Cllr Tony Smith | A blog about Wirral Council, Wirral Council's councillors & officers

The day democracy and freedom of the press died at Wirral Council: 28th October 2014

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at a public meeting earlier this year L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith, Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts — Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at a public meeting earlier this year L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services), Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts

CORRECTION 1/11/2014: The version of this article published on 29th October 2014 contained an error. Although Cllr Chris Carubia was on the Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee this article stated he was not. It has since been corrected.

I apologise to Cllr Chris Carubia for this error. It is my fault entirely. Wirral Council’s website shows him as not being on the Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee (see screenshots below) although it does show the committee appointments for the other seven councillors on this eight person committee. I didn’t double check this incorrect information on Wirral Council’s website against the list of committee appointments made at the Annual General Meeting (Part 2) in June 2014. Hopefully this explains how the error was made and I apologise.

However I cannot blame others for my mistake and have to accept responsibility. I personally apologise both to Cllr Chris Carubia and to readers for any confusion caused.

Screenshot of Wirral Council's website for Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee meeting — Screenshot of Wirral Council’s website for Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee meeting

CORRECTION ENDS

Yesterday I attended a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee and the meeting started twenty minutes late for reasons I shall go into below.

Here is a list of the councillors on this committee:

Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Labour) who refers to himself as Chair
Cllr Chris Meaden (Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sport and Culture, Labour)
Cllr Walter Smith (Labour councillor who wasn’t present last night)
Cllr Paul Hayes (Conservative councillor who wasn’t present last night)
Cllr Wendy Clements (Conservative councillor who wasn’t present last night)
Cllr Cherry Povall, JP (Conservative councillor who wasn’t present last night)
Cllr Mrs Pat Williams (Liberal Democrat councillor)
Cllr Chris Carubia (Liberal Democrat councillor)

So out of that list of seven councillors, only Cllr Tony Smith, Cllr Chris Meaden, Cllr Mrs Pat Williams and Cllr Chris Carubia (four councillors) were actually present.

Also there, but not part of the committee that met that evening was Cllr Phil Gilchrist. Cllr Phil Gilchrist is a deputy for this committee, however the two Liberal Democrat councillors were both present so he was not deputising. However as he is Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, he used his ex-officio powers to speak at the meeting.

Prior to the meeting starting, the papers for the meeting which you can view on Wirral Council’s website hadn’t been published on Wirral Council’s website a week before the meeting as required by law but merely hours before the meeting was held.

I asked for a copy of the agenda and reports at the meeting itself (as is my legal right to do so). I was very reluctantly given a copy of the agenda by an officer who had a big bunch of copies of the agenda but had to check he had permission to give one to me.

Before the meeting started, I figured out they were going to show a video so asked about background music and I was told there would be background music in it, so I stated I wouldn’t be filming the twelve-minute video shown (which was agenda item five ALUMNI PROJECT – Creative Youth Development – Presentation) because of the ongoing issues I wrote about yesterday surrounding publishing video of public meetings at which video was shown containing background music.

As the video was about twelve minutes long (and I planned to film discussion of it once it was over), this left the other seven agenda items plus the rest of that one.

However Lindsay Davidson (whose job description is “Senior Locality Manager – Youth Support”) and is an employee of Wirral Council was before the meeting not happy with the prospect of me filming this public meeting of a local Council (that she worked at) at all.

Another thing to bear in mind, is that whereas the Legal and Member Services section of Wirral Council send along a trained solicitor and someone to take minutes at all other meetings, this did not happen that evening.

I pointed out that usually committees have a solicitor and a committee services officer present just to be rebutted by Lindsay Davidson with “We service our own committee.”

She carried on saying, “As far as I’m concerned it’s a safeguarding issue because we haven’t got parental consent.”

No, she wasn’t referring to councillors having to write to their parents and gain their written permission of their parents before they attend and get filmed at a public meeting. Nor was she apparently referring to Council officers (of which there were five including herself and the Head of Service (Head of Targeted Services) Deborah Gornik.

She was referring to one young person present at the public meeting called Daniel (who she told me at this point was sixteen years old but in later conversation (in front of councillors and Surjit Tour) refused to divulge what age Daniel was). Interestingly Daniel hasn’t been formally appointed by Council to this committee and isn’t (despite what Council officers may state) part of the committee.

This was my response to her “As far as I’m concerned it’s a legal issue because the regulations changed in August” and before I could even finish that sentence Lindsay started talking over me.

She said that Daniel’s parents “don’t know”. So I talked with Surjit Tour over the phone in reception, who agreed with me that it was a committee of Wirral Council that met in public.

However as far as Surjit Tour was concerned, he wanted to dissuade me from filming the meeting at all. So what does the law actually state on the issue now?

Regulation 4 changed the Local Government Act 1972 to state the following (principal council doesn’t just refer to meetings of the Council at Wirral Council but also committees and subcommittees):

“(7A) While a meeting of a principal council in England is open to the public, any person attending is to be permitted to report on the meeting.

….

(7C) A person attending a meeting of a principal council in England for the purpose of reporting on the meeting must, so far as practicable, be afforded reasonable facilities for doing so.

…

(7E) Any person who attends a meeting of a principal council in England for the purpose of reporting on the meeting may use any communication method, including the internet, to publish, post or otherwise share the results of the person’s reporting activities.
….

“(9) In this section “reporting” means—

(a) filming, photographing or making an audio recording of proceedings at a meeting,

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

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

There are similar modifications also made by Regulation 3 to the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 which also apply.

So that’s the legal position, I can film the public meeting of the Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee, whether or not a sixteen year old happens to be there without his parents.

However what happened yesterday evening is bizarre.

The meeting did not start on time and a twenty minute conversation happened between Lindsay Davidson, Cllr Chris Meaden, Cllr Tony Smith, Surjit Tour, I think Deborah Gornik and myself in the corridor outside Committee Room 1.

I was basically told that by Surjit Tour that if I exercised my right (enshrined in law) to film the meeting, Surjit Tour would advise the Chair (Cllr Tony Smith) to adjourn the meeting and therefore the meeting would not take place that evening.

This is in fact why the meeting started twenty minutes late. I offered the following compromises to Wirral Council:

a) that I would only film the side of the room that the 16-year-old was not actually sitting in: REFUSED
b) that I would only audio record the public meeting: REFUSED
c) that I wouldn’t film the video shown during the meeting: REFUSED

You can tell how any other “reasonable compromises” were dealt with too.

Wirral Council were obviously not going to budge from their stubborn position until I backed down. Personally I feel sorry for employees and opposition councillors in such an organisation as the way it was dealt with was wholly unreasonable.

This is also probably why there have been strikes recently by the unions, because both Wirral Council’s management and politicians behave unreasonably.

Both Surjit Tour and I knew what the legal position was and that I could film.

Officers (including Lindsay Davidson who was “servicing the committee”) didn’t know the legal position, neither did councillors and were looking to Surjit Tour to not only offer them legal advice but to negotiate on their behalf my agreement not to film the meeting. Neither Surjit Tour or I had the text of the legislation to show them, although it takes minutes to look up these matters as Wirral Council does have both wired and wireless internet access (including in the Committee Room 1 that the meeting was being held in).

