These don’t include taxi journeys where councillors have paid for the taxi themselves and then claimed back the cost.
Sadly, due to a lot of missing pages (curiously always the ones with councillors’ names on them), plus a number of pages scanned at such low quality making them very difficult to read, I’ve requested an internal review.
There was an £85 taxi journey listed on page 5. By the price list published on my blog here it comes to a taxi journey of around 67 and a half miles.
Sadly the second page of the invoice that invoice from May 2015 that would state who undertook this unusually long journey is not supplied. The invoice itself is of such low quality it’s hard to read how far this journey was. However if you’re going on a journey that far why not take the train instead?
In fact if the journey was by a councillor then Wirral Council’s constitution states (members means councillors):
“8. Travel and Subsistence
Travel Costs
8.1 Travel costs incurred by members in performing “approved duties” as specified in Schedule 2 to this Scheme shall be reimbursed at the prevailing public transport rates, provided that the use of taxis or members’ private motor vehicles may be permitted where public transport is either not available, or the journey by public transport would be likely to result in unreasonable delay.”
Sadly as Wirral Council didn’t respond properly to this FOI request it’s impossible to tell whether a councillor took this journey or not!
However over the 6 months of invoices where names were supplied, here are how many taxi journeys were undertaken by each councillor at the taxpayers’ expense. For shared journeys I’ve counted it as one journey for each councillor sharing the taxi:
Cllr Moira McLaughlin (38) Cllr Steve Niblock (23) Cllr Bill Davies (13) Cllr Irene Williams (5) Cllr Pat Williams (2) Cllr Kathy Hodson (1) Cllr Denise Roberts (1) Cllr Phil Davies (1)
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Bernard Halley (left) talking about Girtrell Court at the Wirral West Constituency Committee 11th February 2016 L to R (foreground) Bernard Halley, David L to R (background) Graham Hodkinson, Cllr Matthew Patrick
Next Monday evening, starting at 6.00pm in the Council Chamber at Wallasey Town Hall there is a public meeting of all Wirral Council councillors.
One of the items to be debated at that meeting is a notice of motion on Girtrell Court (the text of the notice of motion is below). The notice of motion calls for any decision on closure of Girtrell Court to be made in public, rather than behind closed doors by the Cabinet Member Cllr Chris Jones and the Director of Adult Social Services Graham Hodkinson.
3. GIRTRELL COURT (to be debated)
Proposed by Cllr Chris Blakeley Seconded by Cllr Bruce Berry
Council notes that the Leader of the Council has previously stated that he wants his Administration to be open, transparent and fair with the people of Wirral. Council welcomes this approach.
Council therefore believes that the future of Girtrell Court must be decided in public and not under delegation to the portfolio holder, in conjunction with the Director of Adult Social Services.
Council further believes that the families of those using Girtrell Court, the staff, trade unions and residents and users must be given every opportunity to influence the future of Girtrell Court through a clear and transparent decision making process.
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Protest outside Wallasey Town Hall about Girtrell Court 3rd March 2016 thumbnail
It is hard to know where to begin when writing about last night’s Council meeting of Wirral Council at Wallasey Town Hall to decide on the budget. Above is a photo of the demonstration outside the main entrance to Wallasey Town Hall protesting about Girtrell Court being closed.
Realising that councillors were bypassing this entrance and using the door by Committee Room 3, there was another protest outside that way in too.
The meeting started and within the first few minutes the petition item was reached. The Mayor asked Bernard Halley (pictured below with his son David) to present his petitions opposing the closure of Girtrell Court. His e-petition had 1,200 signatures (of those nearly a thousand were Wirral residents). There was also a linked paper petition with over six hundred signatories opposed too.
Bernard Halley said, “Both petitions begged this Council to keep Girtrell Court running until proper alternatives are established, costed, evaluated, consulted upon and proven to be adequate.”
