Why does Wirral Council want to control where people sit?
Why does Wirral Council want to control where people sit?
Surjit Tour (Monitoring Officer (Wirral Council)) at the Coordinating Committee held on 15th June 2016
Below is an email from Surjit Tour to myself today about the seating arrangements for tonight’s Council meeting. Seems Wirral Council likes playing the “Let’s pretend John isn’t the press games” again! See if you can guess what my reply was!
From: Tour, Surjit <surjittour@wirral.gov.uk> to: “john.brace@gmail.com” <john.brace@gmail.com> cc: Mayor <mayor@wirral.gov.uk>,
“Stuart, Paul C. (Councillor)” <paulstuart@wirral.gov.uk>,
“McLaughlin, Moira (Councillor)” <moiramclaughlin@wirral.gov.uk>,
“Mossop, Andrew R.” <andrewmossop@wirral.gov.uk>
date: 10 July 2017 at 14:30
subject: RE: Question at Council
mailed-by: wirral.gov.uk
security: wirral.gov.uk did not encrypt this message Learn more
Dear Mr Brace
Thank you for your email.
With all due respect, it is not for you to determine where you sit in the Council Chamber.
I have noted your comments and I have asked Committee Services Officers to ensure that the seats around the outer area of the Member seating is kept free from any obstruction. You will be allocated one of those seats and not one at the Press table. Once Agenda Item 5 – Public Questions has been dealt with you are required to return to the public gallery.
I trust this clarifies matters.
Regards
Surjit Tour
Assistant Director: Law and Governance
and Monitoring Officer
Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council
Business Services
Law and Governance
Town Hall
Brighton Street
Wallasey
Wirral
CH44 8ED
Will councillors agree to Clare Fish retiring early at a cost of £105,000 tonight?
Will councillors agree to Clare Fish retiring early at a cost of £105,000 tonight?
Clare Fish 3rd November 2014 Families Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee Wirral Council
ED – edited at 15:39 on 10.7.17 to add sentence about amendments moved by opposition councillors.
Tonight Wirral Council’s councillors meet for two public meetings. Both are in the Council Chamber at Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Seacombe, CH44 8ED.
The first regular public meeting of all 66 councillors starts at 6.00 pm and I’ll hopefully be asking questions during agenda item 5 of the Vice-Chair of the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee Cllr Paul Stuart (as the Chair Cllr Moira McLaughlin is unable to make the meeting tonight).
The second meeting is an extraordinary meeting called by 21 Conservative councillors. The requisition notice for that meeting and the motion on greenbelt policy can both be found on Wirral Council’s website.
The reports show that the recommendation to spend £105,000 on early retirement for Clare Fish (Executive Director for Strategy) and to create a new management post of Director of Strategy and Partnerships at a salary range of £103k-£115k (£146k including on costs).
As both the new post has a salary of over £100,000 and the early retirement cost for Clare Fish is over £100,000, both decisions can’t be delegated to the Employment and Appointments Committee, but instead the Employment and Appointments Committee makes a recommendation for a decision by a meeting of all Wirral Council’s councillors tonight.
The votes on the recommendation agreed in private at the Employment and Appointments Committee to do this was as follows.
For 4 (Cllr Phil Davies (proposer), Cllr Bernie Mooney (seconder), Cllr George Davies* and Cllr Chris Jones*) Against 3 (Cllr Chris Blakeley, Cllr Lesley Rennie*, Cllr Phil Gilchrist*) Abstain 1 (Cllr Adrian Jones*)
All votes with an asterisk are educated guesses, as the meeting chose to exclude the press and public from the decision (as you can watch below) and the names of the people voting are not recorded in the draft minutes (apart from the proposer and seconder who are assumed to vote for their recommendations!).