He, Surjit Tour as Head of Legal and Member Services could only advise councillors to adjourn the meeting if I tried to film it and by then the officers had got the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services/Chair involved Cllr Tony Smith (who is obviously rather cheesed off already at the moment over my reporting on Lyndale School matters). I realise officers have had safeguarding drummed into them (perhaps this is the legacy of Martin Morton), to the extent that they repeat it as a mantra when people tell them things they don’t want to hear.

However from a practical perspective, a 16-year-old in the UK at the moment is old enough to:

vote in the recent Scottish independence referendum (if he or she lived in Scotland)
join the Armed Forces
leave compulsory education
get married
have children
get arrested & probably other matters I haven’t thought of.

However according to Wirral Council, even at 16 years old you are not old enough to attend a public meeting without getting a written note from your parents first, just in case you might get filmed or recorded on tape.

In fact according to Wirral Council officers you are still treated as a child until you are eighteen.

In some ways even though I am well over eighteen and in my mid 30s some Wirral Council officers (and politicians) still treat me as if I was a child. After all, the reaction last night to me trying to film the meeting was the way you’d deal with a two or three-year old having a temper tantrum.

Although not explicitly stated by anyone, reading between the lines and based on how the discussions went, it came across as “Go outside John, we’ll tell you how you should behave, don’t you realise you shouldn’t be filming this meeting and how dare you try to do so and annoy us?”

In other words the petulant attitude I’ve come to expect from councillors and officers at Wirral Council.

So, although it sets a bad precedent, I decided yesterday evening after a twenty-minute stalemate on this issue pragmatically not to film the meeting because:

a) Wirral Council officers and councillors were unaware of the legal change caused by the The Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014 coming into effect on August 6th 2014 this year

b) Surjit Tour and I have already had many exchanges of letters and verbal discussions previously about these matters and I have also had a meeting with Joe Blott.

c) This was the first meeting of the Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee since the legal change, so you can’t expect Wirral Council to know about it.

d) Wirral Council has to make decisions that don’t breach the Human Rights Act 1998 (specifically interference with my right to freedom of speech).

e) the way to deal with such matters in the past has been through negotiation and compromise although obviously the last time this happened (before August 2014) was back in June 2014 the Labour councillor Cllr Steve Niblock took a similarly militant stance against filming at a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Licensing Act 2003 Subcommittee to make a decision about an off licence to sell alcohol in Moreton, no children were present at the meeting then, but Cllr Steve Niblock (the Chair) still shouted at me not to film it.

So this leaves Wirral Council in the position now where the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP refers to such decisions on filming by local councils in a newspaper article as behaving in the past like “Putin’s Russia” and is exactly the sort of dispute the regulations are there to avoid.

Wirral Council’s way of skirting around the regulations applying is to pressure me into voluntarily agreeing not to film & or audio record a meeting before it takes place. If I say no and take a militant attitude they will make sure the meeting doesn’t actually happen.

So that is Wirral Council’s position, I am allowed to film public meetings. However if I try to do so, the public meeting won’t actually happen. It’s a bit like Schrödinger’s cat really and exactly a fortnight after this farce last night I’m sure I’ll be going over this same ground again over the Youth Parliament meeting where there will be more than one young person present.

Below are my uncorrected notes of the meeting yesterday and in a PS I will point out that I tape record meetings because I have a writing disability because of breaking my wrist in two places in 2012. This means I can no longer write shorthand so I use the audio tape recordings for the purposes of quotes.

However equality issues, disability issues and safeguarding concerns regarding myself are not considered by Wirral Council as hypothetical views of a 16 year olds parents trump the “reasonable adjustments” Wirral Council are required to take (it’s a legal duty) during meetings.

For an example of a reasonable adjustment made during the meeting, Cllr Phil Gilchrist (with hearing problems) asked for the tea/coffee machine to be turned off as no microphones were used (although three were put out nobody sat near them).

However reasonable adjustments are always made at Wirral Council for disabilities of councillors, or its own staff but its legal duties to the disabled public and press are not even thought of and if raised not considered as they should.

Below are my notes of the meeting (I will point out that some of these service changes are currently out to public consultation at the moment):

The reports published shortly before the meeting was held can be read on Wirral’s website.

Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee 28th October 2014

552 pm late start

Visual description of young person chairing meeting (Daniel) has black curly hair, wears glasses… approx 16 years old wearing .blue short sleeved shirt

Cllr Tony Smith (Chair) apologies discussion whether Mr Brace able will not do tonight resolved another

Welcome y… apologies

P Williams didnt get agenda until today cllrs missing oversight

lindsay problems server getting on to server … … reminder gpt agenda
P Giochrist attachemts council website couldnt open…
lindy resolved today wasnt resolved
daniel over to you
go round asking people’s names
Linndsay Davidson Senior locality manager Youth and Play service
Cllr tony smith
…
Cllr pat williams
Cllr phil gilchrist
Cllr chros meaden
…
mark…
South and West Wirral…
creative youth development
P Gilchrist d…matters arising from minutes hand over Lindsay…

Note Left side: 4 coucillors (CM (Lab), PW (LD), PG (LD) and CC (LD)), 2 officers
Right: Cllr Tony Smith, officers (Lindsay Davidson and two others) and Daniel (young person)

Lindsay highlight a few things senior locality manager’s report 1.1 inform latest goals project underway … following on from success under 1.2.1 lads project started in September proving to be very successful aged young men… designed to address a number issues harmful exploitative relationships… towards end program residential Oaklands outdoor education centre first project young men did have concerns drop out rate male staff working with young men retention rate high midway meeting had to get Birkenhead Youth Hub

