Cllr Jeff Green asks if Wirral Council are looking to spend £1,000,000 on their new Chief Executive (over 5 years)?

Cllr Jeff Green asks if Wirral Council are looking to spend £1,000,000 on their new Chief Executive (over 5 years)?

Cllr Jeff Green asks if Wirral Council are looking to spend £1,000,000 on their new Chief Executive (over 5 years)?

                                                    

Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, 24th November 2014 L to R Martin Denny (LGA), David Slatter (Penna PLC), Cllr Jeff Green, Cllr Lesley Rennie and Cllr Phil Gilchrist
Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, 24th November 2014 L to R Martin Denny (LGA), David Slatter (Penna PLC), Cllr Jeff Green, Cllr Lesley Rennie and Cllr Phil Gilchrist

Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, 24th November 2014 L to R Martin Denny (LGA), David Slatter (Penna PLC), Cllr Jeff Green, Cllr Lesley Rennie and Cllr Phil Gilchrist

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Video above is from the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) public meeting held on the 24th November 2014 in Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, Seacombe

Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) met in Committee Room 3, Wallasey Town Hall, Seacombe on Monday afternoon at around 2.30pm. The councillors on the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) which had previously been decided by the Employment and Appointments Committee on the 27th October 2014 are:

Cllr Phil Davies (Labour)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour)
Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative)
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Lib Dem)

1. Appointment of Chair

The meeting started with a Wirral Council officer from the Legal and Member Services section asking for nominations for Chair.

Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour) proposed Cllr Phil Davies (Labour) as Chair of the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) meeting.
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour) seconded Cllr Phil Davies (Labour) as Chair of the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) meeting.

The officer asked if there were any other nominations for Chair?

There were no other nominations for Chair so Cllr Phil Davies was appointed Chair for the meeting.

Cllr Phil Davies got up and moved to a different seat.

2. Members’ Code of Conduct – Declarations of Interest

The Chair asked if there were any declarations of interest? No councillors declared any interests.

3. Appointment of Chief Executive, Head of Paid Service (including Returning Officer and Electoral Registration Officer)

There was a report and thirteen appendices for this item.

Cllr Phil Davies asked Chris Hyams (Head of Human Resources and Organisational
Development) to take the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) through the report and asked her to highlight the areas where they [the councillors] needed to make a decision.

She referred to the Employment and Appointments Committee meeting of the 27th October 2014 and said that the Employment and Appointments Panel was set up to appoint a Chief Executive. Chris Hyams said that the report recommends a review of the salary of the Chief Executive, the role of Returning Officer and Electoral Registration Officer, the requirements of the job and a proposed timetable for moving forward. The report also detailed interim management arrangements between the retirement of the current Chief Executive and the appointment of his replacement.

The Chair, Cllr Phil Davies referred to the recommendations on page 6 and he suggested taking each recommendation in turn and that he was happy to take questions and comments as they go on. That was agreed.

He introduced their two external advisers to the Employment and Appointments Panel (Chief Executive) who were Martin Denny from the Local Government Association and David Slatter of Penna PLC (who are paid £15,000 by Wirral Council to help with recruiting a Chief Executive).

The Chair said that the first item to discuss is salary for the new Chief Executive. The current salary range of the Chief Executive was £121,807 to £135,341. The comparative data for Chief Executive salaries and workforce size (FTE) for North West authorities was attached at Appendix 5 (2013 figures). The comparative salaries for officers that report to Chief Executives was attached at appendix 7. A comparison of the multiple between the average FTE earnings and the Chief Executive was attached at appendix 8.

The Chair started by asking the external advisers for their advice.

David Slatter of Penna PLC went first. He said that the current salary for the Chief Executive was in the lower quartile. The £155,000 to £175,000 range in his opinion would give the flexibility to make sure they got the quality of candidates and that whoever was appointed would stay.

The Chair said that that would be David’s recommendation. He asked Martin Denny from the Local Government Association next.

