Never believe anything until it’s officially denied
Never believe anything until it’s officially denied
There is a phrase “Never believe anything until it’s officially denied” which seems to apply to the Wirral Council/LGA Improvement Board too although they seem to have rewritten it to “Never believe anything until you’re told you can’t even speak about it”.
I’m a member of the NUJ and subject to a Code of Conduct which includes in rule one an obligation on me (rule 1) that “At all times upholds and defends the principle of media freedom, the right of freedom of expression and the right of the public to be informed.”
So when I got a response like this (the email is copied below) in response to a question I submitted to the Improvement Board’s public question and answer session I wonder why someone doesn’t want the public to be informed on this matter and why? If there was nothing going on, surely the Wirral Council/LGA Improvement Board would welcome an opportunity to set the record straight? Have Wirral Council not heard of the Streisand effect?
An opposition councillor at last night’s Audit and Risk Management Committee was complaining that officers won’t answer his questions. If councillors can’t get answers and a question from the public is effectively censored from even being asked is it any wonder that some of the public don’t think things at Wirral Council have changed much along their much trumpeted journey to openness and transparency (accompanied by the phrase “move on” as “sweep it under the carpet” seems to have gone out of fashion)?
Below is the email and below that the question. It feels pointless to ask it at the meeting as I doubt I’ll get an answer, but it shows that the “bureaucratic machinations” referred to by Klonowski seem to still be alive and kicking.
from: CorpServ-Improvement
to: john.brace@gmail.com
date: 14 November 2013 17:16
subject: RE: questions for Wirral/LGA Improvement Board question and answer session on the 15th November 2013
mailed-by: wirral.gov.uk
Dear Mr. Brace
Thank you for your questions which I have shared with the Chair of the Improvement Board. I have been asked to advise you that Q8 refers to a member of staff and it would therefore be inappropriate for this to be discussed in a public forum.
The Chair kindly requests you do not refer to this question at the meeting.
Best Regards
Improvement Team
Q8 is The Strategic Director for Regeneration and the Environment Kevin Adderley has been mysteriously absent of late from recent public meetings at Wirral Council. Can a reason be given for this to quash (or confirm) the rumours circulating as to the reasons why?
P.S. I am reminded of an answer given by the Improvement Board to a question in July “The LGA Wirral Improvement Board meetings are not meetings of the Council at which public functions are being exercised.” Quite how you manage to have a public forum and a public meeting (or is to use a phrase trotted out by Wirral councillors when they are heckled not a public meeting but a meeting held in public?) without exercising a public function is probably one of those difficult questions there isn’t a good answer to.
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Cllr Steve Foulkes “by and large the message was we got ourselves into a dark place and we needed to get out of it” | A report on the Wirral Council/LGA Improvement Board review consultation item discussed by Wirral Council’s Coordinating Committee on the 13th November 2013
Cllr Steve Foulkes “by and large the message was we got ourselves into a dark place and we needed to get out of it”
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The Coordinating Committee meeting was just so councillors could discuss one agenda item, the Wirral Improvement Board review, which is currently out (at least at the time of writing) for a rather short eleven day consultation ending on Friday 15th November.
Part one of the meeting (which you can view above) contained a rather long Powerpoint presentation from the Head of Policy and Performance/Director of Public Health (Fiona Johnstone). As usual though the more interesting comments were made by councillors and the first of those to comment was former Leader of the Council Cllr Steve Foulkes (which starts at 17:33 in the first video clip above).
He said, “Chair, I mean clearly the Council had found itself in difficult times with a number of highly critical reports. I have no intention of going back to the origin of those reports and the issues around them but needless to say it did certainly undermine confidence of the public in the Council to the degree where it felt necessary that we wanted to move and incorporate outside help and I got lots of things wrong in my position as Leader but one of the things we did get right was actually open ourselves up and suggest the sector led approach improving on what we’ve established. So I think we did the right thing at a very difficult time we felt.