cllr tony smith how identified
officers agencies targetted services… so agencies able identify needs young person get consent also used part working young people…
lindsay challenging young men program … its a testament program…
officer midway thing big impact groups teenage males mix in one spot … all mixed all deliberately mixed groups… a project in itself…
p gilchrist public health funded Wirral South Constituency Committee improve funding or top up… public health mentioned … has been funding South Wirral additional residential young men… under item 2 Wallasey District Wallasey Youth Hub… 12 week…
Chris Carubia…
Lindsay heavily involved partnership work police don’t know aware Flaybrick Cemetery traves outreach involved not only working with young people … perpetrators… trying divert further criminal damage also working other young people locality concerned peers done this wanted to show other young people were like that workong young people rangers cemetery cleanup positive project different aspects … South Wirral Bebington Youth Hub redesigned painted music room young women crime prevention panel… under 5 West Wirral… West Wirral Youth Hub Thursdays young people additional needs disabilities accessing Youth Hub… … good practice journals weighting oist families cross agency steering group further funding… demands that particular program item 7 7. 1 housing service new Wirral based .. … yp family… ok.. and again under 7.1 aaare response young people took part healthy eating project positive outcomes chefs Barrow in Furness healthy eating techniques homeless have been… .. ok number 8 partivipation and engagement fee days ago Youth Voice Conference make aware under 8.2 have reported framework young people brought paper previous merting champion event prior Youth Parliament 11/11 what doing champion event sign up become yp champion some activities tea young people and councillors Youth Parliament into Chamber for session… busy collecting motions majority theme conference emotional health and wellbeing number 10 beechwood supporting with homework projects creating number artifacts enable young people doing things like making models atoms sex education… huge models of sperms eggs and ovaries… extremely successful giving to curriculum Daniel end report
Daniel questions… ?
P Gilchrist detail Fender health and safety closure building
Lindsay Mark?
Mark reason closed … throw …at one windows youth club on first floor thick windows stone kind of shattered… unfortuantely quite a long time to get repaired quite blessing in disguise dealing with a lot antisocial behaviour on Woodchurch coming in to building youth workers stop doing this stop doing r ship put on hold a bit take stock go out onto streets build better relationships young people Moira liasing community looking at how involve community volunteers… running youth project … all young people… mischief night along police fire service operation banger have some music playing food fire service providing sports mobile football cage looking into having … finalising the health and safety but really positive … community more and more involved people weren’t reporting antisocial behaviour positive step community get involved yp Woodchurch
T Smith add to what Mark said engagement adults in new approach and that talking about 10-20 live on estate let someone elee do it got good leaders come forward … things move rapidly see a good future for it… hopefully lookimg at very carefully Woodchirch High … antisocial behaviour… headteacher myself working .. encouarging done a lot work
Daniel all questions
P Willaims on 6.4 kids timd ..
officer supported London project families mental health shared group session whole families particular area… work children come back together pizza… got an average … referred into it 18 months at real capacity… 15 adults quite hefty put a stop to it … 2/3 referrals a month
P Willaims very very necessary…
officer lot of good will creative ways keeping going well needed at a satge need look…
officer ward 10/12
C Meaden adult dance class
officer struggling along…
C Meaden quick step or something as long as not Zumba
Officer one
Lindsay one at momemt adult singing…
Cllr Chris Meaden leaves room…
child alumni
Officer film aums it up shown at alumni event watch that

A thirteen minute film was shown at this point in the meeting.

12m58s film

subtitles voice over alumni … participative arts youth work… interview groups individuals… alumni project … camera 40 years old .. fivus take … final stages narrow down final set of images yecgmival skill… quirks of film photography …

like u photographer chloe
music and voice over
iamges …
Liam and Gemma Chloe… blossom tree … courtyard industrial estate next Cammell Lairds…
Pacific swing Eliott
shoot taken at dusk… changing shutter speed… architectural quality capture personalities… piano calmer Cathryn… leaning on piano love music… Ben photographer Jamie Lee… learn a great deal about photographry.. using film cameras… buy one for myself focus every aspect picture … rather stunning iamges … chose photograph them so many ideas choosing wlls interesting decision… interesting shot chose photograph Ben… number shots taken courtyard… rather exciting image… … shows in photograph look like a … … with… camera… I like the light and shadows in studio phases… which gives… before the … happy that i got perfect pictures since shoot … Josh photographer Maya spoke about how … hos story how improved homself… wanted reflect in photographs noticed Josh spoke.. moved graceful way… gentle person.. shadow bigger… wanted Josh suggest to them… camera … for one shoots… shutter speed not as long enjoyed having josh … way chooses words… interesting story … would’ve gone down another lath this shoot taken as film setting photographs… dropped ueard stories how much fun has … character… all told lots of funny stories… take photograph control light noticed … decided use spotlight plesed photograph… Alice many stories how nighty… red dreadlocks started to take photos different side inner confidence … interesting places… compassionate personality… … you are in darkness this is how it should be doing job well… technical skills… chose image close bond between them spotlight … my point… cerebral palsy… interview her … outside the centre… …
….
educational pathway trainibg

officer
C Meaden there that night brilliant night what came out evening young people spoke night explained … excellent evening
officer permanent display … biz cebtee Birkenhead Park some examples here hack stories

large photos put up by windows not all jazz hands through a hard time give back…
officer booking lots viewings.. takes over water a bit
P Willaims basic equipement
P Willaims learning …
officer working on Priory funded by Lottery opening event huge … projections journey take community through journey about 15 in group multiple needs.. large number people on autistic spectrum
P Williams look forward seeing in my ward at Williamson [Art Gallery]
Chair all questions hand back Lindsay Youth Voice Conference
Lindsay this is me youth voice conference on 16/10 havent really evaluated it fully didnt want to miss opportunity highlights conference aims… Youth Voice Conference explore issues important to them… a second about how identified that

628 Cllr Chris Meaden leaves..

Lindsay . again.. opportunity yp question … senior ppl partner organisations what’s imporatnt to them make sure yp truly involved… in terms conference 12th annual conference this year … approcimately 200 young people overwhelmingly wanted theme this years conference emotional health .. yes things like sex education alcohol subtance misuse important what don’t tend to talk about issues mental health wellbeing what particularly about themes look more carefully at.. looking out ourselves and each other … promoted variety invitations secondary schools… youth voice group… overarching group representative youth forums Children in care Council youth voice group planned… and developed conference consulted … identify themes young people involved every aspect conference for young people… looking at daniel involved conference too.. is about making sure young

631 Cllr Chris Meaden returns

Lindsay instrumental subject amtter sensitivity feel as workers .. some .. needed some supoort in terms of our partners plan workshops… organised steering group where yp met whole range partners… Wirral Autistic Society health services and schools whole range people workshops identified talk a little bit more approproate consultant partner agency… plan content workshops… and we again… this year hot seat panel…

Cllr Chris Meaden said she had left the room before they came to that point

Lindsay formulated questions… list some questions.. rather identifying all of them …