Martin Denny from the Local Government Association that their data was very similar [to Penna’s] and that it was important that they had a “range of characters to choose from and that they are retained as well”. He said that they needed the ability to recruit the best possible candidate and that’s what they needed to search for.

The Chair Cllr Phil Davies had said that that was the advice.

Cllr Jeff Green asked what the salary of the Prime Minister is?

As a point of information at this point, I will point out that the salary of the Prime Minister is £142,500 (April 2013 figures) [source: Parliament’s website].

Cllr Phil Davies replied with “I don’t know.”

Cllr Jeff Green said that his understanding was that it was around £140,000. He asked if they were suggesting if they get a new Chief Executive that they pay them more than the Prime Minister?

Cllr Phil Davies (Chair) said that that was what their external advisers were suggesting, yes.

Cllr Adrian Jones made some comments.

Cllr Phil Gilchrist asked about appendix 3. He referred to page 13 and asked are the proportions fixed automatically and would there be automatic increases in the Strategic Director’s salaries if the salary of the Chief Executive was increased?

Cllr Phil Davies (Chair) invited Chris Hyams to answer that question.

Chris Hyams explained that the percentages for strategic director’s salaries were shown as percentages of the current grade for the Chief Executive. She said the percentage was the current situation, however it could be altered and that the Employment and Appointment Panel (Chief Executive) had the authority to make a recommendation to Council to do so.

Cllr Phil Gilchrist to the Council’s policy to pay staff the living wage [at the time of writing £7.85/hour]. He asked for the pay differential between the lowest and highest paid member of staff?

Chris Hyams referred to an entry level of spinal column point 10, local government pay scales starting at point 5, the national pay award, but that at Wirral Council its lowest paid workers were paid more than the lowest paid workers at other councils as they pay the Living Wage.

Cllr Phil Gilchrist made a follow up comment, Chris Hyams replied referring to the ratio between the earnings of the Chief Executive and the lowest paid worker which the Council published as part of its pay policy [which was a requirement of the Localism Act 2011 c.20].

Cllr Jeff Green asked if the salary quoted included pension contributions?

Chris Hyams replied that each salary had on costs of just over 22% of each salary. The salary details shown were exclusive of on costs.

Cllr Jeff Green said that the suggested amount was £155,000 to £175,000. Taking a middle figure of £160,000 how much on top of that would Wirral Council be paying £190,000 to £200,000 once pension contributions were taken into account as Wirral Council didn’t pay the current Chief Executive’s pension?

Chris Hyams said that it was unusual not to pay an employee’s on costs. She emphasised that the data did not include on costs.

Cllr Jeff Green said that if they went with the recommended figures that it would be £200,000, which over five years would be a million pounds. He said they were looking at spending a million pounds for one person?

Continues at Labour councillors argue for increase in range of Wirral Council’s Chief Executives’ salary to between £155,000 and £175,000.

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Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013: Industrial relations: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013: Industrial relations: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013: Industrial relations: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

                                                                                  

One of the quandaries you face in the press is just what you do over leaked documents. When I was working in print it was easy, the procedure was everything just had to be double sourced. With Wirral Council that has in the past often caused problems as two bits of Wirral Council would flat-out contradict each other over the same facts!

The particular document I am referring to is the Ipsos Mori “Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013”. This contains such classic lines such as:

“The contents of this report are of a commercially sensitive and confidential nature and intended solely for the review and consideration of the person or entity to which it is addressed. No other use is permitted and the addressee undertakes not to disclose all or part of this report to any third party (including but not limited, where applicable, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act 2000) without the prior written consent of the Company Secretary of Ipsos MORI.”

Well thank goodness for a s.30 exemption to the copyright laws for the press is all I can say.

In an “open and transparent” public sector, where Wirral Council wanted to show how it had emerged from the nightmare of its past “industrial relations” issues, here’s just one industrial relations issue that would not be happening:

a) employee appeals/grievance hearings of Wirral Council employees now decided by Wirral Council management behind closed doors instead of councillors (unlike other local councils) at public meetings behind closed doors. Yes it was a Labour administration and Labour councillors that decided to change the constitution and go against the trade unions on that one!

b) excessive secrecy on HR matters (but I’m the press and I would say that wouldn’t I?), however it’s not just me but others that state the same thing?