We, under any circumstances a report of this nature and its independence so the people who were writing this report aren’t our people, there’s three political mentors who were signed up to the outcome of this report. If we took seriously and we did, the fact that say the Klonowski report, obviously independent was a significant issue then where reports praise us and they are also written independently then rightly we should give the praise equal value against the criticism because the fact is that’s an independent report. This isn’t us saying this about ourselves, these are people who work for us and see the change and you know from Chief Exec down to a number of officers it’s fairly unrecognisable the structure of the Authority from whence we started. So we have been able to make those changes.
I think we have made improvements to a point where we could run, be on our own and they’re saying that, so that’s to be welcomed. The one issue that is in the report that I think you I know slightly mentioned about audit and the audit committee. Certainly I know through working with Jim as Chair and the other Members who are represented on audit, we did make vast improvements to the way the audit committee functioned and its job. However this issue of independence I think alongside the world we’ve got where there are a number of independent views because we are cynical of politicians in general in the Wirral and so I think that the audit committee with an independent majority certainly should have more credibility on an ongoing basis Chair I think that’s true.
The thing is we’re by no means where we would like to be. We’ve also had an ambition to be you know a journey to excellence or whatever type of authority you want to be or an excellent Council and underneath we’re not. I think you said Fiona we’re not there. We don’t expect to be perfect and any large organisation will always make errors and we shouldn’t be castigated for a single error and that’s the way it always is because you know errors will happen in whatever work, walk of life you’re in. Mistakes do happen.
It’s how you react to those mistakes, it’s what you do about them and what the overall point of this is. At the same time making this journey against the most difficult financial background that I think anybody’s ever seen in their lifetime. It’s never been easy on local authorities, but the level of savings we’re being asked to make are of such a magnitude, it can’t be easy to this improvement, trying to do an improvement job at the same time as these other things.
So I welcome in general, I welcome the report. It’s a job half done, but half done we shouldn’t be complacent and we should try to move on. You know we’ve all had to do a little bit of sort of inward reflection. Are we doing our best as individuals, each one of us around the table and the lead officers as well and to agree with members of the public engaging in the debate. We’re doing our bit, we changed something that we do to make this Council better.
Certainly I know numbers of Members have engaged in training, taking those roles on, we’re certainly working hard on scrutiny as Alan over there will testify. I think we do need to take on board a review of scrutiny committees in the new year.
Comments that are in the report and those particularly those around health and social care scrutiny committee that’s had you know quite a number of comments made. We need to do that whether that means we supplement it by members of other committees, we need to be open-minded, imaginative in the way we approach it. So if someone throws a problem at us then we need to work together to deal with that.
There have been various levels of engagement with various Members but I think you know credit to the three party leaders who have sat in a room together on numerous occasions throughout this journey and tried and have generally seem to have been able to work together, it’s a comment made within the report.
So I think all in all if we accept the critical reports of an independent nature and basically say we take them verbatim because to do otherwise would be stupid and people would say you’re trying to hide or you’re trying to alter it. I don’t agree with every single word in the summary but by and large the message was we got ourselves into a dark place and we needed to get out of it.
I think likewise we should recognise that this is you know a journey of improvement that’s been undertaken, it’s been recognised by others outside the Council. We should be thankful for it and thank those who are part of it. As the presentation has gone on I’ve put a number of words together. I’ll see if it finds favour, it’s not particularly controversial but I think we need to accept where we are, never mind the fact that we can always improve and we shouldn’t forget those mistakes from the past and rectify those mistakes from the past as soon as we can, we just need to recognise that.
It’s been a difficult period and this is a good report, a good independent report. We should take it for what it is and use it as an encouragement, a bread and butter role in the process for Members, members of staff, Chief Officers, members of you know for every single employee we should say thanks for being involved in this. We are moving in the right direction. That’s just my take on it, you may disagree.”
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Q1. The final report of Anna Klonowski Associates Limited was published as part of the Cabinet agenda of the 12th January 2012. Wirral Council also received from Anna Klonowski Associates sixteen appendices (listed below), which apart from appendix G (Standards for England Decision notices) have not been published. Whereas there are strong reasons not to publish appendix L (Medical Information Relating to Martin Morton provided in confidence), if Wirral Council is now “open and transparent” when will the other fourteen appendices be published?