Cllr Tony Smith passes out a handout (1 A4 side)…

Lindsay ADHD autism… yp with autism actually wanting to express yourselves coping ooss change social isolation social media aad gaming .. Daniel you say something? putting you on spot concerned not only themselves but perr not going out picking up phone texting can only say what I do lost without my phone yp saying 100 fold real serious issues camh concerned about as well a lot wotkship enabling yp deal issue friends might be too isolated through gaming media literacy… some sterotypes yp concerned … airbrushing photographs what is a real image taking to Council real image not airburshed real people publicity final workshop topic dealing with homophobia… concerned about some issues daily basis .. ok haven’t fully evaluated this early days over 90 young ppl in attendance aktest count 96
Officer
Lindsay 96 plus 20 16 school colleges involved… a scale 1-10 and what were saying to yp said at conference theme emotional health and wellbeing themes Youth Parliament motions.. prioritised in debate.. what incraesingly want to happen Wirral Youth Conference not just standalone influences number deabtes of which Youth Parliament will be one… full evaluation to follow whistlestop tour
Debroah Gornik?.. no matter how many times consult young people cross section generally have same issues as adult population… antisocial behavior litter crime bothers young people exactly same ways articulate in terms telling us … concerns that they have concerns we would have about
C Meaden one I sat in bullying side how recognised children being bullied are kids looking after other kids as well was interesting did sneak out left after
Officer
Chair (Daniel) representative police didn’t answer single question
Officer she did
Chair hand over Steve talk about Wirral summer holiday playschemes report Wirral Play Council summer 2014 if grant give Wirral Play Council run program for us … operating since 1974 how long grant 35 years know chris received grant considerable … so as I said before restructure relook at how deliver schemes essentially meant less schemes conducted … geographical … slight increse provision… also able to get run schemes Prenton Eastham and West Kirby magenat resdents group support … West Wirral constituency spread schemes 68 schmes throught 4 districts additioanl grant smaller projects grant Love Wirral supply tomatoes strawberries growing strawberries tomatoes strawberry deadm took home flowers… cost £500 good value 4.4 again had a good return play work… 60% round about 75 playworkers fully trained qualifiaction recognsied university Gloucester intriductiry recignsied … qualified one things highlight terms program… what gone on to do over the years… lecturers.. one particular person.. deolivering training… started careers introduction work children 2-3 summers working on summer playschemes good ground how develop careers… so just moving on start slides in a second what did on playday obviously a big event … more public event about 3,000 participants what these slides are at the moment have a competition… initially artistic … again what is play asked came up all sorts ideas.. Mayor … judges competition often said won’t have want a competition who’s won really want a competition talking about cooperation climbimg being active examples one from Bebington and Woodchurch these are the plants Love Wirral… climbing wall again this year… Mayor Mayoress we also have this raet street oaijters give yp and oarehts families all get involved early in day looks like France railings Birkenhead Park paint what we want to paint… .. face painting… minim version zorbs health and safety friendly version straw bales.. football cahllenge photo with Mayor … made friends as well another photo with Mayor public heakth police all services… lot of other groups … also families themselves dont have used to supervise children… just invite ppl come down… notice that on day family day out… played and had fun… tahts it .. obviosuly appxed more detail schemes themselves 1,000 chiodren comments children parents what they think
chair question
P Willaims interesting shaped pots…
P Gilchrist dropped into met yp running scheme … from Edge Hill enthusiatsic working hard occupy actaully was … making sire things happened … bottomless pit plan now what os around … …

Officer every year
P Gilchrist ok
Lindsay proposl public consultation could affect Play Council and summer playschemes make people aware ..
Chair all question thanks Steve come back Cllr Tony Smith
Cllr Tony Smith thanks you well done quickly through meeting good experience havent notified any other business…
P Gilchrist ask something haven’t notified haer staff whats done this year’s consultation budget with young peoples views collected fed into process opportunityty committee review in time consultation important scrutiny committees as item based topic go Families and Wellbeing where go once collected?
C Meaden brought in just over 2,500 from young people yesterday and 300 or 400 today don’t know what committe go to hasn’t been discussed yet
D Gornik waiting Council decision once get that position then we look to do consultation young people staff and community users not at that stage until decision
C Meaden … all from .. play schemes quite a few boosted up numbers come into consultation yesterday
Lindsay young people harder to reach… staff comtribute either by website or paper copied
C Meaden making sure aware …
P Gilchrist be clear Deboarh where all collected process to be processed wrong word studied and examined before report to Cabinet not clear where might go to
C Meaden analysis breakdown
T Smith responses each age group
C Meaden in press how many responses staff know how many so far
T smith young people made aware … £2 million is oppty number
C Meaden what public consultation about look at it do best resolve some issues.. cash strapped authority…
P Gilchrist resolved
Chair right date next meeting
Officer next one set January beginning February…
Cllr Tony Smith thanks all Mark and Steve officers Karen and thanks very much
C Meaden Daniel back again fine…

Continues at The day democracy and freedom of the press died at Wirral Council: 28th October 2014 (part 2).

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4 week consultation on closure of Lyndale School starts: does Wirral Council really know how many pupils are there?

Councillor Phil Gilchrist explains his amendment on the minority report on Lyndale School to councillors, officers and the public 2nd October 2014 Council Chamber, Wallasey Town Hall (c) John Brace — Councillor Phil Gilchrist explains his amendment on the minority report on Lyndale School to councillors, officers and the public 20th October 2014 Council Chamber, Wallasey Town Hall (c) John Brace

Following the Council meeting on the 20th October 2014 when Labour councillors voted to go ahead to the next stage on closure of Lyndale School, Wirral Council started on the 22nd October 2014 its four-week consultation on closure which finishes on 19th November 2014. After this consultation is finished, the results of this consultation will be reported back to Wirral Council’s Cabinet.

Proposal to cease to maintain the Lyndale School

Complete Proposal

You can also ask for copies of the proposals by calling 0151 606 2020 during office hours or writing to:

Julia Hassall
Director of Children’s Services
Hamilton Building
Conway Street
Birkenhead
CH41 4FD

The above files I’ve linked to are the new files in this current consultation.

You can respond to the consultation in one of two ways, either by email to specialreview@wirral.gov.uk or by mail to:

Julia Hassall
Director of Children’s Services
Hamilton Building
Conway Street
Birkenhead
CH41 4FD

I am unsure at this stage which Cabinet meeting the outcome of this four-week consultation on the closure of Lyndale School will go to. At the time of writing the following Cabinet meetings are scheduled for after the end of the consultation:

Personally as the 27th November is a special meeting and occurs exactly one week and a day after the consultation ends, I would guess that this will be the public meeting at which the outcome of the second consultation and a further decision will be made. As agendas and reports have to be published at least a week before holding a Cabinet meeting, 27th November 2014 would be the earliest date it could be held.

However if this matter is called in after the Cabinet decision after the consultation and there are more delays in the process taking it past February 2015, it would make setting the 2015-16 Schools Budget problematic.

The reason is that if a final decision on closure is not made before February 2015, a contingency of funding Lyndale School from the proposed date of closure (January 1st 2016) to the end of that financial year (March 2016) would have to be added to the schools budget for 2015-16 of ~£140,000.

There are legal limits on when the 2015-16 Schools Budget has to be decided by and as there were delays earlier this year, I can see the next stages moving as fast as is humanly possible at Wirral Council (which when you do things as fast as you possibly can inevitably leads to mistakes).

However I would like to point out that the current consultation has at least one contradictory fact in Surjit Tour’s letter to me of the 30th September 2014 (although Mr. Tour obviously has to rely on what he’s told and take it at face value as I seriously doubt (although I could of course be wrong) that Mr. Tour visited Lyndale School and started asking children how old they are). I’ll explain what I mean (with references):

Here is the 13 page response from Mr. Tour. In it he states:

“8. Background

8.1 Lyndale School is a special school providing specialist educational provision for primary aged pupils, the majority of whom have Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (“PMLD”). There are 21 pupils currently on the roll, nine of whom will be transitioning to secondary school by the end of the 2015/16 academic year. The declining number of students admitted to Lyndale over recent years has drawn into question The Lyndale’s financial viability for the future.”

When I read Surjit Tour’s reply a few weeks ago, I thought it a bit odd that out of the eight year groups at Lyndale School, that almost half the school (nine out of twenty-one) would be in the final year and therefore leave to secondary school in September 2015 and not be affected by the proposals to close it. It seemed unusual at the time.

