Response from Cllr Jeff Green on the Anna Klonowski Associates report redactions
Response from Cllr Jeff Green on Improvement Board issues
Following the Improvement Board meeting held in public last month, exactly a month ago I emailed Graham Burgess (Chief Executive), Cllr Phil Davies (Leader of the Labour Group), Cllr Jeff Green (Leader of the Conservative Group) and Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Leader of the Lib Dem Group) about the progress on the commitments made at that meeting.
I indicated in that email that I would publish replies (unless the author stated otherwise) so that the public know what’s happening.
Nearly two weeks ago I received a reply from Cllr Jeff Green (which is below). It made sense to wait a little longer for replies from the others so that they could all be published together. As a month has gone by and I haven’t received a reply from another of the other three, below Cllr Jeff Green’s reply I include my original email. I haven’t changed the colour used for text in Cllr Green’s email, as Leader of the Conservative Group I think it would come as no surprise to people that he writes in blue!
from: Green, Jeff E. (Councillor) to: john.brace@gmail.com date: 6 December 2013 14:47 subject: RE: follow up to question and answer session at Friday’s Improvement Board meeting mailed-by: wirral.gov.uk
Dear John
Thanks for your email. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.
I think my record is pretty clear on this matter: I have always pushed for an un-redacted copy of the AKA report to be published and have been obstructed at every turn.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant and the sooner the light is shed on the actions of those responsible, the better.
I trust that sets my position out clearly for you.
Best wishes
Cllr. Jeff Green
Leader of the Conservative Group
Ward Councillor for West Kirby & Thurstaston
From: John Brace [mailto:john.brace@gmail.com]
Sent: 18 November 2013 11:15
To: Burgess, Graham
Cc: Davies, Phil L. (Councillor); Green, Jeff E. (Councillor); Gilchrist, Phil N. (Councillor)
Subject: follow up to question and answer session at Friday’s Improvement Board meeting
Dear Graham Burgess, Cllr Phil Davies, Cllr Jeff Green and Cllr Phil Gilchrist,
In order that the public know the progress of the commitments made on Friday’s Improvement Board meeting I am publishing this email and will happily also publish any replies unless you indicate that you do not wish your reply to be put in the public domain.
A brief update on some progress I have made on the appendices to the Anna Klonowski Associates Limited report. Appendix B (the Equality and Human Rights Commission Letter dated 29th December 2010) has been helpfully supplied by Paul Cardin.
Appendices C (the first improvement plan) and D (the Care Quality Commission Inspection Report) I discovered at the weekend had already been published by Wirral Council as part of a Cabinet agenda from over three years ago.
Appendix G (the Standards for England decision notices) have already been published too and I am not asking for appendix L (medical information relating to Martin Morton). This just leaves appendices E, F, H, I, J, K, M, N, O, P and Q.
With regards to my supplementary question about appendix P (minutes of the DASS Monitoring and Development Sub Group Meeting), as this was the only meeting minutes referred to in the appendices list I made an error. My question should’ve referred to notes in a different appendix, which contained the notes of the Charging Policy Working Group held on the 22nd August 2005, my apologies for any confusion caused.
I would be interested in receiving an unredacted copy of the notes and accompanying table (unredacted in respect of the three councillors who were there if deleting the redaction of officer names is an insurmountable problem) of the Charging Policy Working Group. The only councillor I am able to ascertain was there so far was Cllr Pat Williams.
With regards to appendix E (charging policy for supported living services) as this was a policy I presume it was agreed by councillors. It therefore can’t be claimed that a policy falls into one of the reasons you gave on Friday for not publishing the appendices. Publishing it would help the public understand the series of events that happened and whether it was an unlawful policy implemented by officers or whether officers acted outside of an agreed policy.
I am sure you (apart from Cllr Gilchrist who couldn’t be there) remember the mood of the public at Friday’s meeting and how although Wirral Council has changed in some ways that convincing the public of that change will be a difficult challenge.
I asked the questions I did on Friday because if the public were informed fully about what actually happened, then knowing what happened and the chain of events that led to it would allow the public to decide for themselves whether the changes made since then would prevent a reoccurence in the future.