The whole ninety-page document that is the Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013 (before you get to the appendices) is the kind of thing that councillors, the public, employees and others should be able to read, but I’m sure management would rather not like to ever see the light of day.

However considering management’s view on leaks, especially matters that relate to Graham Burgess, I will just remind people of part of the Chief Executive’s job description as Head of Paid Service:

“To act as Head of Paid Service to the Council and to provide workforce leadership for the Council.”

In other words the buck stops at him. OK answerable to the public then are councillors who are Cabinet Members, but from an officer perspective ultimately Graham Burgess (or whoever replaces him after the end of this year) sets the culture of the organisation when it comes to workforce matters.

For example is Wirral Council an organisation where councillors, management and the trade unions work harmoniously in partnership or is it one where senior officers (backed up by councillors) make veiled threats to cancel a meeting because of industrial relations matters in an attempt to somewhat avoid legal protections in order to damage openness and transparency?

It was during Graham Burgess’ tenure as Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service that the changes to the grievance and appeals procedures were changed. One of the reasons given at the time was that with large-scale redundancies, councillors would’ve been snowed under dealing with employee appeals.

That may be a legitimate reason to put forward for the change (and yes I have heard at least one former councillor moan during a public meeting about how terribly long-winded some employee appeals/grievances were). However taking councillors out of grievance appeals meant that any future whistleblowers would only be heard by management. Then management have a vested interest in making sure issues are resolved behind the scenes (such as paying off whistleblowers to leave and keep quiet) and then the underlying issues are not talked about by councillors in public meetings (making life easier for management) or indeed written about in the press.

I think it is about time I published some of the Human Resources related invoices to do with Employment Tribunals and employee issues so that the public can see how expensive to the public purse it is to not have effective internal processes to deal with employee matters. Previously such procedures (despite their flaws) relied not on the more independent decisions of councillors but now it’s purely officers who decide instead. I’m not saying councillors would make decisions that were less likely to result in large expensive legal bills, it’s just I personally disagree (a rare political point on my part) with the lack of political oversight in employee matters as it means councillors are less likely to know what’s going on.

I fully realise matters have been dealt with behind closed doors, but there is a point where too much secrecy can be counter productive in the public sector as it results in no one being personally accountable for the results of their actions.

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Which 7 councillors will recommend Wirral Council’s new Chief Executive?

Which 7 councillors will recommend Wirral Council’s new Chief Executive?

Who will choose Wirral Council’s new Chief Executive?

                                                         

One of the bigger stories on this blog recently has been the news that the current Chief Executive for Wirral Council Graham Burgess has handed in his notice and will retire at the end of the year.

So as Wirral Council has the Chief Executive’s three-month notice period (30th September 2014 to 31st December 2014) to find his replacement, what’s happened so far?

Well because the Chief Executive is a political appointment of councillors, the politicians have to decide. So a meeting of the Employment and Appointments Committee has been set up for the 27th October 2014. Graham Burgess is also currently Returning Officer (many people reading this may also know what a Returning Officer is but in simple terms it’s the head person at Wirral Council for elections), Electoral Registration Officer (another role to do with elections) and Head of Paid Service.

So what’s the timetable for picking a new Chief Executive and will one be in post by 1st January 2014? According to the draft timetable it won’t so temporary appointments will have to be made! The proposed timetable means the job advertisement will be advertised around the start of December 2014, which will give people until nearly a week after Graham Burgess leaves to apply for his job.

It is proposed that Penna PLC be paid about £15,000 for helping find a new Chief Executive and a further about £15,000 for finding a new Head of Specialist Services (who is also leaving in December 2014).

However paying out about £15k to Penna PLC to aid Wirral Council’s Human Resources department is not enough! No a “professional adviser” from the Local Government Association will also be advising the Appointments Panel.