Mr. Tour repeatedly states throughout his letter that I have not provided evidence of my facts. However the evidence that proves him wrong on this was in fact published by Wirral Council on the 22nd October 2014 as part of the current consultation. Here is the table published as part of the Complete Proposal. The table is Pupil admissions and numbers.

	F1	F2	Y1	Y2	Y3	Y4	Y5	Y6	Total
October 2014 Boys Girls	3 2 1	1 0 1	3 1 2	2 2 0	3 3 0	1 1 0	6 2 4	2 1 1	21 12 9
December 2015 Boys Girls	0 – –	3 2 1	1 0 1	3 1 2	2 2 0	3 3 0	1 1 0	6 2 4	19 11 8

Number in each year group in December 2015 assumes that all current pupils remain on roll, that no new children are admitted to F1 (Nursery) in September 2015, and that no further children join or leave other year groups from October 2014 onwards.

As you can see from the table above there are two children (one boy and one girl) in year 6 at Lyndale School who will start at a secondary school in September 2015, not nine as claimed by Surjit Tour in his letter.

This then has an effect on other numbers used in his letter.

According to Surjit Tour 21-9 = 12 (twelve pupils left in September 2015)
According to Julia Hassall 21-2 = 19 (nineteen pupils left in September 2015)

So who do I trust to give the correct figure for pupils at the Lyndale School? The Head of Legal and Member Services (Surjit Tour) or the Director of Children’s Services (Julia Hassall)? They can’t both be right, can they?

On the balance of probabilities because:

a) Julia Hassall actually works in the area of Wirral Council with responsibility for schools
b) that it seems highly unlikely that nine of the twenty-one pupils at Lyndale School (spanning eight year groups) would be in the last year group

I’m veering towards believing Ms Hassall (although I never really relish taking sides when two people in Wirral Council’s senior management team are giving out contradictory information).

There is also the point that someone could have misread the table above and used the total number of girls presently at the school (nine) instead of the number of pupils in year six (two) and given that information to Surjit Tour to use in his letter.

Isn’t it weird though that when Wirral Council makes a mistake like this, it always coincides with their world view of a “small school” (in this case seven pupils less than it actually is)?

If Wirral Council can’t get basic facts such as how many pupils of what age are at Lyndale School right, is it any wonder that there are problems of trust between those associated with Lyndale School and Wirral Council?

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The 6 “missing” pages of Cllr Tony Smith’s expenses claims shed more light on Lyndale School matters

As part of the 2013/14 audit of Wirral Council, I exercised a legal right to a copy of the councillors’ expenses forms. I have published what I received last month (which attracted much public interest), but a lot of pages were still not provided at that point. You can read the earlier nine pages for Councillor Tony Smith here.

The internal processes seem to be that the finance side of Wirral Council ask for these from Human Resources. Human Resources then ask for legal advice. The legal side of Wirral Council then recommend to redact officer names, registration numbers of councillors’ cars, payroll numbers, signatures and other information on these forms. Quite why that whole process takes over two months I’m not quite sure.

As many readers of this blog will know there was a call in of the Cabinet decision of September 4th on Lyndale School which happened during a five-hour public meeting on the evening of October 2nd 2014. The six pages of the Cabinet Member for Education’s expenses (Cllr Tony Smith) I requested in August 2014 but were only supplied to me this morning (17th October 2014).

It shows some meetings which may be of interest to the continuing public debate on Lyndale School. The last meeting with Alison McGovern MP is education related due to its location, however whether it is connected to Lyndale School or a different education matter I am unsure at this point. I include the original six pages below.

Wirral Council also provided me today with a further dozen or so pages of councillors expenses for other councillors that had also been missing from what I had been supplied with. I plan to publish these in the near future.

17.5.13 | Visits to Foxfield and Elleray Park School – in role of Cabinet Member | Home | | 10 | 0.40p
9.8.13 | Meeting re Lyndale School with Director + Officers / Hamilton Building | Home | Hamilton | 10 | 0.40p
13.9.13 | Meeting ?? ?? M.P. Alison McGovern and officers / Hamilton | Home | Hamilton | 10 | 0.40p

Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 page 1 of 6

Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 page 2 of 6

Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 page 3 of 6

Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 page 4 of 6

Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 page 5 of 6

Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 page 6 of 6

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Is Lyndale School under threat just so Wirral Council can provide a further £2 million to a company that already has plenty?

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith, Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts — Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services), Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts

Last Thursday morning I visited Lyndale School in Eastham. This was my first visit, although regular readers of this blog will know that I have written extensively on the topic and filmed many public meetings of Wirral Council on the many stages involving its potential closure in January 2016.

Regular readers of this blog will also know that despite promises made in February 2014 by senior officers at a call in that matters would be dealt with in a completely “open and transparent” way, that the recent 13 page letter received from Surjit Tour turned down a request for a meeting between myself and Wirral Council on this matter.

Thankfully the Lyndale School appears to be behaving in a far more “open and transparent” way than Wirral Council is!

I wanted to start this piece by describing my impressions of the school as some of my observations about a visit to Lyndale School raise further unanswered questions.

On the same plot of land as the Lyndale School is also Eastham Youth Centre. Clearly the current consultation is about the Lyndale School, however I know relatively little about this Youth Centre. Is this Youth Centre open, closed, working or threatened with closure itself? I don’t really know the answer to that question and would appreciate somebody better informed, or more closely connected to Eastham than I to leave a comment.

Moving to the Lyndale School itself, it looks from the outside like many other primary schools do on the Wirral. Unlike when I went to school in the 1980/1990s where there literally was an “open door” policy at primary schools, these days (as is common with all other schools on the Wirral now) you need to press a buzzer on an intercom system to be let in.

There is then a reception area on the right, which at the time of my visit had many stuffed toy animals on the counter. To the left is a visitors book for visitors to sign and visitors badges on which the names of visitors can be written. On the wall is also a photo of each member of staff who works there and their job title.

My personal view on the latter point, is that organisations that do such a thing, tend to be more open and transparent than those who try to hide behind a bewildering, faceless and largely unaccountable bureaucracy.

As we had both been walking up from Eastham Rake train station, someone we both knew, who lives in Eastham had been passing in their car and had kindly offered us both a lift to the Lyndale School. So we both arrived earlier than I expected, which gave me a chance to see people coming and going for a while and how things were going. Despite the pressures the Lyndale School is going through, staff were professional and the “open door” policy referred to at the call in I saw in action as one of the parents arrived while we were waiting. If a decision is made to close the Lyndale School, this is one of the matters that the parents of the children at Lyndale School have expressed concern about as they cannot see this in operation at the other schools suggested.

There is obviously a lot of trust that exists between the parents of children at Lyndale School and the staff there. Certainly there is (despite the stress the School is under because of the political issues) a lot of goodwill between the parents and staff at the school. That’s something that never appears on Wirral Council’s balance sheet as it’s something that can’t be quantified. This is part of the reason the parents of children at Lyndale School want the School to stay as it is, as they don’t see the same ethos at Lyndale School at either Stanley School or Elleray Park.