Until there is more disclosure of what went happened, despite Wirral Council’s desire to “move on” some members of the public will still want to know and the details of who, what, why, where and when which at the moment are answers that are only filled with speculation.
I hope this sets out my position and I look forward to a more detailed response about the future publication (or the reasons against publication) of the remaining appendices to the Anna Klonowski Associated Limited report and the question about removing the redactions of councillor and officer names (at Head of Service level and above) in the Martin Smith report.
Yours sincerely,
John Brace
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Recently there has been a lot of anger expressed by the public over a proposed 11% pay rise for MPs from 2015. Wirral Council’s councillors (unlike MPs who after the expenses scandal agreed that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority would set their pay) still decide on what they’re paid. In fact the legislation states that when voting on this matter they don’t even have to declare an interest!
In a parallel with MPs, in order to keep the base amount that councillors get low over the years and presumably avoid a similar kind of bad publicity that the proposed pay rise for MPs is receiving, the base amount for being a Wirral Council councillor is currently set at £8,712 (equivalent to ~168/week). There are (in many cases similar to the MP’s expenses system) a bewildering amount of ways that Wirral Council’s councillors can increase this.
Each year what Wirral’s council’s councillors are paid is published on Wirral Council’s website. These figures I link to are from 2012/13. As Wirral Council’s financial year finishes about a month before we usually have elections (apart from next year when local elections will be combined with the European elections) there are some small amounts for people that were councillors for only a few weeks in that year or were elected part way through the financial year. If you discount these part year amounts, the amounts range from the basic £8,712 to £30,437.60 for the Leader of the Council Cllr Phil Davies.
In addition to the amounts in that list councillors receive extra if they represent Wirral Council on certain outside bodies such as Merseytravel or Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority. Both of these bodies decide themselves on their own allowances scheme.
So what is proposed at Wirral Council? Well periodically the allowances scheme is reviewed by the “Independent Panel on Members Allowances”. The Independent Panel doesn’t meet in public and there isn’t any public consultation on its findings.
Reading its report its conclusions are based on the input of councillors (a census of councillors on pay, other authority’s independent reports and the direct input of Cllr Phil Davies, Cllr Jeff Green and Cllr Phil Gilchrist) as well as senior officers at Wirral Council.
In distinct echoes of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority proposed 11% pay rise for MPs, Wirral Council’s independent panel recommends “When the financial climate allows, due consideration should be given to reinstating the 5% austerity cut in the basic allowance.”
However the rest of the recommendations remain relatively uncontroversial and are unchanged to what they were previously. The allowances for the Mayor and Deputy Mayor (of £10,700 and £1,500) remain the same. Both the Mayor and Deputy Mayor attend a lot of different events during their year in Wirral. The Mayor also has to chair Wirral Council Council meetings. Keeping order and making sure Council meetings don’t degenerate into people speaking being drowned out by heckling, requires courage, tact and a sense of humour as well as the respect from other councillors.
About a year ago, much of the work of the Employment and Appointments Committee (such as appeals against dismissal, grievance hearings etc) was delegated to the Chief Executive Graham Burgess so the special responsibility allowance of its Chair of £2,751 is proposed to be scrapped.
The Chairs of the new Constituency Committees won’t receive any extra for their role, but this will be reviewed once they are “up and running” (suggested for October 2014). Pensions for Wirral’s councillors have been ruled out until the end of the current Government/Treasury consultation exercise.
The panel estimated that the average councillor spends twenty-three hours a week on the role and that any future increases in allowances should be linked to staff pay.
Finally I’ll make a number of what could be termed party political points (*breaking a general rule of mine on this blog and no I’m not a member of a political party despite rumours to the contrary) about councillors allowances and elections.
The arrangements that the political parties on Wirral have with their councillors (as far as I know and please leave a comment to the contrary if I am wrong) is that their councillors contribute a share of their allowances to their political party. This money is then used at election time (in conjunction with sources of other money) by that political party to help their candidates win votes from the public and get re-elected.
