Expense claim forms for Councillor Pat Williams 2013 to 2014
Expense claim forms for Councillor Pat Williams 2013 to 2014
Councillor Pat Williams is a Liberal Democrat councillor for Oxton ward and is Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group. Her expenses claims are for attendance at meetings of Council, the Corporate Parenting Group, the Licensing Act 2003 Subcommittee, the Attainment Subcommittee, the Wirral Awards Working Party, the Oxton Conservation Society, the Licensing Panel, the Youth Parliament, the Licensing, Health and Safety and General Purposes Committee, the Birkenhead Constituency Committee, the Community First Funding Panel (part of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee), meetings with officers, an Employment and Appointments Committee appointments panel, training, the Improvement Board and various briefings.
She is the last in the series of councillors expenses forms for 2013-14. I did also ask for the underlying information supporting these expenses claims such as petrol receipts, parking receipts, tunnel toll receipts, taxi receipts, train tickets, hotel expenses et cetera. Although I made this request as part of the audit back in August I’m still waiting! However for the twenty or so councillors one petrol receipt was provided!
In some cases I have not been given information for the correct financial year. It is certainly something I need to follow-up with officers, who blame it on Wirral Council’s HR department supplying incorrect information or not supplying it when requested!
Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 1Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 2Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 3Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 4Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 5Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 6Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 7Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 8Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 9Cllr Pat Williams expenses claim 2013 2014 page 10
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Wirral Council pay £172,910 + VAT + expenses to consultants to help find £2.5 million of savings (Future Council)
Wirral Council pay £172,910 + VAT + expenses to consultants to help find £2.5 million of savings (Future Council)
Future Council Wirral logo
Information revealed by Wirral Council in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Councillor Paul Hayes has stated that fifty-three of its staff are working on the “Future Council” project, which is the current consultation (closing on the 31st October 2014) to find £2.5 million of savings. The “Future Council” consultation launch was reported on by this blog earlier this month.
All fifty-three staff were asked to sign “confidentiality statements” and “conflict of interest” forms to do with their “Future Council” work. Councillors on Wirral Council’s three scrutiny committees have recently agreed to behind closed doors meetings to discuss the budget options during the consultation period.
However Wirral Council also revealed that the “Future Council” project is also supported by a team of four consultants from EY (previously called Ernst and Young) at a cost of £172,910 + VAT + expenses. This comes on top of a recent scandal about another set of consultants that Wirral Council hired called V4 being paid more than was authorised by politicians (as revealed by the Liverpool Echo in the last few days).
Certainly Wirral Council paying outside consultants £172,910 + VAT + expenses will not go down well with either the trade unions or staff facing the prospect of being made redundant.
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A stranger rides in to Wirral Town in a thrilling Wild West tale about gold, greed, horses, the law and a land grab
A stranger rides in to Wirral Town in a thrilling Wild West tale about gold, greed, horses, the law and a land grab
John Wayne as the sheriff in Rio Bravo
The following is a work of satire.
Deep in the dusty, hot West was a town called Wirral. This tale is about a land grab, a common theme in these parts as some townsfolk had let greed enter into their hearts.
Outside of town were about ten acres of farmland known as Fernbank Farm where all day the pony club offered rides to the local children. Everyone had fun there and the pony club had been there for as long as people could remember and paid rent for the use of the land to their landlord. Everybody was happy.
Little did the pony club know then, but their landlord wanted them off that land. At first they thought everything was going as it had in years gone by as their landlord even sent them a new lease to sign, which they returned back thinking everything would be just as it was in the past.
However they didn’t know that the local politicians had had a meeting and at this meeting they had changed the rules so a hundred houses could be built on the land. This was deliberately kept a secret from the pony club on the instructions of Tony Simpson.
Once a deadline had been passed and a new lease had deliberately not been agreed (while telling the pony club they would happily agree to a new lease), the landlord went to Surjit “the Sheriff” Tour, who worked for the landlord to ask him what to do. He told them that he couldn’t turf the pony club off their land yet and in order to evict them he’d first need a judge to agree to it.
The pony club were surprised by this move and got Kirwan (a lawman and former politician to help them), he did his best but the pony club soon ran out of gold coins to pay him and asked for help from Lewis instead.
The pony club’s day in court came and in the judge’s chambers in the town’s courthouse a Judge explained to all (including two curious journalists from the local reservation) that it would have to go to a proper trial where everyone would have their say. Reluctantly the landlord agreed to this.
The day of the trial came and another Judge was in charge. The landlord had hired expensive help from far, far away. The Judge said he was very sorry, but that he had no choice but to sign a possession order to turf the pony club off the landlord’s land. His hands were tied, he felt he had no choice but was very apologetic. If their landlord hadn’t been so underhand he said, he would have granted the pony club a new lease, but now unfortunately his hands were tied.
