be read here.

Councillor Phil Davies (he chairs the Cabinet meetings) phildavies@wirral.gov.uk/ 0151 625 3320 / 07720 073154 / 16 Westbourne Grove, West Kirby, Wirral, CH48 4DL

Cllr Ann McLachlan (she often chairs Cabinet meetings if Cllr Phil Davies is not available) annmclachlan@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 522 0299 / 27 Danefield Road, Greasby, CH49 3BP

Cllr George Davies georgedavies@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 653 4265 / 07713 644330 / 46 Shamrock Road, Claughton, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH41 0EQ

Cllr Adrian Jones adrianjones@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 638 9050 / 10 Elmswood Road, Seacombe, Wallasey, CH44 8DB

Cllr Chris Jones christinejones@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 638 9050 / 07853 042243 / 10 Elmswood Road, Seacombe, Wallasey, CH44 8DB

Cllr Chris Meaden chrismeaden@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 645 1729 / 07738 824130 / 19 Inglemere Road, Rock Ferry, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH42 4QL

Cllr Pat Hackett pathackett@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 638 1543 / 07771 972302 / 7 Wood Lane, Wallasey, Wirral, CH45 8QP

Cllr Tony Smith (he is the Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services whose portfolio Lyndale School falls under) tonysmith@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 677 1384 / 27 South Drive, Upton, Wirral, Merseyside, CH49 6LA

Cllr Bernie Mooney berniemooney@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 200 8089 / 07811 060891 / 30 Brompton Avenue, Liscard, Wallasey, Wirral, CH44 0BD

Cllr Stuart Whittingham stuartwhittingham@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 653 5539 / 16 Fender Way, Prenton, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH43 7ZJ

All of the above ten politicians are members of the Labour Party. If you wish to contact one of your three local councillors (assuming that you live on the Wirral) their contact details are here, but it will only be names listed above (assuming they can make it) who will be making the decision at the special Cabinet meeting about Lyndale School.

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The incredible £754,783.18 that Wirral Council councillors cost (plus amounts for the Mayor & Deputy Mayor)

To very little fanfare (compared to the local newspaper coverage that used to go with the annual publication of MP’s expenses), Wirral Council has published on its website what it paid each of its councillors for 2013-14 with a breakdown by basic allowance, responsibility allowance, telephone rental (although this is a £NIL amount for everyone on that list), expenses, subsistence, travel expenses and car mileage. Despite replying to a FOI request and stating this was part of Wirral Council’s “openness and transparency” it is in fact a legal requirement that they publish this information annually (if you’d like to leave a comment referring to the specific Act of Parliament or regulations that require them to do this feel free).

This list includes three people who aren’t councillors but are “independent persons” and are appointed by Wirral Council councillors. These three have a role set down in law in dealing with complaints about councillors. They are also co-opted on Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee (whose next scheduled meeting has been cancelled).

Unlike the councillors none of these three get a basic amount, but receive £25 for each meeting they attend of the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee. In addition to this they are able to claim car mileage for meetings associated with their role. The annual amounts for these three are the smallest on the list being £90.80 (Dr. Burgess-Joyce), £122.40 (Brian Cummings) and £208.10 (RS Jones).

For the politicians, the lowest annual amount paid was to Cllr Matthew Patrick of £3,794.14. This is because he was only elected part way through that year in October 2013 in the Upton by-election. The by-election in Upton happened because of the death of Cllr Sylvia Hodrien, who also appears in the list receiving a part year amount of £4,373.84. Former Councillor Darren Dodd is the only other name to receive a part year amount of £6,019.11 as he resigned part way through the year and moved to Leeds.

The rest received the basic allowance of £8,712.48. In addition to this amount roughly half receive an extra responsibility allowance which for this financial year applied to thirty-three out of the sixty-seven councillors. An extra responsibility allowance is paid to the ten members of the Cabinet (generally an extra £9,171 although the Leader receives £22,927), chair of a committee, leader or deputy leader of a political group etc. The largest responsibility allowance paid was to Cllr Phil Davies of £22,926.96 (this is in addition to the basic allowance of £8,712.48). The smallest amount (that wasn’t £NIL) paid as a responsibility allowance was to Cllr Lesley Rennie of £203.38.

In total (the councillors and independent persons) claimed a total of £5,171.75 in car mileage payments, £490.99 in subsistence payments (this a meals allowance when they’re away from home for over four hours) and £1,684.64 in “expenses”.

The total cost (from this list) to the taxpayer for 2013-14 for the councillors and three independent persons was £754,783.18.

For some obscure reason I’m not really sure of, in earlier years the amount that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are paid is published separately. This doesn’t seem to have been done yet this year (at the time of writing), but in 2012-13 came to a total of an extra £12,228.80. I would guess that the amount for the mayoralty in 2013-14 would be a similar amount to this.

A number of councillors also represent Wirral Council on outside bodies. There are two councillors who represent Wirral Council on the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority are paid an extra £1,834 each. These amounts are paid directly by Wirral Council to these councillors.