This is why there is only one independent councillor on Wirral Council (who was elected as a Lib Dem). Any independent candidate would have to either be independently wealthy in order to fund their own campaign or have a wealthy patron in order to stand a chance financially against the taxpayer funded political parties.
It leads to a system of safe seats on Wirral where one political party holds all the seats in a ward for a very, very long time. Voters are in such wards can become apathetic of voting as they feel the election is a foregone conclusion and their vote won’t make a difference to the outcome. The only thing that tends to shake things up are boundary changes.
Personally I view this current situation as bad for democracy (although those who it benefits may disagree). As much as some politicians may not like scrutiny, they make better decisions more in tune with public opinion when other political parties (and individuals) are scrutinising them. If a politician feels they may in the future either suffer the embarrassment of losing an election (or not be reselected by their party as their candidate) it can lead to them working harder in the public interest for the full term of their office (and not just at election time).
We have a system on Wirral where politicians’ future career prospects are based on reselection by their party who then goes on to fund their campaign (subsidised by the taxpayer). Comments on the system of democracy we have are welcome.
P.S. I’ll also formally announce something here I decided a while ago. I won’t be standing as a candidate in the Wirral Council elections in 2014.
Writing this blog and publishing the footage of public meetings (only possible because of media and consultancy work I do that is better paid than writing about Wirral Council) is in my view more in the public interest than the commercial work I do.
To be honest with you I’m much better at being a blogger with the freedom to say things as I see them rather than get bogged down in the party politics of Wirral (which is tarnished by a past reputation for doing things for party political reasons rather than acting in the public interest).
On a related matter the proposed legislation which includes a clause about filming Council meetings (the Local Audit and Accountability Bill) reaches its third reading and report stage tomorrow (17th December 2013). These are the last of its stages in the House of Commons.
There are two more stages to go after that before it becomes law. Once it becomes law there will be secondary legislation on the filming issue (the Local Government Association wants to be consulted on it), which will hopefully make the current unsatisfactory situation much clearer.
If the only result of starting this blog (and no it wasn’t just me getting angry about this issue but other people too I’m not going to take the sole credit despite this blog being cited in one of Pickle’s press releases about it) is that a change in the law will mean councils (and other bodies spending public money) in England won’t have any spurious legal grounds be able to justify banning audio or video recording of their meetings, then hopefully the greater openness and transparency that results will be a greater contribution to democracy than I could have ever achieved had I been elected as a Wirral Council councillor. Personally I would’ve preferred to try out the human rights arguments about the filming matter in a court of law, but a change of legislation is a better long-term outcome.
On the subject of courts of law, the libel case involving Jacqui Thompson (the woman who was arrested for filming a Council meeting in Wales) has a hearing in the Court of Appeal today. Update 14:40 Permission to appeal was refused. There have been reports in the press about the legality of Carmarthenshire County Council’s paying for its Chief Executive Mark James’ legal costs in this case.
In more local legal matters the issue of Wirral Council’s request for a possession order for Fernbank Farm will be decided at Birkenhead County Court some time in the New Year.
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Council (Wirral Council) 2nd December 2013 Council debates the Corporate Plan
Council (Wirral Council) 2nd December 2013 Council debates the Corporate Plan
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The Mayor welcomed people to the meeting and asked for any declarations of interest. No declarations of interest were made.
Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Hodson, Sykes, Meaden, Dodd, Elderton and Muspratt.
The Mayor thanked Cllr Jim Crabtree for inviting him to the North West in Bloom awards ceremony in Southport which he had attended. He referred to the “beautiful award” to Bidston Village Green, who had been awarded both a silver medal award and had won the Best Small Village category.
He referred to the recent Youth Parliament as “one of the best that we’ve had in the years that we’ve been running those” and thanked the councillors, officers and young people who had taken part for their support.
The Mayor thanked Cllr Mike Sullivan for raising £600 for one of the Mayor’s charities by running a marathon.
He referred to various visits that he and the Deputy Mayor had made and made specific mention of a visit to Pilgrim Street Arts Centre and referred to the “brilliant music by lots of youth from the Wirral”. The Mayor wanted to put on record what a fantastic evening both he and the Mayoress had.