Once again the two curious journalists from the local reservation were there including a large number of the townsfolk who wanted the pony club to stay. The journalists wrote down what happened, told the local people and a story about the trial appeared in the town’s newspaper.
The husband of one of those put on trial felt the whole thing was unfair and complained. The landlord read his complaint but (surprise, surprise) said he didn’t agree. One of the two curious journalists from the local reservation even asked a question at a meeting of the politicians (it took a month for the politician to answer).
The landlord wasn’t entirely happy with these two going off the reservation at all, as well, these two were known to have caused trouble in the past but they also knew the townsfolk would really start kicking up a fuss if a large number of braves on horseback rode into the town because of how badly it had been handled. You see those on the reservation quite liked horses and didn’t like as it tended to be translated “white man speak with forked tongue”.
It wasn’t the done thing anymore for the landlord to label people (even those from the reservation) they saw as troublemakers as “crazy”. They’d done just that and ending up having to pay many, many, many (and probably a few more) gold coins to a Mr. Morton (a former employee) after he’d raised a big stink about their past skullduggery and a large amount of gold coins that the landlord had stolen accidentally removed in one of their “mistakes” and had said that they wouldn’t pay back (later changing their mind).
So what was the landlord to do? They asked a stranger from far away to come into town. The stranger did come into town, he talked with the pony club and he talked with the landlord.
Not quite understanding the rules of the game* Mr Aspin (the stranger) was from a far away town called Rochdale. He was not a lawman, but a surveyor but he did not like all he surveyed. Phrases such as “this is not an appropriate action for a Local Authority landlord to take”, “accusation of dishonesty”, “gnawed at his professional conscience” and “unfortunate sequence of events” ran through his report as a series of criticisms as to how the landlord had behaved.
*rules of the game referring to the landlord’s rule in that they preferred “independent” people to agree with them as if they didn’t it would mean no more gold coins from the landlord for them.
The stranger recommended they send an immediate written apology to the pony club, pay them them the gold coins they had paid to Kirwan and allow them to stay rent free as well as finding them somewhere else to move to.
Oh dear, what was the landlord to do? Sooner or later those two pesky reservation journalists would start writing about it (although on the plus side the landlord thought it might stop them writing about another of their dastardly schemes to try and close a local school called Lyndale) and then their mistakes would end up in the newspaper again which would mean all the townsfolk would know. Oh dear! How could they stop the press writing about it they thought? Let’s release the report on a Saturday they decided, the press won’t be at work then.
As no politician wanted to associate themselves with such an unpopular issue, they got the big cheese and well-known troubleshooter Mr. Burgess to apologise. “We apologise for the distress”, “the site is on of the three most valuable council-owned development sites”, “savings targets” and “we should have communicated better” he wrote as well as making the same commitment his boss had Councillor Phil Davies to find the pony club somewhere else.
Mr Burgess even went a little too far in some people’s minds in his enthusiasm and wrote things like “the independent investigation”… “found that the Council acted legally throughout possession proceedings” when the investigator’s report in fact stated “I am satisfied that the Council followed the correct procedure in the preparation and issuing of Court proceedings. It is outside my remit to make further comments in this regard as a legal process subsequently followed resulting in the Court granting permission.”
So, one of the two journalists on the reservation saw what went on and wrote this tale and here it is. A partial victory for the pony club, but it seems that the fight will carry on.
Tune in for next week’s thrilling episode about the Wild West Town of Wirral to hear how about the landlord continues to get into hot water in its efforts to “evict” disabled children from the local school called Lyndale in another tale of communication problems, politicians, apologies but this time (as far as we know at this point) not involving horses.
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Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall “we’re not having straightforward consultation” (part 10)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall “we’re not having straightforward consultation” (part 10)
Phil Ward (Wirral Council’s SEN Lead) at a later meeting of Wirral Schools Forum 2nd July 2014 (who chaired the consultation meeting at Acre Lane on the 16th June)
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This transcript below starts at 1:05:50 in the video above.
DAVID ARMSTRONG (ASSISTANT CHIEF EXECUTIVE)
Just before we get to it, just before we get to it, I’ll just make the point about you’ll know there a number of people sitting here who will know we’re having discussions about Elleray Park and Stanley …(unclear)… and more recently we’ve been having discussions about Foxfield based on comments that have been made towards us.
Subsequently and clearly I’ve got to talk about the nature around the Wallasey School, but what was referred to was Wallasey School is currently based at an outpost base where inevitably …(unclear)… similar …(unclear)… some space …(unclear)… and I think that’s a very short-term arrangement, so it’s nothing at all to do with the Lyndale School.
TOM HARNEY (CHAIR OF GOVERNORS)
Well thanks for that point about a shared site.
