Councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee agreed to Chief Executive Eric Robinson serving shorter notice period and leaving in mid-July 2019

Councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee agreed to Chief Executive Eric Robinson serving shorter notice period and leaving in mid-July 2019

Councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee agreed to Chief Executive Eric Robinson serving shorter notice period and leaving in mid-July 2019

                                                 

Returning Officer for Wirral Council Eric Robinson 25th March 2019
Chief Executive for Wirral Council Eric Robinson who has recently resigned (25th March 2019)

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Employment and Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) 12th June 2019 Part 1 of 3 Appointment of Chair and Vice-Chair, Declarations of Interest, Appointment of Head of Paid Service

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Continue reading “Councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee agreed to Chief Executive Eric Robinson serving shorter notice period and leaving in mid-July 2019”

Who wants to leave Wirral Council (at a cost of £146,666)?

Who wants to leave Wirral Council (at a cost of £146,666)?

Who wants to leave Wirral Council (at a cost of £146,666)?

                                    

Fiona Johnstone (Acting Director for Strategy and Partnerships) (Wirral Council) Health and Wellbeing Board 14th March 2018
Fiona Johnstone (Acting Director for Strategy and Partnerships) (Wirral Council) Health and Wellbeing Board 14th March 2018

This is a follow up article to What is Wirral Council trying to cover up now? which also ties in to this Freedom of Information request (first refused on s.43 (commercial interests) grounds, then at internal review on s.22 grounds (information intended for future publication).
Continue reading “Who wants to leave Wirral Council (at a cost of £146,666)?”

What is Wirral Council trying to cover up now?

What is Wirral Council trying to cover up now?

What is Wirral Council trying to cover up now?

                                 

No documents are available for this meeting
No documents are available for this meeting

This is a story of another Wirral Council cover up that seems to be in slow motion falling apart.

It started first last month with this FOI request of mine last month for a report that was considered by councillors on Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee in private on Tuesday evening. That request was first turned down (by the Council that likes to say no) on the grounds of commercial interests (section 43), then when I requested an internal review the section 43 decision was overturned and replaced with a section 22 refusal (information intended for future publication) on the rationale that Wirral Council will publish the information on its website at some future unspecified date and supplying the 18 A4 pages I asked for would be according to them a “drain on public resources”.
Continue reading “What is Wirral Council trying to cover up now?”

Wirral’s councillors asked to agree to £390,176.03 “golden goodbye” for Joe Blott and £1 million for other departing managers

Wirral’s councillors asked to agree to £390,176.03 “golden goodbye” for Joe Blott and £1 million for other departing managers

Wirral’s councillors asked to agree to £390,176.03 “golden goodbye” for Joe Blott and £1 million for other departing managers

                                 

Wirral Council Cabinet meeting at Birkenhead Town Hall Thursday 12th March 2015 Left to right Surjit Tour, Cllr Phil Davies and Joe Blott
Wirral Council Cabinet meeting at Birkenhead Town Hall Thursday 12th March 2015 Left to right Surjit Tour (former Monitoring Officer), Cllr Phil Davies and Joe Blott (former Strategic Director)

Wirral Council had another public meeting in private (an assumption on my part as I wasn’t there) on Monday afternoon to obtain councillors’ agreement to a recommendation to save money by spending an estimated £1.4 million and increasing the salary of the Monitoring Officer to try and solve recruitment issues to this post.
Continue reading “Wirral’s councillors asked to agree to £390,176.03 “golden goodbye” for Joe Blott and £1 million for other departing managers”

Who’s leaving Wirral Council and what is a 20,085 signature petition against?

Who’s leaving Wirral Council and what is a 20,085 signature petition against?

Who’s leaving Wirral Council and what is a 20,085 signature petition against?

                                      

Mayor Cllr Ann McLachlan , Council (Wirral Council) 10th July 2017
Mayor Cllr Ann McLachlan , Council (Wirral Council) 10th July 2017

Yesterday’s email from Mr Tour, ended with “you are required to return to the public gallery”.