Cllr Jeff Green moved an amendment which was seconded by Cllr Lesley Rennie which is included below.
“Council notes the sentiments expressed in the proposed Corporate Plan 2014-2016, which it believes to be so bland as to be bordering on banal. Given the use of meaningless management jargon and this Administration’s tendency to talk to itself instead of the Wirral public it is not surprising that the proposed plan is bereft of any opportunity for Officers or Councillors to be held to account for its delivery by the public.
Council believes that any plan should have specific measures of success and is therefore disappointed but not surprised that they are missing from the Corporate Plan proposed this evening. Instead we are supposed to accept vague promises that ‘A coherent set of performance measures and targets are being developed to ensure priorities are achieved over the two year period covered by this plan’.
Council further believes that if the Administration truly want this Corporate Plan to be a blueprint for the Council’s improvement, they need to be open and honest with Wirral residents about which specific measures they are working towards before embarking on any ‘expedition’ with their money.
Council therefore defers adoption of the Corporate Plan 2014 – 2016 in its current form until a ‘coherent set of performance measures’ have been developed and discussed with elected Members for inclusion within the Corporate Plan. Council believes this approach will provide the public the opportunity of open and honest appraisal with the prospect of measuring true performance thus holding any administration to account”.
Cllr Phil Davies said, “I think it’s a shame that the Conservatives didn’t raise this last Wednesday at the all Members’ seminar. Nevertheless I would formally request given that we have a lengthy amendment that we ask for a ten minute adjournment.”
The Mayor agreed to a ten-minute adjournment.
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After the adjournment the Mayor invited Cllr Phil Davies to move accepting the Corporate Plan. Cllr Phil Davies rose to move accepting the Corporate Plan, together with the amendments.
He said, “Clearly this a plan that sets a long-term vision for the Council around those three key priorities of protecting vulnerable people and communities, attracting new investment for businesses and addressing the inequalities within the Borough. I’d particularly like to highlight the agenda around tackling those inequalities which you know we’ve discussed on many occasions in this Council Chamber and in our scrutiny committees, but for me we really need to redouble our efforts on this agenda around narrowing the gap over the next twelve months and beyond.
We clearly do have, as the plan sets out, tremendous opportunities around particularly the economic agenda with the investment with business next year, the return of the Open and the International Trade Centre coming on stream. We’re also beginning to punch above our weight in the City Region and I believe that the Combined Authority does give us the opportunity to grow our economy.
I think the fairness agenda I highlighted in the forward has been particularly important. I was very proud that last year this Council became a living wage Council and I extend this to our contractors, our suppliers and ultimately to private sector employers so Wirral becomes a living wage Borough. That’s a key priority for me.
Mr Mayor, last Friday we took a major step on our improvement journey when the Improvement Board agreed to move away from continuous oversight of our work as they believed that we now have the capacity to continue our own improvement and it’s really satisfying that the pace of improvement of Wirral Council has been the fastest in the country when compared to other local authorities in similar situations and I would just like to take this opportunity of thanking all our staff and elected Members who have been critical to the landmark decision last Friday.
I would like to say and I’ll address the amendment that Jeff Green has tabled in these comments. You know I think we’ve tried to change the culture of this place by offering more opportunities for elected Members to contribute to any debates like where the Council’s going. We’ve had a number of visioning events over the last twelve months and I was really keen that rather than just turn up tonight and table the Corporate Plan, we actually had an event where all elected Members could come along and contribute to the debate around the Corporate Plan. We had that meeting last Wednesday and I have to say you know I’m very disappointed that the group opposite come to the meeting tonight with an amendment, when they had ample opportunity to attend the Members’ seminar last Wednesday and I pay tribute to councillors Elderton and Clements who were the only two members from the group opposite that came along but at no point in the evening were these points to my recollection made and I think it’s a shame that somebody in the leadership of the Group opposite didn’t have the courtesy to come along and contribute to that debate and I really do think that’s a shame but really in addressing directly the amendment, there’s no way we could possibly support this amendment.