Echoing what I have heard Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services at Wirral Council) say many times, I will also make the following point. Some schools are closed down because they are “failing schools”. Lyndale School doesn’t fall into that category and that is not one of the reasons behind the consultations on its closure. I wish to make that as clear as I can (as has Julia Hassall at many public meetings). The view from the public can be to jump to the conclusion that schools are only threatened with closure because things at them are going pear-shaped. This is not the case at Lyndale School and I will also point out that no final decision on closure of Lyndale School has yet been made by Wirral Council’s Cabinet.

I have referred before in articles describing Lyndale School as a “hospital school” as personally I think it is probably a more accurate description of what goes on in Lyndale School. Think of the political fuss that would happen if say in the lead up to a General Election (and I’ll point out now that I know of no such plans) that there was a consultation on closing the children’s ward and the hospital school at Arrowe Park Hospital? Think of it purely from that perspective and you can perhaps see how emotional an issue it is for both the people directly involved and the wider community.

There are many new matters involving Lyndale School I could write about but instead I will explain what I was at Lyndale School for. There was a very interesting meeting of the Friends of Lyndale School Association held there which was a private meeting, so there is a limit about what I will write here about it.

However, I had better explain what and who the Friends of Lyndale School Association are. The Friends of Lyndale School Association are a small charity set up in March of this year and registered with the Charity Commission in June. Their charitable objects are:

To advance the education of pupils in the school in particular by:
developing effective relationships between the staff, parents and others associated with the school;
engaging in activities or providing facilities or equipment which support the school and advance the education of the pupils.

It’s hard to describe exactly what the Friends of Lyndale School Association is, but the closest easily understood comparison to it, is a parent-teacher association or PTA for the Lyndale School. As with all PTAs they raise money to be spent on their charitable objects and you can (if you wish) donate to them online on the webpage on Justgiving website for the Friends of Lyndale School Association.

If the Lyndale School closes, the Friends of Lyndale School Association have made it clear that any remaining funds would be donated to Claire House (which is a children’s hospice on the Wirral). The Wirral Globe are also printing interviews with the parents of Lyndale School (which if you wish to read the first three are on the Wirral Globe website starting here, continuing here and the most recent one is and I will at this stage (and I don’t often do this about someone else in the local media) thank Emma Rigby of the Wirral Globe for her reporting in the Wirral Globe of this story.

Yesterday evening there was supposed to be a meeting of all councillors at Wirral Council. However as most people probably know already a lot of public sector unions went on strike and that meeting was shifted to the evening of the 20th October 2014. One of the matters on the agenda is a minority report (no not the film Minority Report with Tom Cruise this refers to something different) but a minority report about the recent Lyndale School call in.

In fact there are five minority reports about various matters. There is one about the Lyndale School call in submitted by various councillors in the Conservative Group that you can read on Wirral Council’s website. The minority report procedure hasn’t been used for a long time and I think most people are unsure whether it’s an item that could trigger a debate or whether it would just be voted on. Had it not been for the strike yesterday, this would probably have already happened.

After the call in meeting on 2nd October 2014, the second consultation on closure of Lyndale School should’ve started as the Cabinet delegated this matter to Julia Hassall. She therefore probably knows more the timescales than I do. As far as I know (and Wirral Council’s constitution has been through a lot of changes in the past few years), a decision of a call in committee is still implemented by officers even if a minority report is submitted to the next Council meeting (which should’ve taken place yesterday evening but was I would guess put back a week because of the strike).

My concerns about the entire process in this matter over the last year and how this has all been done I’ve written about before. I am not going to repeat myself here. There are however concerns about corporate governance at Wirral Council about this matter that I haven’t expressed in public.

Personally I think it is a crying shame, that on an issue as sensitive as Lyndale School, that all political parties now represented on Wirral Council (whether Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem or Green) can’t come to an agreement (behind closed doors if need be) to pause this whole process and have a review.

Wirral Council claim that they can’t keep the Lyndale School open in 2015-16 due to a shortfall between what the Lyndale School predicts they will need and what Wirral Council is willing to give them. The shortfall will be
~£190,000.

I have written on this blog before that Wirral Council could easily find this small amount of money if they wished and move it around from existing budgets if the political will was there. In fact papers that went the Wirral Schools Forum last week showed that through reductions in this year’s budget they found ~£2 million. So where’s this money going? It’ll be put in a reserve and used next year to go to Wirral Schools Services Limited who have a PFI Schools contract for various schools (and two city learning centres) with Wirral Council as part of a ~£12 million/year contribution.

Wirral School Services Limited’s account show that for 2014 they had £1.93 million in cash assets, which is £6.33 million in assets minus their £4.39 million in liabilities.

What’s amazing is that a Labour Council, who trumpets its “socialist values” in election leaflets, it is seemingly happy to make £2 million of cuts in year to the Wirral Council’s Schools Budget for this year (which obviously need Wirral Schools Forum approval and Cabinet approval) to help plug a financial gap in the 2015-16 Schools PFI contract, but when it comes to an amount ten times smaller than that to be found no report I’ve seen so far even lists finding the money to keep Lyndale School open in 2015-16 (from such as underspends in existing budgets) as an alternative option!?

Despite the words of Wirral Council in the past that they would put vulnerable people such as the pupils of Lyndale School first, it seems that the school is under threat whilst capitalist greed gobbles up the available funds. If Wirral Council so wished, it could either end or renegotiate the Schools PFI contract. The schools system should not be run to feed the profits of private companies!!! Nor should vulnerable children have such a low priority!!! These are two of my main frustrations with the current situation.

I will repeat again, if you wish to donate to the Friends of Lyndale School Association you can here. The Justgiving website takes a 5% cut of all donations and charges £18 a month to the Friends of Lyndale School Association. However the other 95% (minus £18/month) is paid directly to them.

I know I will continue to get criticism (and I really don’t mind comments on this blog attacking me) from some quarters for how I’m reporting the Lyndale School issue, there has been however nothing so far that convinces me that all the decisions taken by Wirral Council so far have either been taken in the right way or for the right reasons. If everything was done so far “by the book” and in an “open and transparent” way, I would not be as irked by how the matter has happened as I am.

On a personal note, I realise there has been a deterioration in relations between Wirral Council and those associated with the Lyndale School. If other special schools on the Wirral think they will escape whilst Wirral Council’s focus is on Lyndale School, they will need to have a drastic rethink and not bury their heads in the sand. I will repeat here what I said at Lyndale School on Thursday.

There is a current consultation that the government is running on the draft Schools and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2014. These are the regulations (a type of law) that Wirral Council has to conform to when setting schools’ budgets annually.

At the moment, because of a part of the law known as the “minimum funding guarantee”, for this 2014-15 year Wirral Council could not drop school budgets such as Lyndale Schools by more than 1.5% based on what their previous year’s budget allocation was.