This in fact has always struck me as a bit of an anomaly. Penna PLC and the LGA aren’t officers or councillors at Wirral Council. In the past though, they’ve remained in the meeting room after the press and public were excluded from the public meeting.

So who is the Appointments Panel going to be and what will it do? It will consist of seven councillors who will make a recommendation for the post of Chief Executive to the sixty-six councillors. It will probably be four Labour councillors, two Conservative councillors and one Lib Dem councillor. I have some guesses now below about who will make up this appointment panel for the Chief Executive. It hasn’t yet been decided yet which councillors will be on it, but below are my names along with my reasons:

Labour (4 councillors)
Cllr Adrian Jones * reason is already Chair of Employment and Appointments Committee
Cllr Phil Davies * reason is already Vice-Chair of Employment and Appointments Committee & Leader of the Council
Cllr George Davies * reason is Deputy Leader of Wirral Council, Cabinet Member and Labour councillor on Employment and Appointments Committee
Cllr Ann McLachlan * reason is Deputy Leader of Wirral Council, Cabinet Member and Labour councillor on Employment and Appointments Committee

* Note although Cllr Moira McLaughlin is a possibility, she’s unlikely for the reasons listed above

Conservative (2 councillors)
Cllr Jeff Green * reason there are only 2 Conservative councillors (apart from deputies) on Employment and Appointments Committee
Cllr Lesley Rennie * reason there are only 2 Conservative councillors (apart from deputies) on Employment and Appointments Committee

Lib Dem (1 councillor)
Cllr Phil Gilchrist * reason only Lib Dem (apart from deputies) on Employment and Appointments Committee

The seven councillors on the Appointments Panel will all be from the Employment and Appointments Committee and due to the high-profile nature of the appointment unlikely to be deputies. The Employment and Appointments Committee has eight councillors on it (plus twenty-one deputies). So the seven will come from those twenty-nine.

The Appointments Panel doesn’t actually choose the Chief Executive though. They just recommend who the Chief Executive should be to a meeting of all sixty-six councillors at Wirral Council.

From a practical perspective though, as Labour have a majority of councillors on the Appointments Panel and Wirral Council it will be down to the Labour councillors to decide who the next Chief Executive/Returning Officer/Electoral Registration Officer/Head of Paid Service is. As the process will probably be going on after Graham Burgess leaves and it’s a legal requirement to have somebody appointed to some of these roles, temporary people will have to be found before a permanent appointment is made.

Looking back to July 2012 when Graham Burgess was appointed as Chief Executive by Council, he then had to serve his period of notice before starting in post in September 2012.

If the new Chief Executive has to also serve out a period of notice, it could be as late as May 2015 before he or she starts (which if it is after General Election and local elections it will make the election side of their job easier).

So here’s the proposed job description & person specification for the Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service/Returning Officer/Electoral Registration Officer.

Certainly it will be interesting to see who the politicians eventually recommend for this key post at Wirral Council! If anyone wishes to leave a comment comparing the appointment of Wirral Council’s Chief Executive to the complicated process of appointing a Doge of Venice, feel free.

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Is freedom of the British press over as UK blogging enters the age of George Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” (1984)?

Is freedom of the British press over as UK blogging enters the age of George Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” (1984)?

Is freedom of the British press over as UK blogging enters the age of George Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” (1984)?

                                              

Ministry of Truth George Orwell 1984 comment removed
Ministry of Truth George Orwell 1984 comment removed

As I run a blog, I will declare an interest at the start of this article in that I am the operator of this blog. Before anyone accuses me of bias again (I will point out that much of the below is an opinion piece based on a recent court case, legal changes and experience).

One of the things I enjoy about writing (and reading other blogs) is that people do leave comments (although many others read without leaving a comment). The United Kingdom is however not an ideal place to base a high-tech business, which is part of the reason that in an ideal world doing what I do, I wouldn’t be based at all in the UK but somewhere that doesn’t have such a peculiar regulatory environment.

