Wirral Council reveals how fraudsters conned them out of £45k<
Wirral Council reveals how fraudsters conned them out of £45k
Published yesterday as part of the agenda for Wirral Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee meeting on the 25th November was the report into how fraudsters managed to con Wirral out of £45,683.86 and £95.60 meant for one of Wirral’s care homes.
As the care home had to then be paid, this con cost the Wirral taxpayer £45,779.46. The report goes into detail stating that other local authorities have fallen victim to this particular type of fraud and lost far larger amounts as a result.
The report details that the investigation started when the manager of a care home telephoned Wirral Council on the 23rd August querying why they hadn’t been paid as expected the previous week. Wirral Council confirmed that a payment had been made by bank transfer on the 13th August and that they’d received a request to change the bank details of the payee a few weeks earlier. The manager of the care home informed Wirral Council that they hadn’t made a request to change bank details, so the matter was referred to Wirral Council’s Internal Audit team.
The audit team contacted the bank that the fraudulent payment had been made to and were informed that once the money had cleared on the 16th August that it had been moved to another account. A replacement payment was made to the care home.
On investigation Internal Audit found that a request to change bank details had been made via email in July 2013. This email had been sent to the Wirral Council email address that Wirral Council’s Accounts Payable team request that their suppliers use. The email address used (although an email address can be easily forged) matched the information held on Wirral Council’s records and contained details of the payment the previous month to the care home.
Wirral Council’s procedures require staff to phone the supplier to check such a request is genuine. However as the email address matched and details of the payment the previous month was included this phone call was never made as it was assumed (wrongly) that the request was genuine.
The change was then checked by a supervising officer and the change to the bank details were made on Wirral Council’s Oracle system.
The fraud was reported to Merseyside Police on the 23rd August 2013 and Internal Audit were able to provide the name, account holder and address for both the account that the money was initially transferred to and the second account it was transferred to after the payment had cleared. This information was also passed to Action Fraud, who passed it onto the Metropolitan Police.
The Metropolitan Police contacted Internal Audit on the 5th November 2013 who confirmed that they are “actively pursuing” it. Internal Audit provided the Metropolitan Police with a statement detailing what happened.
A report was also prepared for senior management detailing ten recommendations which “stress the importance of following documented procedures in respect of changes to any account details”. These recommendations are also included in the monthly Internal Audit Activity Summary report which will also be discussed at the next Audit and Risk Management Committee.
Standards for England email about missing councillor in Martin Morton complaint
Standards for England email about missing councillor in Martin Morton complaint
I realise as this is over two years ago this is probably regarded now as ancient history, but as far as I remember the name of the former councillor that was missing from the complaint of Martin Morton that Wirral Council incorrectly sent to Standards for England has not before been made public. Here’s an email from Standards for England that states who it was and refers to how they initially reached a decision on one councillor because with regards to the information sent by Wirral Council that they “were not provided with evidence to show that the complainant had made a complaint about her”.
from: Lori Holden “Lori.Holden@standardsforengland.gov.uk”
to: “john.brace@gmail.com”
date: 7 July 2011 11:02
subject: RE: complaint referred to Standards Board for England by Metropolitan Borough of Wirral with regards to Cllr Bridson, Cllr Williams, Cllr Roberts and Cllr McLaughlin made by Mr. Morton
Hi John,
Thanks again for you latest email. As previously confirmed, Standards for England received a referral from Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council’s Standards Committee’s Initial Assessment Panel relating to Councillors Moira McLaughlin, Denise Roberts, Pat Williams and Ann Bridson on April 1, 2011.
Standards for England made a decision, in accordance with section 58(2) of the Local Government Act 2000, as amended, that no further action be taken on the allegation in relation to all four councillors based on the information provided to us by the local authority.
However, with regards to Councillor Ann Bridson, we stated that we reached our decision of no further action on the basis that we were not provided with evidence to show that the complainant had made a complaint about her.
In relation to the referral we received on June 14, I have been advised that initial assessment of this complaint is still in progress. I would advise contacting me again by mid-week next week for an update and, if I hear of any developments in the meantime, I will let you know.
Hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Lori
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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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