However when I did return to the entrance to the public gallery above the Council Chamber, after asking my question, Wirral Council’s Community Patrol unsuccessfully tried to stop me re-entering.

I have however sadly learnt in life to ignore a lot of Wirral Council employee’s more bizarre requests and slipped past him. The guy from Community Patrol tried to grab my arm to stop me but lost his grip.

Ironically as I had had a stand up protest downstairs over the nonsense over the seating arrangements, typing away notes on my iPad, in the hot weather my bare arm was so sweaty by then that his hand couldn’t grip on to me.

So I thank Surjit Tour for putting into place a chain of events that thwarted another Wirral Council employee.

As I’d forgotten to turn my tape recorder off downstairs there’s a tape of the whole matter and conversation.

Maybe Community Patrol will have better luck at the next Planning Committee?

Indeed Wirral Council losing its grip seemed to be a running theme of the evening.

The petition against the planning application for a fire station (on Council owned land) in Saughall Massie presented by Cllr Chris Blakeley has reached 4,034 signatures. The report from Wirral Council’s planning department recommends it for approval. The matter will be decided at the Planning Committee on the 20th July 2017, after a site visit on the 18th July 2017.

Another large petition, of a mere 20,805 signatures, submitted by Cllr Chris Blakeley on behalf of Cllr Jeff Green opposed the introduction of car parking charges in the country parks (which goes to a call-in meeting on the 18th July 2017).

Cllr Phil Davies (Leader) and the Labour councillors however does not agree with Cllr Chris Blakeley on many policy matters.

After questions for Cabinet Members from various councillors, there were general questions, followed by just over half an hour of debate about senior managers’ employment status.

A quick summary is Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services) resigned, Tom Sault (Assistant Director: Finance) is entering a “phased retirement”, Surjit Tour (Assistant Director: Law and Governance, Monitoring Officer and Senior Information Risk Officer) has resigned and Clare Fish (Executive Director for Strategy) has requested early retirement.

The Chief Executive, Eric Robinson also wants to regrade the Director for Children post to the £140-£155k band and create a new post for a senior manager (Director of Strategy and Partnerships) on a salary range of £103k-£115k. He also wants to increase the salary range for the Assistant Director: Law and Governance and Monitoring Officer post to a maximum of £93k. Those are most of the changes (there are some other ones too).

The changes to the senior management team that were recommended in a private meeting of the Employment and Appointments Committee were agreed by Council yesterday evening on a 35:25:1 vote (for:against:abstain). The 1 is the Labour councillor who is the Mayor abstaining. The other 35 are Labour councillors and the 25 were a combination of opposition councillors.

The effect is that Surjit Tour remains serving out his notice (until some point in September 2017), Clare Fish’s early retirement request is agreed, Tom Sault retires (but phased) and Penna (the external recruitment consultants) have a massive pay-day from advising Wirral Council on recruitment to all these posts (estimated by one councillor at ~£12k a post).

The senior management team was restructured last in November 2016 and at least one councillor suggested that changing again so soon implies that the previous model hadn’t worked.

Cllr Bernie Mooney referred to people being paid, “too bloody much”.

Certainly the senior management team hasn’t been changed this much since 2012, when a large number of them were suspended, then paid large sums to leave as the suspension wasn’t done properly.

There was also a short debate on wildlife sites.

Most people however were there in the public gallery (patiently waiting around two hours before the meeting got to that point) to hear debate on a Notice of Motion about the New Ferry explosion.

Cllr Warren Ward received cross-party plaudits for his work as a ward councillor for this area.

Labour councillors blamed it on the government.

Conservative councillors said that part of the response was the responsibility of Wirral Council.

In the end though, after just over 30 minutes of debate, councillors of all parties agreed a notice of motion that will result in Wirral Council writing a letter to the Prime Minister and a letter to the government minister for Communities and Local Government.

After that agreement, the Mayor called for a ten minute adjournment (which turned into a fifteen minute adjournment).

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