Previously the UK was well-known for its “libel tourism” because of the way the courts here operated when it came to libel. However from past cases certain things can’t be libelled, such as a political party or a local council. Even on matters published abroad, in the past lawyers had preferred to sue in the UK because of the way the court system was here and how easy it was to win their case (and how disastrous financially for the defendant even if they won!).

A lot of the laws that govern the media in this country were based on print publications and arguments about censorship have raged for centuries. A lot of the laws were written before the internet actually happened and were frankly, well overdue for reform. Eventually reform came.

For an example of what used to happen, I direct you to the case of what happened involving Carmarthenshire County Council. Details of the judgement in Thompson v James & Anor ([2013] EWHC 515 (QB) can be read by following that link.

Please note this next bit is in reference to Wales (a country within the UK that borders the Wirral but has a different set of laws and legal system (as well as political system) to here in England).

A local blogger there, Mrs Thompson sued the Chief Executive of Carmarthenshire County Council Mark James, alleging that he had libelled her. This was in reference to a letter written from Mark James that referred to Mrs Thompson that was published on another blog (that is not the blog of Mrs. Thompson) that writes under the nom de plume madaxeman.

When sued, the Chief Executive of Carmarthenshire County Council used public funds to pay his legal costs (Carmarthenshire County Council had provided him with an indemnity for his legal costs) and his legal team also counterclaimed against Mrs Thompson for references made about Mr. James on her blog which he took exception to.

The court dismissed Mrs Thompson’s libel claim, but upheld Mr James’ counterclaim.

Although the audit bodies in Wales in relation to Carmarthenshire County Council have questioned the issue of whether using public funds for his employer to pay the Chief Executive’s legal costs in a libel lawsuit is actually lawful, Mark James is now vigorously pursuing enforcement of the court order he was granted against Mrs Thompson through a Land Registry charge on her property in respect of damages awarded to him and the defendant’s legal costs (paid for by the taxpayer).

Partly to prevent the courts getting completely clogged up with libel cases (because let’s face it if everyone who had ever had anything written about them untrue online actually filed a lawsuit with the court that would happen), whereas in the past somebody could sue not only the author of a comment, but the publisher and the editor as well, the law was changed. The UK ended up with a new libel law (Defamation Act 2013), which completely reformed the old libel laws, introduced defences of truth, honest opinion and publication on a matter of public interest and also new regulations were introduced that came into force on 2nd December 2013.

The new libel law also introduced a test that had to met. Any statement that was claimed to be defamatory had to have “caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant”. The new regulations are referred to as the Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013 and cover comments left on blogs.

This blog (and comments left on it) fall under the new regulations as I’m the operator of the blog and am based in the UK. In theory if I wasn’t based in the UK but the people leaving the comments were, their comments would probably fall under the new regulations too.

In relation to user generated content (such as comments) on blogs, it means that now the operator of the blog (such as myself) is not liable if the operator of the blog follows the rather strict procedure laid down in the regulations when a complaint is made.

The regulations can be read online, but basically as an operator of a blog if a complaint (that falls within the regulations or even a defective notice) is made about a comment on my blog, I have to within 48 hours (assuming the commenter complained about actually has provided an email address) get in touch with the poster of the comment and they then have 5 days to respond. I also at this stage contact the complainant too.

If no response is received from the person who left the comment within 5 days, the comment is removed, otherwise I’m in breach of the regulations. The person who left the comment has five days to respond and the regulations give them a variety of options which partially determine what happens next. For example they can withdraw their comment in which case it is removed at that point. There are however other options also available to them.

Other larger technology businesses aren’t entirely happy with the current regulatory framework under which they have to operate here in the UK and have published transparency reports as to complaints received and outcomes. I have decided it is high time that I did this too, especially considering the views of the media on censorship.

Out of many thousands of comments currently on the blog since the new regulations came into effect on the 2nd December 2013 there have been complaints so far about two. Detail is provided below.

However, I’d like some feedback from you the reader as to the level of detail provided below and how open and transparent I am being. Are there things you think I should include in future reports, that I am not including currently?

