Category: Council

Annual Meeting (Part 1) (Wirral Council) 14th May 2013 Mayors Communications, Mayor of Wirral Cllr Gerry Ellis “It’s been an amazing, exciting, unbelievable experience”

Annual Meeting (Part 1) (Wirral Council) 14th May 2013 Mayors Communications | The Mayor thanked various people that had helped him during his year in office and gave an update on fundraising for the Mayor’s charities

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Annual Meeting (Part 1) 13th May 2013 (Wirral Council) Part 1

Mayor of Wirral Cllr Gerry Ellis “It’s been an amazing, exciting, unbelievable experience”

Annual Meeting Part 1 (Wirral Council) 14th May 2013 Civic Hall Mayor Cllr Gerry Ellis arrives

The Annual Meeting (Part 1) is the only Council meeting to be held in the Civic Hall. As you can see from the photo hundreds of people are invited not just to the public meeting itself, but to the social event held afterwards.

The Mayor Gerry Ellis entered along a red carpet preceded by the Mace-bearer in a scene that reminded me of Black Rod at the State Opening of Parliament. Once he got to the stage he welcomed people and gave a short speech. He referred to the year he had been Mayor as an “amazing, exciting and unbelievable experience” and that if he was to write a book about it he’d call it “Ellis in Wonderland”.

He thanked various people, Cllr Jeff Green and the senior Conservative councillors for choosing him and Cllr Phil Davies for seconding the motion. The Mayor also thanked Cllr Phil Davies for his support as Leader and went on to thank various Town Hall staff. He thanked Sue Carroll, Sonia Norman and his drivers and attendants specifically referring to Alan’s wit. The Mayor also thanked Shirley Hudspeth, Surjit Tour, Tony Hope (from the press office) and all the Town Hall desk staff (Peter, Tom, Phil, Nick, Hazel, Mike and Greg) who he remarked were “always friendly and helpful”.

He also thanked Carol Jackson for helping to run the Mayor’s charity fundraising and Cllr Phil Davies’ Secretary Barbara Turner. The Mayor also thanked Margaret McGee and a number of councillors including Cllr George Davies, Cllr Brian Kenny and Cllr Steve Williams. He also thanked Cllr Geoffrey Watt’s wife Ann for selling a quarter of the tickets to the Mayor’s Ball.

On the fundraising for the Mayor’s charities, they had passed £40,000, but there were still funds to come in. They had given a cheque for £10,000 to three charities, as well as cheques to thirty-five others ranging from £50 to £500. He said he was “very sorry not to help every charity” but that it “had been amazing to see the charity work that goes on, on the Wirral”.

The three charities that had received £10,000 were YMCA Wirral (for their work with the homeless), Wirral and West Cheshire Prostrate Cancer Appeal and the Wirral Scouts and Guides Association. He then went on to give a brief speech on his year as Mayor.

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Darren Dodd “this is what the people of Wirral have been asking for for a very long time”

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Darren Dodd “this is what the people of Wirral have been asking for for a very long time”

Continued from Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”.

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Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Darren Dodd “this is what the people of Wirral have been asking for for a very long time”

Cllr Darren Dodd was next to speak and told people he had been along to many meetings was surprised that some councillors hadn’t gone to one. He said he had been elected almost three years ago and ever since then councillors had been talking about change, he referred to several difficult reports received all calling for change. Cllr Dodd said they had voted unanimously for change on several occasions and that “this is what change looks like” [referring to the constitutional changes]. He said, “Let us not forget this is what normal Councils do, this is what normal looks like”.

Cllr Dodd said that the Tories had raised concerns about power being taken away from councillors, but he felt the new arrangements gave “more opportunity to raise issues of concern, not less”. He said, “It’s always been my view that of all the meetings I attend, full Council meetings are often pointless.” Cllr Dodd said it’s not because full Council doesn’t make important decisions, but that they nod through business as quickly as possible to get to the Notices of Motion.

He said the Notices of Motion are always on important things, but often carry little weight, at the end of the meeting “usually a lot of hot air has been expelled”, but very little action agreed. Cllr Dodd pointed out that out of fifteen to twenty motions, often only one or two are properly discussed and that the new arrangements would be “clearly a better system” and “this is what the people of Wirral have been asking for for a very long time”.

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”

Continued from Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes “it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”

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Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”

Council meeting Extraordinary 30th April 2013 Revisions to the constitution Cllr John Hale

Cllr Hale thanked Cllr Tom Harney for his kind remarks. He referred to the Chief Executive’s report to Cabinet of the 18th April, page 46 (page 8 on the file that’s linked to) and quoted from 5.3 “The views of the Democracy Working Party which has met on a number of occasions have helped inform these proposals.”

He considered it to be misleading as it could be read that there was general support for the proposals, in fact a majority of the Democracy Working Party were opposed to the proposals. The Democracy Working Party had only met on five or six occasions for one and a half hours at a time, although it did overrun by ten minutes at its last meeting. Cllr Hale said that this was to review a constitution of one hundred and ninety-nine pages. He said, “I don’t believe this to be anything else except a cynical exercise carried out in order to claim full cross-party consideration and consultation when nothing could be further from the truth.”