There are other outside bodies such as Merseytravel (four councillors from Wirral Council) and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority (four councillors from Wirral Council). These two pay these councillors directly extra amounts for these extra responsibilities. A list similar to the one Wirral Council produces is published on their organisation’s website annually. These amounts are not included in this list from Wirral Council as such payments are made directly to councillors by those bodies rather than through Wirral Council.

A resolution to Council in previous years required Wirral Council to publish these extra amounts received too from bodies funded through the council tax such as Merseytravel, the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority and until it was abolished and replaced with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside & Police and Crime Panel, the Merseyside Police Authority.

As with the complicated scheme in place at Wirral Council, these amounts can vary quite considerably from a basic allowance that all receive to large amounts for the Chair.

Taking one public body, the figures for Merseytravel (which is now part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) haven’t been published on Wirral Council’s website for 2013-14, but the 2012-13 figures show that Wirral Council councillors received a basic allowance each of £5,202.13 (with part year payments to Cllr Blakeley and Cllr Foulkes), an extra special responsibility allowance for three councillors ranging from £1,095.38 to £4,063.29 as well as travel & subsistence payments ranging from nothing claimed to £997.99.

So, although the “cost of democracy” at Wirral Council is at least £754,783.18, in addition to this amount is the cost of the Mayor & Deputy Mayor and the currently difficult to find amounts councillors receive for representing Wirral Council on outside bodies (which Wirral Council should following a resolution agreed by Wirral Council publish on its website but in recent years hasn’t).

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Lyndale School Consultation branded “white-wash” & 1 officer is singled out for criticism for lack of impartiality

Phil Ward (Wirral Council’s SEN Lead) at a later meeting of Wirral Schools Forum 2nd July 2014

Lyndale School has of course made the news again, as the “high level notes” of the six consultation meetings have been published in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The concept that these “high level notes” should actually be used as part of the decision-making process is an interesting one.

I was at one of the six consultation meetings so I looked at the “notes” for that one and compared it to my own notes, transcript of the first hour (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8) and an audio recording of what actually happened.

As Tom Harney (the Chair of governors at Lyndale School) himself said at that actual meeting in relation to another matter “it’s amazing the things that go on”. He was also one of the few speakers at that meeting to get applause. The comments made by Cllr Paul Hayes (a Conservative councillor who if I remember correctly was also present at that same meeting) about the consultation process as reported in their local paper were very critical of the way the consultation process and that meeting was handled.

As I’ve mentioned the Conservative and Lib Dem positions, I should mention that the only Labour councillor I recognised at the meeting (Cabinet Member for Childrens’ Services Cllr Tony Smith) arrived late. It is of course extremely difficult to describe what the Labour position is on Lyndale School other than being pro closure consultation, telling the public that they have an open mind and that no decision has been made yet. A decision is expected on the 4th September on the next stage. The point that Labour are keen to make is not for Labour to do things that would give the impression that they have made their mind up. This was again made at the July Council meeting by Councillor Tony Smith and Councillor Phil Davies.

So in the words of a Wirral Council officer Phil Ward what was the purpose of these notes about the meetings? Phil Ward said “They’re notes recording the high level points raised at the meetings and importantly we will be reporting them to Cabinet.”

I had a look through the notes for the one question I asked in the two-hour meeting (something is there but it bears little resemblance to what I asked). It wasn’t there in any form that resembles what I asked. Maybe it wasn’t classed as “high level” enough. Maybe I should instead have started by saying “This is a high level question I am asking so please put it in the notes”. Or maybe Wirral Council doesn’t like putting down tricky questions and answers and prefers to subtly rewrite the historical record to suit itself.

However this isn’t about me. This is about Lyndale School. Let’s have a look at the notes Wirral Council produced.

~~Here’s the first line of their notes “10th April 2014: 10am to 12pm”~~

Err no, seems Wirral Council can’t get the date and time of its own consultation right (which should worry you there right from the start if they can’t get the simple stuff right like the date and time!) It should read “16th June 2014: 5.30pm to 7.30pm”.

Turns out there were two different meetings at Acre Lane as part of the consultation. There were notes from both meetings. Apologies.

Moving on, it seems the “points” column according to the table used are not what the people had to say at the consultation. No the “points” column is reserved solely for points made by officers and the Cabinet Member Cllr Tony Smith.

The more difficult questions raised, the important concerns of parents about what’s going to happen, what appears in the points column? Nothing… almost as if Wirral Council is ashamed as to what was said to these questions to be known in public.

Even some of the answers that do make it are misleading. At least one of the officers is in fact tying themselves in knots and going into policy areas that strictly speaking in my opinion they shouldn’t. To the best of my knowledge all the officers at that meeting are in politically restricted posts. One of these legal restrictions from what I remember is that they are not allowed to “speak to the public at large or to a section of the public with the apparent intention of affecting public support for a political party”.

Now I will make this clear, I’m not referring to Julia Hassall, David Armstrong or Andrew Roberts. These people are senior professionals and although I’m sure people like me make doing their jobs more difficult, I will state now my personal opinion that all three have been extremely professional in my past dealings with them.