However the draft regulations being consulted on, whereas they (in draft form) keep the minimum funding guarantee for mainstream schools, get rid of the current minimum funding guarantee for special schools. Personally and I’m going to get quite political now, I think it is morally wrong to protect mainstream funding for mainstream schools, but at the same time allow local councils to (if they so wish) to totally change the budget (and therefore nature) of special schools which can in extreme cases ultimately force them to close. Obviously the draft regulations may be altered post consultation, but you can respond to that consultation run by the Department of Education here. That consultation closes this Friday (17th October) at 5.00pm.

If the new regulations (following consultation) abolish the existing legal protections for special school budgets, it will be perfectly legal for local councils (such as Wirral Council) to come up with a schools funding formula for 2015-16 that leads not just to the potential closure of schools such as the Lyndale School but dramatically changes the funding allocated to other special schools as the new banding system was agreed earlier this year at a call in a controversial 8:7 vote.

Wirral Council has shifted money out of the agreed budget for special schools to cross subsidise other parts of the education system, such as PFI. This is of course entirely legal if officers get the necessary approvals from the Wirral Schools Forum and others. However in other local authorities, an underspend in the special education side of matters would not be used to plug financial holes and financial instability elsewhere. Other Schools Forums take the prudent approach that underspends on the special educational needs side are put in financial reserves earmarked for that area of education.

The spare capacity such as underspends of money that was agreed should be spent in the special schools system, has instead been used to cross subsidise other parts of Wirral Council’s Schools Budget. The money however always seems to flow out of the special schools system and never back to it. Had these political decisions not been made, there would be more than enough money to keep Lyndale School open (at least for the 2015-16 year and possibly beyond). However instead the influence of a large company such as Wirral Schools Services Limited with large financial reserves has been listened to, whilst the pleas of Lyndale School parents merely to continue with what they already have, have so far been met with a lack of political will to explore alternative options and a knee jerk reaction to blame the situation on the Coalition government, the Church of England and even the Lyndale School itself, without apparently getting across to the public the personal responsibility that politicians at Wirral Council must take for each decision they make.

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Marvin the Martian returns to try to understand the incredible Lyndale School situation and the £1 million SEN budget cut

Marvin the Martian from Disney's Looney Tunes — Marvin the Martian from Disney’s Looney Tunes

The below is a fictional interview with Marvin the Martian about Lyndale School. Marvin the Martian is trademarked to Warner Brothers Entertainment. Our legal team point out their trademark doesn’t actually cover its use on blogs but in case they try to argue this blog is an “entertainment service”, it isn’t, so no laughing! Yes I mean it, not even a smile! We also point out it’s not an infringing use of class 9 of this trademark as that refers to its use on goods rather than virtually.

We rely on s.30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and class this as “fair dealing” due to the acknowledgement above. As the The Copyright and Rights in Performances (Quotation and Parody) Regulations 2014 have come into force earlier this month, we’ll rely on this too and the new section 30A on parody.

JOHN BRACE: Thanks once again for agreeing to be interviewed about Lyndale School. We asked Wirral Council for a meeting about Lyndale School but they declined.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: You’re welcome. Well that is a shame I was looking forward to finally meeting people from Wirral Council that I have seen on your video broadcasts. Why do your politicians think they can get away with making decisions like this?

JOHN BRACE: They believe they’re doing the right thing in making “difficult decisions” that are “unpopular”. Also many are what’s in “safe seats”, and many of them (if they choose to do so) will not have to face the public in an election for many years to come.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: But they’re still subject to laws right, that meeting last Thursday the people making the decision didn’t have the required statutory guidance for decision makers which includes the SEN Improvement Test as part of the papers for that meeting?

JOHN BRACE: Well the politicians could have adjourned the meeting and received the correct documents but they chose not to. However you can’t expect politicians to know what they’re doing. They’re elected to look at things from the public perspective and rely on officer advice in such matters. Anyway preparing the papers for a meeting is an officer function in consultation with the Chair.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: You can’t blame this on the committee services officer Lyndzay Roberts though as she only includes in the papers for the meeting what she’s been given in time for it to be published and on that subject why do they keep picking the committee services officer who is a wheelchair user for the Lyndale School meetings?

JOHN BRACE: I’m afraid I can’t read people’s minds and would prefer not to answer that question.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Ahh the “Lynn Wright” defence eh? How much do you get paid then?

JOHN BRACE: Not enough to be answering questions from fictional characters about difficult subjects and I’m assuming your second question is a joke! I know what I got paid last year, so does HMRC. I can estimate what I will get paid this year but as I’m on a fixed amount plus an element that is related to performance, I literally could only tell you it’s above £x,xxx/year. I’m also not sure if you mean gross or net salary as a certain proportion of my earnings I don’t get as they are paid in taxes. I have income from sources other than my salary though.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Ha ha! OK, I won’t pry too much! Back to Lyndale, what was decided on Thursday?

JOHN BRACE: To uphold the Cabinet decision of 4th September 2014 on a majority 9:6 vote.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: And remind me what the Cabinet decision of 4th September 2014 was?

JOHN BRACE: Following the first consultation, to have a further second (but different) consultation on closure.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: I thought they’d just had a consultation!

JOHN BRACE: This is a similar but different sort of consultation.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: OK, I never realised closing down a school was made so complicated!

JOHN BRACE: A final decision on closure has not yet been made. This is just an “in principle” decision on closure.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: And how much is this all costing?

JOHN BRACE: Who knows? The school closure/retirement costs budget for this year is £326,000. However it looks like £200,000 of that will be moved to another budget heading soon.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Which budget heading?

JOHN BRACE: PFI (private finance initiative).

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Why’s that?

JOHN BRACE: Well you always have to plan for the worst and hope for the best with school closures, extra call in meetings, delays, legal challenges et cetera. Sometimes that means budget allocated goes unspent which can be used for other things.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So they’re not going to use a £200,000 underspend on the school closure budget to keep Lyndale open another year (costing ~£190,000)?

JOHN BRACE: No, pending a decision by the Wirral Schools Forum an underspend on the school closure budget will be spent instead next year on the ~£12 million a year PFI contract.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: OK, so when does this second consultation on closing Lyndale School start?

JOHN BRACE: Wirral Council officers had authorisation to proceed with implementation of the Cabinet decision of 4th September 2014, once the call in ended on 2nd October 2014. This has been delegated by the Cabinet to Julia Hassall to implement.

Regulation 8 of the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014 will require Wirral Council to publish a notice on their website shortly after Julia Hassall implements this decision. This public notice has to contain the date of the decision, a record of the decision and reasons, details of any alternative options considered and rejected and the names of any of the Cabinet that declared a conflict of interest in the decision.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Well how likely are Wirral Council to do that?

JOHN BRACE: They probably won’t. They always have great difficulty in complying with their legal requirements (of which there are many).There have been many decisions delegated by councillors to officers taken since these new regulations came into effect near the start of August 2014 ranging from taxi licences to other types of decision. Another part of the same regulations dealt with filming of public meetings, which thankfully settles a long running industrial relations dispute with us and them. As far as I can tell no public notice has been published by officers relating to those yet?

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Why ever not?