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
Wirral’s Labour and Lib Dem councillors vote against Conservative motion that recommended restricting future development on Council owned land in the greenbelt
Wirral’s Labour and Lib Dem councillors vote against Conservative motion that recommended restricting future development on Council owned land in the greenbelt
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee 5th July 2017 Left Colin Hughes solicitor Right Cllr Paul Stuart Chair
ED: Edited to add quote from Wirral Society at end. 8.7.17 16:58
Yesterday evening, Wirral Council’s Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee discussed Cllr Chris Blakeley’s motion about Wirral Council owned land in the greenbelt.
The Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee is made up of 9 Labour councillors, 5 Conservative councillors and 1 Lib Dem councillor. However 1 Labour councillor couldn’t make it which meant on the evening in question there were 8 Labour councillors, 5 Conservative councillors and 1 Lib Dem councillor.
Cllr Chris Blakeley wanted an “unconditional guarantee” that it wouldn’t be “developed under any circumstances”.
The Labour councillors disagreed with Cllr Chris Blakeley and Cllr Foulkes gave the example of Arrowe Park Hospital as a development that Cllr Foulkes approved of that was on Council-owned land in the greenbelt. The Conservative councillors agreed with Cllr Chris Blakeley.
However when it came to the vote, the Labour councillors (plus a Lib Dem councillor) voted down Cllr Chris Blakeley’s notice of motion, replacing it instead with a Labour proposed notice of motion.
The text of the replacement motion proposed by the Labour Chair Cllr Paul Stuart was as follows:
The Council recognises the value of the greenbelt, which should only be developed in special circumstances.
We await the Emerging Core Strategy: Local Plan and the consultation around this with specific reference to the national guidelines.”
The Labour notice of motion was agreed by a 9 (for): 5 (against) vote. This recommendation has to be agreed by a future meeting of all Wirral Council’s councillors before it becomes policy.
The Wirral Society “applauds the commitment by Wirral Councillors to uphold the integrity of the Wirral Green Belt and especially of land within its ownership.
As the legislation makes provision for exceptions to be made for development in the Green Belt under Very Special Circumstances, we accept that it would be difficult to for the Council to say it would never allow any development on its Green Belt land. However, the Society was disappointed that the Motion passed made no mention of the need to pursue a policy of giving priority in all cases to developing ‘Brown-Field’ (ie previously developed) land as a priority.”
If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.
Opposition councillors request meeting to review Wirral Council’s Cabinet decision to increase car parking charges by 20 pence and introduce new car parking charges in country parks
Opposition councillors request meeting to review Wirral Council’s Cabinet decision to increase car parking charges by 20 pence and introduce new car parking charges in country parks
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 19th June 2017 | Left Cllr Stuart Whittingham | Right Cllr George Davies | Agenda Item Car Parking Charges Traffic Regulation Order – Consideration of Further Representations
One of the decisions made by councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet, I’ve been meaning to write about since the Cabinet met last month was a decision to increase car parking charges (which has since been put on hold).
On the 19th June 2017, Wirral Council’s Cabinet agreed (see video below starting at 33:31 and photo above) to increase charges for parking at Council car parks on the Wirral by twenty pence and to introduce charges for parking where there had been no charges before (50p for an hour, £1 for 2 hours and £2 for all day) at Arrowe Country Park, Royden Country Park, Eastham Country Park and Thurstaston Country Park.
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
However for the country parks only, in a modification to the original proposals households could pay for a £50 annual permit instead of paying charges when they parked in the country parks.
The Cabinet minutes were published and opposition councillors had five days in which the decision could be called in for review.
Six (or more) opposition councillors on Wirral Council “called in” the decision, so it now it won’t be implemented immediately but put on hold until the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee meets.
There will be a special public meeting of the cross-party Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee starting at 4.00 pm on the 18th July 2017 in Committee Room 1 at Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Seacombe, CH44 8ED.
The Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee is composed of 9 Labour councillors, 5 Conservative councillors and 1 Liberal Democrat councillor on it.
There’s a long history to the parking charges issues and an earlier stage in the same decision was called in and was reviewed in March 2017. You can watch video of that meeting below.