You know I think it’s been well accepted and recognised now that a Corporate Plan is the high level statement of the vision we want to move towards, our key corporate priorities and indications of what key actions we’re going to take over the next twelve months to achieve those high level priorities. The detail around performance measures and targets will appear once the Corporate Plan’s been agreed. If we’d have incorporated everything, we would have been discussed a kind of hundred and fifty, two hundred page document tonight and you know much more sensible to agree the overall direction of the Authority and then have a more detailed report to Cabinet and that that would be debated as well by the policy and performance committees which actually fleshes out these priorities which we are discussing tonight.
So frankly Mr Mayor, I think this a rather pathetic amendment I have to say with the great respect to the party opposite. It’s a shame that they don’t take advantage of the opportunities to engage, you know there’s an old saying ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink’ . I honestly believe that we have tried to change the culture of this place, I will continue as Leader to go on providing opportunities for all parties to contribute to debates about where this Council’s going. It’s just sad, very sad in my view that the opposition party for whatever reason they may have are choosing not to engage and I think that’s very sad for democracy in this Council Chamber frankly Mr Mayor.
So, we won’t be supporting the amendment and I will move the Corporate Plan as tabled with the amendments as included in the supplementary report which Cabinet agreed this afternoon and I’ve taken on board Cllr Gilchrist’s additional amendments which he was kind enough to give me advance notice of this morning, so I so move Mr. Mayor.”
Cllr Phil Davies’ motion was seconded by Cllr Ann McLachlan.
Cllr Jeff Green responded as follows, “Thank you Mr. Mayor and I think in starting, I know Phil seems to have this idea that a plan should be a, seems to be saying should be a sort of high level thing that outlines a series of a direction of travel. Well in my mind a plan is something that clearly says what you’re going to do, why you want to do it and the actions you’re going to take to carry that through and to allow councillors and public whose money it is you’re spending to actually measure you or measure any administration whether it’s yours, ours or anyone else’s on whether you’ve been successful against those measures or not and the measures of success and measures of achievement are absolutely key to the plan.
Just to say we’re going ahead with a wish list of things we’re going to do and we’ll full in the detail of what that means to people later on, I’m afraid Phil simply doesn’t do it and I think maybe I think Phil has been spending too much time with officers because actually looking at this particular document it is full of management speak, you know stating the blindingly obvious, but certainly not accessible to people who you should be serving, ie not officers but the Wirral residents in terms of what it is you’re going to do.
Again, simply saying you’re going to ‘remodel early intervention and prevention services to ensure we manage demand efficiently and community based care effectively e.g. developing services, early help services’, well what exactly is that supposed to mean? What exactly are we doing tonight on voting on a sentence like that?
Why not just be absolutely clear as we did in previous plans that what we want to do is focus on some pretty key things such as protecting children, such as supporting and protecting frontline services and ensuring no part of Wirral is ignored? Mr Mayor it seems to me that there are certain key things that one could put into a document like this and it is very glossy and a lot of work’s gone on and no doubt a lot of money has been spent putting it together but there are certain key things we could have put in very straightforward measures as to their effectiveness.
Well this particular document I’m afraid is absolutely devoid of any specific measures of success. One, as I say in my amendment vague promises and lacking in a coherent set of performance measures and targets.
Mr. Mayor, the other thing I think we should all please remember is that this is the public’s money that is being spent in terms of these objectives and lists of things, wish lists that are included in this document and I think it would be well for the administration to actually understand that as they seem to think somehow that this is their money that they can spend however they see fit without really explaining to the public whether that money has been properly spent or not.
Mr Mayor, I believe that Council has to show itself in some fairly basic areas. It needs to show that that it can collect rubbish, it can clean streets, it can grit roads, it can people are entitled to safe streets with properly lit and so on to show there are certain things that the public expect the Council to provide and if you can’t do the simple things and the basic things correctly, I don’t believe that the public will have confidence that you can do complicated items or stitch together a set of performance criteria around these sets of issues you actually have in this particular document.