A Appendices as Referred to in the Report
B Equality & Human Rights Commission Letter Dated 29 December 2010
C First Improvement Plan
D Care Quality Commission Inspection Report
E Charging Policy for Supported Living Services
F Documents Relating to 27 Balls Road
G Standards for England Decision Notices
H Documents Relating to Reimbursement Claims
I Emails Relating to Supported Living Contracts
J Documents Relating to Service Provider 2
K Documents Relating to Service Provider 3
L Medical Information Relating to Martin Morton (MEDICAL IN CONFIDENCE)
M Documents Relating to Service Provider 4
N Minutes of Adult Protection Strategy Meetings Relating to Service Provider 4
O Documents Relating to the Safeguarding Adults Unit
P Minutes of the DASS Monitoring & Development Sub Group Meeting Held on 11 December 2008
Q Employment Dates for WMBC Employees
Q2. On the 14th April 2011 Cabinet resolved with regards to the Martin Smith report decided that “at the conclusion of all the necessary internal processes Mr Smith’s report be made public”. On the 12th January 2012 Martin Smith’s report was published, however all the names (presumably of Wirral Council officers and councillors) contained within the reported were redacted before publication. Is publishing the redacted (rather than full) report complying with the spirit of the earlier Cabinet decision? Will Wirral Council to publish an unredacted version of the Martin Smith report?
Q3. Martin Smith’s remit was to “seek to establish whether Martin Morton was subject to any bullying or other inappropriate behaviour by any officer or Elected Member, or by the Council as an organisation, and to present a report on my findings”. Presumably considering his remit some of the blacked out names in his report would be the names of councillors. As councillors are accountable to the people of Wirral, how can the people of Wirral hold their elected representatives to account unless the Martin Smith report is published including the names of councillors in it?
Q4. Bearing in mind questions one to three, does the Improvement Board understand that because of the obfuscation referred to, that the Wirral public will find it hard to believe that Wirral Council has changed when there are so many unanswered questions surrounding these events due to the lack of transparency and accountability?
Q5. The Standards Committee of Monday 4th July 2011 discussed an administrative error that had occurred in dealing with the standards complaint made by Martin Morton made regarding Cllrs Roberts, McLaughlin, Pat Williams and Bridson. He had initially made a complaint about Cllrs Roberts, McLaughlin and Pat Williams, but had replaced this with a more detailed complaint involving Cllrs Roberts, McLaughlin, Pat Williams and Bridson. This second complaint mysteriously vanished from Wirral Council’s files. A public apology was made at the time by the Monitoring Officer to Martin Morton and the councillors who were the subject of the complaint. Did any Wirral councillors have access to the revised complaint prior to its disappearance from Wirral Council’s files if so who were they?
Q6. A separate and unrelated complaint about one of the four councillors referred to in question five (ref SfE 2010/02) was decided on the 20th December 2010. However the covering report sent to the panel which decided was incorrectly titled “Report of the Monitoring Officer – Case Reference 2010/03” . This report to the panel also omitted that the original complaint referred to an alleged breach of 6(a) of the Code of Conduct. As an apology was given for an administrative error to the complainant referred to in question 5, will an apology for this administrative error be given to the complainants of complaint reference SfE 2010/02 and the subject of the complaint?
Q7. In the review report it states “it is proposed to strengthen the independent nature of the Audit and Risk Management Committee through the appointment of a majority of external members”. How many independent members of the Audit and Risk Management Committee will be appointed, who will they be appointed by and will the Audit and Risk Management Committee be chaired in future by one of these independent members?
Q8. The Strategic Director for Regeneration and the Environment Kevin Adderley has been mysteriously absent of late from recent public meetings at Wirral Council. Can a reason be given for this to quash (or confirm) the rumours circulating as to the reasons why?