This is despite me doing what in any other sphere of life outside the political arena would be classed as behaviour that would lead to people falling out with each other. I have written things (robust criticism would be putting it very mildly) that disagree with their professional opinions and have pointed out what I perceive as flaws in arguments they have used. They know I do not however do this out of malice or anything personal.

That’s just the nature of politics as one of the rules is “don’t take things personally”. Other people’s opinion of them may be wildly different but like myself they are doing a job in a highly political environment, so criticism goes with the territory. They are public figures (as are politicians) and are rewarded with a high salary partly to reflect the problems that having to deal with the likes of the press can cause.

Now you can point out at this point the press is supposed to be impartial. I try to be even-handed (and believe me that’s very difficult at times) and to quote Cllr Jerry Williams recently “There’s no side to the gentleman, he does a very good job”. An editorial decision (and I’m pretty sure the Wirral Globe takes a similar policy stance too) was made a long time ago that we’re against the closure of Lyndale School, but obviously in the reporting of this matter to do it justice we have to report both sides of this issue.

There are people of course that are for the closure of Lyndale School. You are entitled to your opinion too (it just happens to be one that this publication disagrees with but that is the nature of politics)! However one of the extremely important roles of the press in society is to stand up for the viewpoints of people who can’t advocate for themselves. The children of Lyndale School are in that position.

The person to whom my criticism is about at that meeting is the Wirral Council officer Phil Ward. Now I’m not saying he said things downright stupid and overt like “vote Labour in May” I’m not. However throughout the whole meeting he appeared to champion a particular policy position/stance on this matter.

There is admittedly a fine line between explaining decisions that have already been made and talking about decisions that have yet to be made by politicians in the future. The former is entirely legitimate for officers to do. Taking policy positions (especially on a party political matter such as how education budgets are spent) is something that officers have to be very careful of.

Now officers can say in relation to future decisions “based on my professional advice or opinion I advise you to do X (or X, Y and Z are options I’d prefer you to do X). However the decision is up to you.” That is one thing, however they should not advocate support when speaking to the public during a consultation for a particular political decision that has yet to be decided or even worse give the impression that a decision has already been made when it hasn’t yet (even if they think they can guess how it will be made). If they go down this route, their impartiality will be called and can be called into question (and his was during the meeting).

No officer at Wirral Council I know of before in a politically restricted post has done what was done at that consultation meeting by Phil Ward in the way he did it. Believe me, during meetings politicians have put officers under extreme pressure to take sides. Most officers with some common sense (and there are a lot of them at Wirral Council) will politely decline to answer such questions. This is what should happen.

This was however what the audience at Acre Lane found so amazing. A consultation is supposed to be about listening to their views (and yes Wirral Council has a long way to go on getting better at involving the public in their decision-making). However chairing this meeting was an officer who was the equivalent of waving a red flag to a bull. Had he come to the meeting with the genuine attitude of “We’re here today to hear your views, the purpose of the consultation is to do that, we appreciate you being here and we’ll listen carefully to what you have to say.” then I think the audience would’ve applauded him. However the impression the audience got was that he was lecturing them and completely impervious to any other viewpoints.

Sadly this particular officer did somewhat get stuck in “broadcast” mode. However, this attitude leads to the audience getting the following impression and I quote from the notes “No one has fully answered any question. You are just white-washing it. You have already made your decision”.

The Wirral public are not stupid, nor are they children. They are able to read people’s body language and how they say something. How something is said and the person’s body language when saying it are a large part of its meaning. Sadly Phil Ward didn’t seem politically savvy enough that night to develop a positive relationship with the audience. Nor did he seem to appreciate the way power shifts. The senior officers are better attuned to these kind of things.

There was for example in that room that night, Emma Rigby from the Wirral Globe, myself and Leonora. For those who recognise us, they’d know that that amount of people from the press means you have to be very careful what you say. I hope to carry on in the next few days with publishing a transcript of the long meeting itself. In the meantime the below links should take you to what has been published so far.

Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Tom Harney “it’s amazing the things that go on” (part 8)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Funding, banding and need (part 7)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Kingsway, funding and hydrotherapy pools (part 6)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about the sensory garden, resources, Elleray Park and Stanley (Part 5)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about Stanley, Elleray, Foxfield & the educational psychologist (Part 4)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about banding, outdoor space and Stanley School (Part 3)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: David Armstrong explains why there’s a consultation and questions begin (Part 2)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall explains why Wirral Council are consulting on closure (Part 1)

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Audio of entire consultation meeting

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The £1,092,160.12 PFI invoice connected to Lyndale School & why Wirral Council can afford to keep Lyndale open

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Who were the 108 organisations & people (not councillors) that Wirral Council invited to the Open Golf?

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Wirral Council’s Cabinet to decide on one of 3 options for Lyndale: keep it open, close it or change it to an academy

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The incredible £754,783.18 that Wirral Council councillors cost (plus amounts for the Mayor & Deputy Mayor)

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Lyndale School Consultation branded “white-wash” & 1 officer is singled out for criticism for lack of impartiality

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