Obviously in the case of complaint #1 I’m not allowed to republish the original comment as that has concluded and the author of the comment has withdrawn it. However there seems to be a general pattern emerging as to the type of stories I get requests for comments to be removed on, doesn’t there?

==============================================================================================================
STATUS: Completed (comment removed 4th July 2014 see here)

Complaint number: Complaint #1

Comment author: John Hardaker

Complainant: Surjit Tour of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral (Wirral Council)

Article comment attached to: Graham Burgess invites Wirral Council councillors to 5 days of the Open Golf Championship

Outcome: Comment author (Mr. Hardaker) decided to withdraw comment and text of comment was edited out with details inserted explaining why.

Note: see also partial transcript of BBC Radio Merseyside broadcast at Councillor Walter Smith “I must say I enjoyed lavish hospitality” which discussed this.

===============================================================================================================
STATUS: Completed (comment removed 13th October 2014)

Complaint number: Complaint #2

Comment author: James Griffiths

Complainant: He/she have chosen to remain anonymous

Article comment attached to: Graham Burgess (Chief Executive) announces he will retire from Wirral Council on 31st December 2014

Outcome: Comment author (Mr. Griffiths) sent email wishing to withdraw comment.

Note:

===============================================================================================================

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Whistleblowers assembled in Committee Room 1 to hear apologies from Wirral Council over a toxic whistleblowing saga involving secrecy, national, local and regional government, internal and external audit, the private sector, ££££s, senior managers, contracts and Wirral Council

Whistleblowers assembled in Committee Room 1 to hear apologies from Wirral Council over a toxic whistleblowing saga involving secrecy, national, local and regional government, internal and external audit, the private sector, ££££s, senior managers, contracts and Wirral Council

Whistleblowers assembled in Committee Room 1 to hear apologies from Wirral Council over a toxic whistleblowing saga involving secrecy, national, local and regional government, internal and external audit, the private sector, ££££s, senior managers, contracts and Wirral Council

                                                 

Nigel Hobro (standing) addresses a special meeting of the Audit and Risk Management Committee of Wirral Council 8th October 2014 L to R Cllr Adam Sykes, Cllr David Elderton, Andrew Mossop, Surjit Tour, Nigel Hobro (c) John Brace
Nigel Hobro (standing) addresses the Audit and Risk Management Committee of Wirral Council 8th October 2014 L to R Cllr Adam Sykes, Cllr David Elderton, Andrew Mossop, Surjit Tour, Nigel Hobro (c) John Brace | still taken from video

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Above is a playlist of all parts of the Audit and Risk Management Committee (Wirral Council) meeting of 8th October 2014 held in Committee Room 1, Wallasey Town Hall starting at 6.00pm (apologies for recording problems)

Audit and Risk Management Committee
Cllr Jim Crabtree (Chair, Labour)
Cllr Ron Abbey (Vice-Chair, Labour)
Cllr Paul Doughty (Labour)
Cllr Matthew Patrick (Labour)
Cllr John Hale (Conservative spokesperson)
Cllr Adam Sykes (Conservative)
Cllr David Elderton (Conservative)
Cllr Stuart Kelly (Lib Dem spokesperson)

The Audit and Risk Management Committee of Wirral Council met for a special meeting about BIG/ISUS on the evening of 8th October 2014 whilst a thunderstorm raged outside Wallasey Town Hall. This was a continuing from its adjourned special meeting about the same topic on 22nd July 2014. For details of what happened at its meeting of the 22nd July 2014 see my earlier blog post Incredible first 5 minutes of Wirral Council councillors’ public meeting to discuss BIG & ISUS investigations.

The meeting started with a minute of silence for Mark Delap. Mark Delap was one of the Wirral Council employees that used to take minutes at its public meetings and had died recently.

After the minute of silence was over, the Chair asked for declarations of interest.

Cllr Matthew Patrick declared an interest due to a friendship with Nigel Hobro’s son (Nigel Hobro is one of the whistleblowers and spoke during the meeting itself).