Mr Mayor, fundamentally I’ve a problem with this particular plan and I think it’s fair to say those views were made clear because we did take the opportunity to add onto the work which the Chief Executive to have a rethink and to discuss detail, some of it might be news to you Phil, but it won’t be news to the Chief Executive in terms of some of the things we’ve said we believe we should see in that is a plan must have measures of success.
It is for you know we’ll develop this, we’ll extend that, we might maximise the other thing, but what exactly do those things mean? Where is the detail? Mr Mayor, where is the beef because at the moment these are a set of well meaning words, none of which are particularly exceptional or not to be expected in all these documents.
The only sadness for me is, along with some of these words we don’t know what success looks like and it certainly hasn’t been identified by the administration. Mr. Mayor, as I say we note what it is that’s been done but actually I believe that it should be referred back so that we can all see what is actually proposed because it will only be when the measures are put in alongside some of these outputs we will know exactly what it is that the Council is driving at.
I know Phil likes to look back at previous sets of Cabinet minutes and so on, and I’m sure he will give credit to the previous administration which set the Council on its path for a living wage actually put the resources into the Budget to make that happen so I’m sure he will take that opportunity.
I’ll also hope he’ll take the opportunity as well to welcome Councillor Matthew Patrick to Council, as I understand it this is the first Council that he will have attended and congratulate him as I do on what was an excellent result and well fought out and I’m particularly pleased that the Conservatives increased our share of the vote but I also am prepared to, … and even if your Leader won’t welcome you for your contribution Matthew I certainly welcome you to the Council.”
13:33
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Birkenhead Constituency Committee: Public Question Time, questions on bedroom tax,
Birkenhead Constituency Committee: Public Question Time
Jim McGinley asked the first question in the public question time at the Birkenhead Constituency Committee. His question was, “Why can’t the Council be persuaded to do what twenty-one other councils have done and insisted that the provisions of the 1985 Housing Act in relation to room size do apply to implementation of the bedroom tax?”
Paul Haywood asked two questions. The first one was “How this group is tying into the main Council and how we and the other areas are tied back to the main Council?” and his second question was about the information supplied for agenda item eight (update on data collection).
A member of the public at the back asked, “Can we start having things like workshops so we can understand?”
Lynn Evans, Chair of Devonshire Park Residents Association and Devonshire Park Neighbourhood Planning Forum asked, “A very genuine question, which is that this was introduced as a very exciting development and very new. I would really like to understand what is really exciting and what is new about this committee?
The things that we’ve heard talked about are absolutely vital, setting priorities, how public spending is controlled, making sure we get quality from contracts, looking at the huge need that we know we have in Birkenhead, but I understood that this group was about strategy and surely when we’re talking about strategy, we can’t be talking about how we can not deal with the day to day allocation of resources to address those problems but how we actually address the problems strategically? How we look at a regeneration plan for the area? How we lift ourselves up out of poverty, not looking at what is uniquely bad about Birkenhead, but looking at what our unique character is and what our unique assets are and how we can really lever those to attract investment into the area to lift ourselves out of this mentality of being a deprived area?
My view is that what we really fail our people in Birkenhead is not in terms of opportunity but in terms of aspiration and that really as a group should be setting the agenda for that and having the highest aspiration for Birkenhead. We talk about NEETs, young people who aren’t in education or training or employment but the missing link in that is entrepreneurialism. How will this group engage with the business community? How much will you give these young people something to aspire to that they can do as individuals to lift themselves and at the same time … out of the trap that we seem to feel we are in? Thank you.”
Philip asked, “Cllr Davies mentioned at the start the ambition to prepare a Neighbourhood Plan but Devonshire Park already has one. They didn’t need this committee to prepare a Neighbourhood Plan, they got on and did it. That’s what we need to do, that’s something we could do. All you need is twenty-one people, surely you can find twenty-one people across all the wards represented here and you could start working on those strategic issues? Hopefully with the help and … council officers, so you don’t need a lot of money to start working if you wanted to do …”
Pauline Cocker asked, “I’d just make suggestions to make all this more meaningful, as to me this is like an Area Forum gone mad. That somebody you know on an A4 sheet or two puts a plan together for the January meeting for what we need to look at for the budget for 2014/15 because we’re nearly at the end of this year. We’ve got to spend this money but what perhaps the priority should be that we start looking at you know in January, somebody comes up with some kind of plan we can all sit here and say ‘Yes, no, we don’t like it’ get something out.