JOHN BRACE: Some of the officers to whom the decisions have been delegated to make don’t have the authorisation to publish public notices on the website through the Modgov system. Also this change to legal requirements (which should’ve been implemented from August) would require a change to working practices which requires consultation with the trade unions through the HR department before implementation. Finally, in the vast majority of cases, there are either existing capacity issues with staffing or the decisions are so minor that nobody’s really apart from myself is paying that much attention whether internally or externally while more interesting things are happening and putting the necessary political pressure on to ensure these new regulations are implemented?

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Like what is more interesting?

JOHN BRACE: Like officers’ plan to persuade the Wirral Schools Forum on Wednesday evening to make £1 million of in year cuts this year in 2014/15 to (SEN Top Ups/Independent School Fees (£600,000), statements (£200,000) and support for SEN (£200,000)).

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: And why are they proposing to cut a further £1 million from the SEN budget this year?

JOHN BRACE: So they can pay for PFI costs in 2015/16.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: And why have PFI costs risen so much?

JOHN BRACE: Because a political decision was made a long time ago to take ~£2 million out of the PFI budget for 2015/16 and get schools to pay for it instead through budget cuts. Also the calculation in the contract bases yearly increases in how much is paid based on the RPI value in December of one year compared to the previous year then multiplied by ninety percent. That’s my simple explanation, the contract itself refers to the 90% as 0.9 and has a formula as to how the increases are calculated.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So if the other special schools (other than Lyndale) think they’re safe they’re not?

JOHN BRACE: Indeed, their budgets were protected this year by dropping by more than 1.5%. Based on the draft regulations circulated by the government (Schools and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2014) as part of the current consultation (which closes on October 17th 2014), for special school that protection (assuming the draft regulations aren’t changed) will end in 2015/16. The department for education can be emailed at 2014SchoolFinanceRegulations.Consultation@education.gsi.gov.uk about the policy side of the consultation, or consultation.unit@education.gsi.gov.uk or by telephone on 0370 000 2288 or by mail to Department for Education, Beth O’Brien, Department for Education, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BT. Further detail about the consultation is on the DfE website here and you can respond online to this consultation here.

However for mainstream it looks like the minimum funding guarantee of at least 98.5% of last years budget will continue in some form?

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So because they can (or assume they can) Wirral Council will target more special schools for cuts in the future?

JOHN BRACE: Probably, but officers don’t decide that however they can recommend that. That’s ultimately decided by the Wirral Schools Forum/councillors.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So is the money they’re getting for schools each year, the ~£175 million they get from the government under the direct schools grant going down next year?

JOHN BRACE: No it isn’t, but a financial and purely local decision by Wirral Council has been made to withdraw the extra funding from Wirral Council that paid for the PFI affordability gap. This amounts to £600,000 this year and millions next year (2015/16). The PFI affordability gap is the total PFI expenditure minus the fixed grant minus the costs schools pay for the services under the PFI contract which is next year about £2.6 million.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So who was the Cabinet Member that originally agreed to this PFI contract in the first place?

JOHN BRACE: Councillor Phil Davies, the current Leader of Wirral Council.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Is there any way out of the contract, when does it end and can it be renegotiated?

JOHN BRACE: Yes, 2031 and yes.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So will they try to renegotiate to save money or terminate it?

JOHN BRACE: Probably not no, management were asked this at the last Wirral Schools Forum, however management only know what they’re told about the contract, they’re not managing it on a day to day basis. Terminating it would be expensive as there is still 17 years left to run, renegotiating would be the more likely option of the two if the political will is there.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So you’re saying the Wirral School Forum members asked Wirral Council officers that hadn’t actually read the contract?

JOHN BRACE: Judging by their answers probably not, managers don’t do things themselves they delegate tasks such as reading contracts and managing contracts to others, maybe not even people that are directly line managed by them but people lower down the food chain.

You can’t expect a senior manager to read such a long contract. Even if they did, it’s hundreds of pages long. It would be very hard to remember all the details unless they brought an electronic searchable version along to the Wirral Schools Forum on say a tablet computer or alternatively circulated an electronic copy to the members of the Wirral Schools Forum. I suppose as a councillor (and member of the Wirral Schools Forum) Cllr Wendy Clements could ask for a copy if she so wished.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So what does the PFI contract actually say about renegotiation?

JOHN BRACE: Wirral Council have to ask the provider (Wirral Schools Services Limited) about changes to the contract and be specific. Wirral Schools Services Limited then have a limited time period in which to respond stating (and I summarise here) whether they agree or not to the changes or not. If they agree they are implemented. However if there is disagreement between Wirral Council and the contractor there is a dispute resolution procedure that can be followed.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So are there any changes they have to agree to?

JOHN BRACE: Yes certain changes they have to agree to. For example there was a legislation change recently on free school meals for children under a certain age. As this was a legislation change, Wirral Council can ask for such changes to be implemented so that Wirral Council does not breach its legal obligations.

There are other categories of change that the contractor has to agree to too.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Indeed, so could Wirral Council’s legal department come up with similar changes which could result in the total cost being lowered?

JOHN BRACE: Wirral Council’s legal department has issues of its own. Also it in order to implement changes quickly it would require agreement of the contractor Wirral Schools Services Limited. Wirral Council would have to seek appropriate authorisation internally from sufficiently senior officers and if it had large budgetary implications in terms of costs or savings then also authorisation from politicians.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So it’s possible?

JOHN BRACE: Anything’s possible. However as the contractor is a large organisation with a turnover off the top of my head of about £62 million, although they are considerably smaller in annual yearly revenue budget than Wirral Council, Wirral Council still get scared of organisations with that sort of financial clout, as well as organisational and legal resources at their disposal.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Does current senior management at Wirral Council want to renegotiate the contract?

JOHN BRACE: If the Wirral Schools Forum and/or politicians in the administration asked them to they’d have to to look into the option (which would depending on the option and the savings/cost implication would affect budgets through to 2031). After negotiations, generally officers would bring back options to politicians/Wirral Schools Forum for a meeting. However the Schools PFI contract is complex, it is hard for anyone to understand easily.

If neither of those formally happen, senior management already have enough on their plate already and lack the current internal capacity as they are already negotiating a 7 year extension to a contract of a similar size (~£12 million a year) with Biffa Waste Services Limited.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: But Biffa is in a different strategic directorate to schools!

JOHN BRACE: Indeed but there are capacity issues at the management level and across the organisation at all levels. This is due to annual leave requirements, illness, other factors and the mere practical constraints of there only ever being so many people to keep all the plates spinning up in the air at once.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Oh dear. So what is the likely net result to be?

JOHN BRACE: Instead of renegotiating savings on a contract, Wirral Council in the absence of either strong leadership at either the Wirral Schools Forum level or political level will probably accept the status quo and instead make in year cuts of a further £1 million to special educational needs. Officers will probably point out that they have tried to make sure the cuts don’t adversely affect front line services, but they will!

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: How on Mars do you make £2 million of in year cuts without it affecting frontline services?

JOHN BRACE: Indeed… here is a link to the papers for tomorrow’s Wirral Schools Forum meeting which is a public meeting starting at 6.00pm in the Council Chamber in Wallasey Town Hall.

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