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
Usually after representations are made during the consultation period, a cross-party advisory panel called the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel meets in public and makes a recommendation to the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee then makes a recommendation onwards to the Cabinet (or Cabinet Member) for a decision.
As the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee met for the first time yesterday evening since the Claughton by-election (when it decided the councillors to appoint to the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel), when the Cabinet had made the decision on the 19th June 2017, there were no councillors at that point appointed to the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel to consider the objections made during the consultation.
Increases to parking charges are on hold till at least the 18th July 2017. The Business and Overview and Scrutiny Committee can choose at that meeting to either:
b) refer the matter back to Cabinet for reconsideration,
or
c) refer the matter to Council.
At the call-in meeting of the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee on the 13th March 2017, councillors voted at the end of that meeting. 8 councillors voted in favour (Labour) and 6 councillors (Conservative and Liberal Democrat) voted against. So the decision taken by Cllr Phil Davies (Leader of the Council) at an earlier stage was upheld on a 8:6 vote.
If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.
What did Gillian Wood’s election campaign to become a councillor in Claughton ward spend £1,354.53 on?
What did Gillian Wood’s election campaign to become a councillor in Claughton ward spend £1,354.53 on?
ED – updated 4.7.2017 to include extra detail on VAT treatment and comment
Below this blog post is the paperwork submitted as part of the election expense return for the Labour candidate for the Claughton byelection for a councillor to Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council.
These are open to public inspection and I inspected these at Wallasey Town Hall last week (although there was a delay due to “staffing issues”).
The agent for the Labour candidate Gillian Wood was Martin Morris. Although Cllr George Davies and the Wirral Labour Group have had an involvement in the campaign too.
On the 5th May 2017, the result was announced. Gillian Wood was returned as a councillor for a period of one year with a vote of 1,761 votes (52%), a majority of 1,021. The second placed candidate for the Liberal Democrats received 740 votes (22%) and the voting system used was first past the post.
The nomination papers for this candidate show that her nomination papers were submitted on the 3rd April 2017 at 4.30 pm and the initials (KR) of the Wirral Council employee that accepted them was Kate Robinson.
Strangely, this date on the nomination papers doesn’t match the date given on page 1 of the election expenses return (see below) (5th April 2017) as the date she became a candidate and is after the date given that the agent was appointed (4th April 2017).
I asked another election agent in this Claughton byelection (Allan Brame who was agent for David Evans the Liberal Democrat candidiate) about matters involving the documentation below. He helpfully pointed out that leaflets are zero-rated for the purposes of VAT.
He also stated that the latest date a person could become a candidate was the 4th April 2017 (close of nominations) and the earliest date 27th March 2017 (if the candidacy had already been announced). On the subject of donations he stated “I am surprised that the details of donations have not been provided.”
However, the election expenditure return shows expenditure of £1,354.53 (the spending limit was £1,427.42).
Invoices accompanying the return are for hire of a car PA System on polling day from SS Radio (£30) and for leaflets from LT Print Ltd (2,500 Vote Labour cards) for £169.20 (£141 + £28.20 (VAT)). Although as these are VAT zero-rated I’m puzzled as to why VAT is included on the invoice!
There are references to invoices 76414, 76415, 76796 and 76795 also from LT Print Ltd, also for leaflets. These invoices were paid by BACS payment and amount to £491, £364, £253 and £491.
It is claimed by the agent that of the first of these (invoice 76414) for £491 that £415.47 doesn’t apply to the election period as 5,500 of these leaflets were delivered prior to the 26th March 2017.
This would imply that this invoice (which was not supplied) was for 6,500 leaflets, of which 1,000 were delivered during the election period.
Where the money came from referring to the £1,354.53 spent during the campaign is unknown as donations were entered as £NIL.
As the candidate who was elected, Gillian Wood also has to state in a declaration which individuals or organisations funded her elections campaign which is published on Wirral Council’s website.