That kind of back into the community and for it comes back at the end of March when it’s been out to the community properly so that the community feels that they’ve actually had a say in what’s going on and just another suggestion for how to spend the money, perhaps you could spend it on engaging with the children and youth who are responsible for antisocial behaviour and a lot of people will notice a difference in their area and a meaningful engagement with youth not just a one-off that keeps them busy for two weeks and then they’re back.”
Standards Committee agreed to changes to Wirral Council’s constitution in narrow 5:4 vote
Standards Committee agreed to changes to Wirral Council’s constitution in narrow 5:4 vote
The transcript below is from part of Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee which met on Tuesday 26th November (item 4 Revisions to the Council’s Constitution). The vote on this item was five votes (Cllr Bill Davies, Cllr Ron Abbey, Cllr Denise Roberts and Cllr John Salter) in favour of approving the recommendations at 13.1 and 13.2 in the report and there were four votes against (Cllr Chris Blakeley, Cllr Leah Fraser, Cllr Peter Kearney). You can watch the meeting using this playlist (this item starts at 3m 38s into the meeting).
Cllr Leah Fraser said, “Excuse me Chair, before we proceed any further, I actually have spoken to Graham Burgess and apparently if there are any issues that are contentious that we’re not agreeing with to do with the changes to the constitution, then they’ll be referred for consultation. So what I’d like to move is that because there’s so much and the consultation is starting in January, which is only a month away, that we put all this into the consultation.”
Cllr Chris Blakeley replied, “Seconded Chair.”
Cllr Bill Davies (Chair) said, “OK”.
Cllr Ron Abbey said, “Chair, just on that point, as far as I am aware, these refer to arrangements by the Council to carry out its duties between now and January, which is now… you can shake your head Cllr Blakeley, I didn’t shake my head at”
Cllr Bill Davies (Chair) said, “Listen! Listen! I’m going to tell you now, this Standards Committee, I am not, I’m telling you now, right from the start, any cross chitchat out of the way. Continue Cllr Abbey now.”
Cllr Ron Abbey said, “I set out to say what I wanted to say, if it’s right or wrong I’m asking for this particular point to address this.. but I am led to believe whether it’s true or not, I’m not sure whether the Head of Law will be able to advise me whether I’m correct or not. These are interim measures which allow us to operate the Council in its proper format till January when full consultation will be taken on the constitution going forward. If I’m uncorrect then I’ll stand corrected, that’s why …response.. if I’m not then fine I’ll take … my place.”
Cllr Bill Davies (Chair) said, “OK. Surjit, do you want to give some advice for other people?”
Surjit Tour replied, “Chair, if it assist… just to provide that clarity it may help. The report essentially sets out two schedules. Schedule one which refers to amendments that this committee I believe can deal with and indeed it can move as part of its powers delegated to it through the power to make minor amendments to the Council’s constitution. Schedule two however outlines in more detail changes which the report it’s to be recommended that this committee recommends that Council approves because of the nature of those changes.
So in terms of the little point that’s been raised by the councillor. Councillor, the position is that they’re not interim changes that would be made at this committee. If approved the changes in schedule one, they would be changes that would be permanent to the Council’s constitution until changed by Council or this committee in the future whereas schedule two changes as proposed would require Council’s approval before those changes would take effect. Then again, they could be subsequently changed there also if Council so chose to do so.”
Cllr Bill Davies (Chair) said, “OK. Thank you, Councillor Blakeley.”