Q9. Although Wirral Council is meeting its target of responding to 85% of Freedom of Information Act requests within twenty days during the Information Commissioner Office’s monitoring period, a greater proportion of Freedom of Information Act requests have been turned down. If memory serves me correctly, this has been achieved by dedicating greater human resources to responding to Freedom of Information Act requests. This raises the questions, are these resources temporary and only for the Information Commissioner Office’s monitoring period (and if so how will the current performance be maintained once these resources are withdrawn) and how does refusing a greater proportion of Freedom of Information Act requests tally with the administration’s stated desire to be more “open and transparent”?
Q10. The reports into whistleblowing allegations raised about Wirral Council’s BIG (business investment grants) and ISUS (Intensive Startup Support) have both not been published in full despite being received by Wirral Council in the Spring of this year. The Executive Summary to the Grant Thornton report into the BIG scheme was published by Wirral Council on the 15th July (the companies referred to in the Executive Summary were anonymised). If the Executive Summary to the ISUS report follows the same format as the BIG report and has also been anonymised, why has this not been published also?
Q11. The recommendation at the end of the review into the Improvement Board’s work recommends a review by the end of the year, ending the work of the Improvement Board and the Council following the next steps recommendations in the report. Does the Improvement Board think that the Corporate Governance Committee should be reconstituted to ensure sufficient oversight by councillors of the work identified in the “Next Steps” section?
Q12. a) Are the LGA members of the Improvement Board financially renumerated for their work on the Improvement Board?
b) Is Wirral Council invoiced by the LGA for the Improvement Board’s work?
c) If the answer to (a) or (b) is yes, could amounts be given (whether exact or approximate) of the total cost to Wirral Council over the lifespan of the Improvement Board?
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A report on the Wirral Council/LGA Improvement Board meeting of the 22nd July 2013
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The meeting started with an apology for the cancelled meeting of the 22nd March (due to snow). The questions and answers that were sent in for the March meeting had been published on Wirral Council’s website so the Chair said she wasn’t going to cover them.
The Chair moved the meeting to the key messages from the Improvement Board’s meeting of the 17th May. Unfortunately there weren’t enough copies for the public, so the Chair instructed a Council officer to make copies and skipped forward to the next item on the agenda, questions. Nobody else had submitted any questions so all eight questions were those sent in by the author of this blog.
1. The LGA Wirral Improvement Board terms of reference state “Every third meeting of the Board will be held in public to report on progress and take questions”, however the public are only allowed to stay for the first half hour of the third meetings of the Board. Can you explain why seemingly in contradiction to its own terms of reference that the Board does not hold all of its third meeting in public and only the first three agenda items?
Response:
The LGA Wirral Improvement Board has a public session every third meeting in order to update members of the public on progress and respond to questions. These functions take only thirty minutes, depending on the number of questions, and allow the Board to consider other items in the later part of the meeting.
2. Considering that part of its terms of reference the Improvement Board is to “endorse decisions which impact on political and managerial leadership arrangements, corporate governance and improvement in advance of them going through Wirral’s own decision-making structures, e.g. Cabinet or Council” and that it is a joint committee of Wirral Council and the LGA, can you explain why the Wirral/LGA Improvement Board is not seen as a body covered by the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 c. 67, specifically referring to the reference in it that Act to joint committees of a principal council?
Response:
The LGA Wirral Improvement Board meetings are not meetings of the Council at which public functions are being exercised. Accordingly, the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 does not apply.
3. It’s previously been stated that the Wirral/LGA Improvement Board is time limited. When it ceases to be at some point in the future, what will there be in place at Wirral Council to prevent a repeat of the circumstances that led to it being needed in the first place?
Response:
The objective of the LGA Wirral Improvement Board is to monitor progress towards improvement, provide challenge and offer impartial advice. When the Improvement Board ceases it will be because the Board is assured that the issues around Corporate Governance and effective oversight provided by scrutiny have been resolved.