Cllr Hale said the result would be to give greater power to Cabinet and the Chief Officers. Fourteen months ago over 70% of councillors voted for a return to the committee system. He said even if they assumed that the new councillors were against a return to the committee system that there would still be a majority in favour of it. Cllr Hale said that this had been the result of a secret ballot.

He said democracy was best served when all parties in proportion to their numbers were represented in the decision making process at all levels of the Council. Cllr Hale referred to the freedom that overview and scrutiny committees have and that no new powers were given to them, just their names were changed.

Cllr Hale said the coordinating committee would have ample opportunity to interfere with and constrain the overview and scrutiny committees. He felt the changes to the Council meeting procedures would reduce the time for opposition councillors whilst increasing the time for the majority party councillors. Cllr Hale said “any third world dictator would be proud” and that “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”.

Continued at Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Darren Dodd “this is what the people of Wirral have been asking for for a very long time”.

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes “it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes ” it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”

Continued from Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Blakeley “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

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Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes “it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”

Cllr Foulkes thanked the Mayor for his introduction. He said “This is actually one of the times we’ll have a proper debate”. He said that the other two parties (Conservative and the Lib Dems) wanted effectively no change to the constitution. Cllr Foulkes said if they’d genuinely wanted to change the constitution they could’ve sat down with their mentors and brought forward proposals. He said the only person who’d done any work on it was the Council Leader [Cllr Phil Davies].

He said that Cllr Green had the audacity to talk about the brown bin tax, he [Cllr Green] had had the opportunity to move an objection at Budget Council but hadn’t do so. Cllr Foulkes said that Cllr Green had been in power along with Cllr Harney and he asked did they take the Council to Shrangri-La? He answered, “No they didn’t. They had their chance at the time, they had the opportunity, but did not do so.”

Cllr Foulkes said, “I’m going to get lectures tonight about getting rid of two committees, one of them is around Adult Social Services and adult safeguarding. We had a training session on Monday night on adult safeguarding, a very informative one, all about how the restructures, how the Council’s delivering it, the staff, the people, one event. Who turned up? How many Conservative Members [councillors] turned up to that training session? How many? Not one, not one, sadly I don’t know what’s going on within the Liberal Democrat Group, we’ve read the headlines about it, I don’t know what was going on there, but none of those turned up and sadly I have to say only five Members [councillors] turned up and well, gladly they were all Labour Members [councillors] who bothered to turn up. If that’s the measure of the all party contribution to learning about safeguarding then we still have some way to go.”

He continued, “It can be enshrined in the year’s work or the work program of the new committee that will take over that and there are lessons to be learnt for combining looking at children’s safeguarding and adult safeguarding. That is a lesson that was learnt from the past.”

Cllr Foulkes also said, “I will remind this Council though, it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report. It was the committee system that made that decision. If you think the committee system is foolproof it ain’t. If you think the Cabinet system is foolproof it isn’t.”

He said, “What I am shocked at is the lack of engagement by certain senior Members [councillors] in the process we have gone through. We’ve been to the Floral Pavillion and the atmosphere is better than in this Chamber.” … “We have a training mafia who are apparently monitoring us and making criticisms of us going to training sessions.” … “It maybe that we can have localised planning decisions, it maybe that we can have localised licensing decisions…”.

Continues at Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”.

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Blakeley “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Blakeley “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Continued from Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Harney “We don’t know where we came from, we don’t know where we’re going”

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Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Blakeley “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Council meeting (Extraordinary) 30th April 2013 Revisions to the Constitution Cllr Chris Blakeley

The Mayor thanked Cllr Harney, he asked councillors to keep their speeches to three minutes so that everyone who wanted to could have a say.

Cllr Blakeley said he would stick to three minutes. He said that twelve years ago when the Cabinet form of local government had been started, there was a select committee for each portfolio. This was so there would be no overlap and Cabinet Members were invited along to be asked questions, he said “everything seemed to work ok”.

These were deemed to be “too unwieldy” and “taking too much of officer’s time” so they were reduced to six, although there were some overlapping responsibilities it “was in the main manageable and workable”. Now they [the Labour administration] wanted to cut six committees to three, which Cllr Blakeley regarded as “extremely dangerous”. Cllr Blakeley referred to the Children and Young Peoples Overview and Scrutiny Committee and high-profile cases that had happened in other Boroughs such as Victoria Climbié and Baby P.

He asked them not to forget the overcharging of vulnerable adults on Wirral. He said the new committee would have to “scrutinise these two vast departments”. Cllr Blakeley said, “This is typical of Labour’s control freak dictatorial ‘We know what’s best’ capacity”.

He said that Area Forums made a difference by “giving local people a real opportunity to have a say”, “yet here we have Labour wanting to grab power back to the centre” and that the new constituency committees would be given a “token amount of funding” far less than the funding to the Area Forums they replaced. Cllr Blakeley said it was a “failure to understand what people of this Borough want”.

On the changes to Council meeting procedures, he said if it went through it would “effectively gag councillors from debate in the Council Chamber and put even greater power in Labour’s hands”. Cllr Blakeley said, “Sadly tonight Mr. Mayor, we are witnessing the destruction of the last vestiges of democracy in Wirral and the residents of this Borough will be ruled by a controlling, tyrannical Labour Group”.

He referred to the refusal of the £1.3 million Council Tax Freeze Grant, increases to car parking charges, the brown bin charges and asked “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Continued at Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes “it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”.