Surjit Tour gave some brief advice to Cllr Matthew Patrick as to whether his interest was personal or prejudicial.

The Chair thanked Surjit Tour for the advice he had given to Cllr Matthew Patrick.

The Chair, Cllr Jim Crabtree then explained that there had been a lot of allegations since the issue had first been raised in 2011. There was a large volume of paperwork for the meeting, however details were redacted to protect businesses and companies. Also the names of officers and other people were blacked out. He also referred to commercial sensitivities and how they had gone to proper steps to protect identities.

He reminded people of the risk of legal challenge and Wirral Council’s liabilities. Cllr Crabtree asked everyone not to name names and continued by saying that any issues Wirral Council officers had addressed, they had done on behalf of the Council.

Cllr Stuart Kelly asked a question on the information that was redacted. He referred to a challenge to paragraph j, that was redacted in the papers to the July meeting, but was now provided. He wanted assurance from the legal officer Surjit Tour that the redactions were only in the categories as just outlined by the Chair.

Mr. Tour explained that the redactions had taken place to make sure that nobody by reasonable inquiry and information already in the public domain could piece together who or what the redacted information referred to and who the people redacted were. He added that in some cases it was unfortunately necessary to redact a lot of information mindful of what was already in the public domain, people could “fill in the gaps” which would expose Wirral Council to a liability.

The Chair invited Nigel Hobro to speak for at most fifteen minutes.

To be continued…

However below are some of my personal observations about this meeting I’ve started writing up above and a bit of a compare and contrast with two different special meetings of the Audit and Risk Management Committee held years apart (but both dealing with Wirral Council’s response to whistleblowers (one internal, one external).

It shows how history has a habit of endlessly repeating itself and is based on my opinion as one of the few people who was actually present at both meetings.

There are similarities between this public meeting and an earlier public meeting many years ago of the Audit and Risk Management Committee to decide on a response to the whistleblowing of former Wirral Council employee Martin Morton. Back then (years ago) there were arguments by politicians over a series of meetings over how much money should be paid back to those that were overcharged and to what year you go back to with the refunds.

Even when refunds were agreed by politicians, Wirral Council took so long that some of the people involved had died and in order cases (the ones that were still alive) the amounts were so large, that Wirral Council officers didn’t want to pay the people involved because they thought it would have a knock on effect on their benefits and officers doubted that some of the people had the capacity to be able to look after their own financial affairs.

Sadly the decision back then was fudged (which is partly what led to the problems later). Martin Morton’s concerns were also far, far wider than the overcharging issue, his concerns also involved allegations of the misuse of public money to fund organisations with links to serious and organised crime, serious allegations of serious crimes against vulnerable people who had apparently at the time not been investigated thoroughly enough, woefully poor corporate governance at Wirral Council, terribly weak political oversight due to put it frankly chaos back then and ultimately Mr Morton paid a personal price because people in Wirral Council tried to repeatedly punish him for daring to blow the whistle. Due to the large financial amounts involved, Cabinet had to sign off on the large expenditure that resulted.

One day before the AKA report was finally released to the public, the two middle managers involved in this matter were each paid a six figure sum each to leave Wirral Council.

At the earlier meeting (and at least one person on the Audit and Risk Management Committee is the same person as back then), the Chair back then accused one politician (Cllr Ron Abbey) of either not reading the papers for the meeting as they were asking questions that were already answered there or of completely misunderstanding what they had read (if they had read them). At this time the Chair was of a different political party to the Labour councillor (Cllr Ron Abbey) & in the interests of impartiality (with absolutely no offence meant towards one of my local councillors Cllr Jim Crabtree) many other local authorities have an unwritten rule that the Chair of the Audit and Risk Management Committee is not from the same political party as the ruling administration to ensure independence.

Knowing Cllr Crabtree as I do, I know that even if a councillor stepped out of line at a meeting he was chairing, even if the councillor was from the same political party as he was, Cllr Crabtree’s personality is such that he would frankly realise that it’s in the “public interest” to hold his fellow councillors to account even if he would have to be careful how he did this in public.