JULIA HASSALL (DIRECTOR OF CHILDRENS’ SERVICES)
Can I just come back to the point the gentleman made at the back you know? I’ll come back in a minute on what Alison McGovern said. You’ve said why haven’t we got parents at the front telling?
GENTLEMAN AT BACK
I said there’s, I don’t want to object, but whether it was legal.
JULIA HASSALL (DIRECTOR OF CHILDRENS’ SERVICES)
and I had a meeting with the Chief Executive of the Council, Graham Burgess. There were three parent governors, two of whom are here tonight and they said to Graham Burgess and myself, it feels like we’re not having straightforward consultation about some of these issues. We don’t know err what you’re doing to investigate the other eight options along with the other proposals that have come forward and what we have done and what Alison McGovern also said was I think, was is there something about, can you recreate Lyndale ethos in a different setting? Can you explore that and so we’ve had one meeting so far, we’ve got another meeting on Friday, to try and have a different kind of conversation about how we explore all the different options because I think the gentleman here raised the point when we were at the Floral Pavilion, it feels like when we have these meetings sometimes you can, questions from the floor, we know we kind of almost it feels like defend the position, whereas you can with smaller groups sometimes saying you can have a different kind of conversation but we’re doing that in tandem with these meetings to try and flush out all the different options and look at them in real detail.
GENTLEMAN FROM AUDIENCE
OK, well can I just say that the replication of Lyndale and that’s what I want to talk about. Lyndale even though we knew at the beginning of the year and it’s fully documented, it says many of the children have had PMLD [profound and multiple learning disabilities], it’s the actual, it’s the vast majority, it’s almost all the children.
JULIA HASSALL (DIRECTOR OF CHILDRENS’ SERVICES)
It is.
GENTLEMAN FROM AUDIENCE
So, the reason why Lyndale is so effective in that area is because it’s a small, lovely school and it does feel like, it does feel like a home and people say …(unclear)… 0.1%, it’s the very most vulnerable of our children. So they are all, this facility actually caters for them because they are vulnerable, they are vulnerable to other more boisterous children in care.
They need more responsible adult care, they are in the absolute …(unclear)… in this Borough and the reason why I’ve gone round approaching all those businesses, is because one hundred percent of the people think that that 0.1% of our most vulnerable children should be the …(unclear)… number one priority on everybody’s agenda and everything else should come second to this.
He received a round of applause for what he had said.
1:09:00
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Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014 prevents councillors stopping filming at public meetings
Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014 prevents councillors stopping filming at public meetings
Today marks a change in the filming of public meetings of Wirral Council. Today is when the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014 comes into effect. This new law (which only applies to England) prevents local councils stopping filming of their public meetings (which obviously is welcomed by myself and others up and down the country).
It doesn’t however just apply to local councils, but also to the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, meetings of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (which includes Merseytravel) and joint committees such as the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel. The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Merseyside Police and Crime Panel have in the recent past refused requests from myself to film their public meetings (you can read here about the refusal by four councillors on the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel which happened back in April). The new law also applies to meetings of parish councils, although there aren’t any of these in Wirral there are in the rest of Merseyside.
However Wirral Council it seems is still clinging to the past. Here is a statement they gave to BBC Radio Merseyside which was read out this morning on the Tony Snell show:
“We are considering the practical implications of the legislation. Wirral Council’s meetings are regularly filmed by members of the public and journalists and residents live tweet and write blogs about proceedings. However we also need to consider the feelings of members of the public, who might be involved in proceedings and who may or may not wish to be filmed. We’re always keen to look at new ways of opening the democratic process to residents.”
August however is a quiet time for public meetings at Wirral Council. There is a public meeting of the Wallasey Constituency Committee Working Group tonight at 6pm in Committee Room 2 to discuss how they’ll spend £38,875 on improving road safety, £38,875 on promoting active travel and health and whether to spend £1,000 on marketing (leaflets about the Wallasey Constituency Committee and the Have Your Say meetings).
Tomorrow at 6pm (also at Wallasey Town Hall) is a meeting of the Coordinating Committee to discuss two call ins. The first call in is about a recent Cabinet decision over less generous concessions for current and former Armed Forces personnel at Wirral’s leisure centres and the second is about a recent Cabinet decision to remove funding for the Forest Schools program. However before a decision is reached on both matters the meeting will be adjourned. The one about Forest Schools will be adjourned until 6pm on Thursday 18th September and the one about leisure centres will be adjourned to Tuesday 23rd September at 6pm. The rest of the month of August (apart from a Licensing Act 2003 subcommittee meeting on the 27th August at 10am) there is only one other public meeting which is a Planning Committee meeting on Thursday 21st August at 6pm.