4. Due to the scale and nature of the problems at Wirral Council that led to the creation of the Improvement Board, some did call (and still do) for a public inquiry. Can you explain the advantages and disadvantages of an Improvement Board compared to a public inquiry?
Response:
The LGA Wirral Improvement Board provides challenge and advice to Wirral Council on its improvement plan. The Council’s Improvement plan is derived from a number of critical reports that Wirral Council received in the past. A public inquiry would not resolve the issues identified and would be likely to only restate information from these reports.
5. One of the problems previously identified by councillors on the Corporate Governance Committee was a lack of “Member capacity” to address the widespread corporate governance failings. Has Wirral Council ever thought of (or the Improvement Board ever suggested) of carrying out a community governance review and creating parish/community councils in the Wirral area?
Response:
One of the developments from the review of Corporate Governance, has been the creation of Constituency Committees. These committees, based upon the four constituencies of Wirral provide Councillors with the opportunity to make a real difference at the local level, in the wards they represent. The first meetings of these committees are scheduled for September 2013.
6. The recent Wirral Council constitutional changes included a presumption towards openness and a consideration of human rights when reaching decisions. When other Council’s such as adjoining Chester West and Chester webcast their public meetings, what are the Improvement Board’s views on Wirral Council’s recent bans on filming of their public meetings, which led to negative press coverage and guidance (seemingly ignored) being issued by DCLG?
Response:
The Council’s position on filming is set out in the Council resolutions of 12 December 2011 and 17 December 2012 in which the Council confirms its general consent to the filming of Council committee meetings. The Council’s position is consistent with guidance issued by the Secretary of State. However, it is a matter for the Council and each Chairperson of each Committee to determine what safeguards and other considerations are relevant and needed to ensure all rights considered and balanced.
7. As the Improvement Board meetings’ agendas are not published, its meetings are not held in public (apart from three agenda items of the third meeting) and few councillors attend the Cabinet meeting at which its key messages are reported to, how do the vast majority of Wirral councillors know what its doing or have an input into its deliberations?
Response:
The Leaders of the three political groups attend each Improvement Board meeting and are provided with the opportunity to represent the views of their Councillors. The outcome of the meetings are reported via the ‘Key Messages’ published after every Board meeting and group leaders are in a position to provide further details to their groups should the need arise.
8. Apart from a notice on an obscure page on its website, what publicity has Wirral Council undertaken to advise the Wirral public that they can inspect Wirral Council’s accounts between the 15th July and the 9th August and the arrangements for doing so?
Response:
Under the Accounts and Audit (England) Regulations 2011 the accounts and other documents have to be made available for public inspection. The Council has to give notice by advertisement, which appeared in the Wirral Globe 26 June 2013, and on its website, in this instance they may be found under the ‘Annual Accounts’ section of the Council’s website. The contents of the advert are specified in the Regulations.
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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”
Cllr Tom Harney referred to the Anna Klonowski Associates report and the public interest reports and he felt the Audit Commission “didn’t get it quite right” in investigating various officers. He said although councillors had political differences that he did not believe they were “running a basket case Council”. Cllr Harney said the question now was, “What really was happening?”
He asked if they were coming from a basket case Council or one that had problems, similar to other Councils, which hadn’t received the same publicity as Wirral Council surrounding their problems because Wirral Council had had a whistleblower. Cllr Harney asked, “If he hadn’t said anything publicly, what would our perception be?” and that surveys showed that over half of local government workers had experienced bullying at work. He said, “We don’t know where we came from, we don’t know where we’re going.”
Cllr Harney said that too many comments referred to mythical golden councils around the country. He asked how can they guarantee to the people of the Borough and employees that they’ll support them when they raise problems? Cllr Harney said “there’s a difference between having rules and keeping to them and maybe that’s a lesson that we and many other Councils should learn”.
Somebody heckled Cllr Harney, the Mayor told Cllr Harney just to ignore the heckler.
He said that the Improvement Board was a body that didn’t make decisions, hasn’t got a decision-making ability and no means of enforcing anything. Cllr Harney thanked the Mayor for his forbearance.