After it seems part of the reasons why Labour got a small majority on Wirral Council is because councillors from that party woke up the news that the Wirral public expected them to hold other politicians to account in public even if these were other councillors from the same political party.

Bill Norman (who left in somewhat mysterious circumstances in 2012) was the legal adviser to that earlier Audit and Risk Committee meeting years ago, not Surjit Tour as it is now. The issue of blacking out all the names (and other details) in the published papers was addressed by Bill Norman then with broadly similar reasons given to those given by Mr. Tour many years later. However I will point out that the culture of legal practice is such that confidentiality, especially when it comes to active proceedings is extremely important to maintain!

At the time this written material authored by Mr. Morton included in the papers for the meeting was also redacted, so this aspect of whistleblowing hasn’t changed much at all over the years at Wirral Council.

Wirral Council, back then and as it seems now has a fear of being sued. Although if they were open and transparent wouldn’t Wirral Council welcome judicial oversight of their decisions as it would give Wirral Council the chance for someone independent to look at it and the opportunity to defend themselves in court if they had done nothing wrong?

Perhaps it’s unfair to say a fear of being sued, it’s a fear at Wirral Council of being sued and losing and the results that flow from that which could be a combination of large financial penalties (or other things) as well as the fact that court reporters such as myself or the publications they publish in can’t actually be sued under British law for court reporting as long as we comply with the few rules that apply as court reporting attracts absolute privilege. All court hearings whether public or private are recorded by the court on tape anyway and in theory transcripts can be ordered.

Some may say for a large local Council (covering a population of ~320,000), whilst obviously they have their own organisational reputation to consider, that they seem unduly concerned at times at reputation management (although this is also a preoccupation of political parties) rather than dealing with matters in an entirely open and transparent way. There is a blurry line between the individual reputations of senior managers and politicians on one hand and the organisational reputation of the organisations they are either employed by or are elected to represent the views of the public at.

Some of the reports that went to the most meeting the day before yesterday, have been the subject of previous articles by me and FOI requests.

You can read my FOI request (25/8/13) for the report on ISUS here, which was refused on 23/9/13 and refused at internal review on 24/10/13. That external audit report can be read as part of the committee’s papers (see agenda item 2 and the links from this page on Wirral Council’s website if you wish to do.

Had the responses to those FOI requests been forthcoming and Wirral Council provided the information within weeks a lot more would have been in the public domain before the July and October meetings in 2014 of the Audit and Risk Management Committee meetings. Wirral Council instead chose to rely on exemptions to suppress the information and knew I was unlikely to appeal to ICO, as if I had I’d probably still be waiting for a decision!

Excessive secrecy just makes the public and press suspect that there’s a deliberate cover up or Wirral Council has done something it’s ashamed or embarrassed about. Usually the answer is a little more complicated than a conspiracy.

The Merseyside police investigation (which resulted in no charges) was used as an excuse by Wirral Council to deny FOI requests, not just about the one Grant Thornton recommended was referred to the police, but information in general about the other aspects too.

Wirral Council was recommended by the forensic arm of its external auditors to refer one very minor matter to the police. Wirral Council did and this was then used this as an excuse to delay and prevent further scrutiny. The police response (and I summarise) was that based on what they were told that there was insufficient evidence to charge somebody (or somebodies) with a crime. Remember criminal charges require basically two elements, proof that the alleged crime occurred and also generally for most criminal matters mens rea (proof of a “guilty mind” too). The latter is often harder to prove than the former, which is why defendants sometimes plead not guilty in order to get a jury trial! As Wirral Council actually carries out criminal prosecutions through the Wirral Magistrates Courts, I’m sure someone there who is actually aware of these matters!

This article is getting rather long and at the two thousand word mark I am somewhat digressing into related matters, although obviously it is not as long as the papers for that meeting which come in at the length of a medium-sized novel!

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