Cllr Chris Blakeley said, “Thank you Chairman, I had a conversation with the Chief Executive .. this evening and had a conversation with the Head of Law earlier this afternoon. The Chief Executive made it very clear to me that if there were any contentious issues and any disagreement then they should be referred to the full consultation. I suggested last night that the Chief Executive spoke to the Head of Law and remove the items that were contentious and allow the other ones that weren’t in contention to go through. That clearly hasn’t happened and that’s why we are moving the whole report be deferred to consultation. A very strange thing happened last night, the Chief Executive agreed with me. That’s the first time since he’s been in post.”
Cllr Bill Davies (Chair) said, “OK, now I’ve got Cllr McLaughlin, you want to comment briefly, Cllr McLaughlin?”
Cllr Moira McLaughlin said, “Very briefly, it’s just a comment. A significant number of amendments doesn’t actually mean that they are either anything more than minor or that they are contentious and I agree that there are a significant number, but that doesn’t in itself make them contentious. The other thing is that as far as I understood, these have been approved by the party leaders as the well, … that was my understanding that this has been approved by the party leaders and certainly I was only suggesting that we move ahead to facilitate the smooth running of the Council and to continue …..”
Cllr Bill Davies (Chair) said, “OK, …”
Surjit Tour said, “Chair, if I can also clarify, I’ve also spoken to the Chief Executive this afternoon about these matters. The Chief Executive’s view is that if, it’s a matter obviously for this committee, if they are matters which the committee is minded to unanimously agree on these proposals then I think the committee would want to refer those the wider review and have those debated obviously. If Members feel that it is, if whether certainly if Members require further debate or discussion, my view is that there would be no particular issue with regards to that being an appropriate course of action either for this committee. Clearly where there’s unanimous changes or the changes are relatively minor in detail then I almost think that they could be dealt with a recommendation to Council to approval, but where there are matters which require further debate and discussion, then the Chief Executive’s view was that subjecting those particular proposals to the wider review that’s going to be taken in due course.”
Cllr Bill Davies (Chair) said, “Councillor Harney.”
Cllr Tom Harney said, “Right, thank you Chair. I have one or two things to say, first of all I’m declaring my interest, I haven’t spoken to Mr. Burgess today, this week or even this month and I’m sure how he comes into all this. He seems to be able to read minds of Members and what the Members are going to be minded to do, maybe that’s a reflection of the whole of this constitution we have, I don’t know.
I would like to say some papers and some comments and I’m sorry if I offend anybody but there we are. That is life. I’ve got these papers here, I’ve got this paper here which was put on the table today. There is no coherence as far as I can see, I am not happy to be given this. This is a Standards Committee, I’m totally unhappy with it. I can’t even find schedule one, maybe it’s my eyesight, maybe it’s my age, I don’t know but I can’t find it, it must be somewhere and we’re being asked to agree amendments, some of them it seems may be minor and so on but there has been no steer as to what on earth it’s all about, apart from the fact it seems to have been discussed by the party leaders, who presumably have some new role in this Council which is not really defined by the constitution although I think it’s referred to. Well when we’re …. is it of importance? I do think that since this is a Standards Committee, we should have things done meticulously and sensibly.
The reality is and I will accept this having been a councillor for a number of years and that is that our record on adhering to or having a sensible set of standing orders which are actually adhered to is dismal in this Council over many, many years. …. keep on suspending standing orders and I’m afraid that I remember our previous Head of Legal Services who came along trying to get us to change and was shouted down basically almost. He was certainly outvoted.
He said ‘This is all wrong.’ and we said, ‘No, we do it this way, this is Wirral.’ So I do accept and I do think it’s important that we get our constitution right and our standing orders and so on right and we adhere to that, but we can only do that if we as a Council start to put ourselves thoroughly understand what the issues are and I’m not happy that.
I mean I know some things may be urgent and I will accept that and I’d like to be told what and why briefly preferably, I don’t think spending half an hour on it and then I would like the suggestion that we vote and then I suggest we go home and I do not think that from my point of view, and I’m quite willing to accept that everybody else is thoroughly dissatisfied and I’m not and I don’t know how I can vote without any of that and I just root through these and we have a rather what’s the word bad tempered discussion at the end of the day because we lose patience with each other, after all it’s not our job to write paperwork for the committee.”
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