Bernard Halley and his son David present a petition opposing the closure of Girtrell Court to a budget meeting of Wirral Council 3rd March 2016
He gave a similar speech to the one he had made at the Cabinet meeting. Mr Cleary felt closing Girtrell Court was contrary to one of the 2020 pledges to protect the vulnerable and his opinion was that the proposed saving through closure would not save Wirral Council money but cost more money. Reference was also made by him to a proposal in 2011 proposed by Cllr Steve Foulkes and seconded by Cllr Phil Davies to stop the closure of Council-run care homes.
He expressed concern about the quality of care in the private sector and added, “At a time when users, their families, the public and staff see press stories of the frivolous use of taxpayers’ money, we implore you to look in the mirror, look into the eyes of those people in the balcony upstairs and tell them hand on heart how there is better provision out there.
We know you can’t do that and as such we urge you to fully drop this proposal. Thank you for your time.”
Although petitions of over 3,000 signatures can be debated for fifteen minutes, a decision was made to debate Girtrell Court during the budget debate instead.
Each of the political parties on Wirral Council with more than one councillor had a slightly different policy in their budget about Girtrell Court.
The Labour budget proposed closing it, subject to a later decision of the Cabinet Member Cllr Chris Jones and Director of Adult Social Services Graham Hodkinson.
The Conservative budget removed the need to close Girtrell Court by finding savings elsewhere instead. Three of the proposed areas for savings (amongst others) the Conservatives proposed were removing the free taxi service for councillors to and from the Town Hall, deleting the Executive Support Officer post held by Martin Liptrot and reducing the Council’s press, marketing and destination management team from fourteen posts to eleven and a half.
The Lib Dem budget stated this on Girtrell Court, “Council believes that the closure of the Lyndale School and the anguished debate about the re-provision of services at Girtrell Court underline the need to work closely with service users and their families. Council has a duty of care to ensure their concerns are fully addressed.
In the case of Girtrell Court, Council requests that the Director of Adult Social Services and the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health produce regular reports to Members. These must set out how a range of sufficient quality alternative services is to be achieved. Members would be failing in their duty if they were not to seek assurance about the quality, availability and capacity of the
alternatives.”
Around three hours after the meeting had started, despite many heartfelt pleas about reversing their proposed closure of Girtrell Court, there was a vote on Labour’s budget and the amendments proposed by the Conservatives and Lib Dems.
The amendments proposed by the Conservatives and Lib Dems were lost (due to Labour councillors voting against them). The Labour budget was agreed (due to the majority of Labour councillors on Wirral Council).
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What was the government’s response to the Independent Commission on Freedom of Information report?
ICO Information Commissioner’s Office logo
I will start this by declaring some interests in the area of freedom of information. I am the appellant in case EA/2016/0033 (which is a case with the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) involving decision notice FS50596346). A further case involving an appeal to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) involving decision notice FER0592270 was put in the post on Monday, but is yet to be received by the Tribunal. There are also numerous ICO decision notices that have been issued about FOI requests I have made.
Introducing new fees for FOI requests (above those that can be already charged) has been ruled out partly because this would lead to a reduction in FOI requests from the media and others.
The ministerial statement also refers to updated codes of practice published. Interestingly one of the requirements of this new code of practice will be for public authorities with a hundred or more full-time equivalent employees to publish detailed statistics on how they deal with FOI/EIR requests.
I presume this will be something similar to the quarterly reports issued by central government which give a detailed account of how FOI and EIR requests have been dealt with over that timescale.
As the ministerial statement states “The publication of such data not only provides accountability to the public, but allows the Information Commissioner to identify and target poorly performing public authorities more effectively.”
Certainly once the new code of practice is published, a new requirement on local government bodies to publish this detailed information will provide an insight into how FOI/EIR requests are dealt with.
There is also going to be revised guidance on the application of section 14(1) (vexatious or repeated requests). The ministerial statement states that they expect this only to be used in “rare cases” and that “the ‘vexatious’ designation is not an excuse to save public officials embarrassment from poor decisions or inappropriate spending of taxpayers’ money”.
There is also going to be consideration by the government of whether to include a requirement to publish expenses and benefits in kind received by senior public sector executives. It seems FOI requests have been made for these, but turned down on data protection grounds.
As I’m the Appellant in the Tribunal case EA/2016/0033 (which isn’t classed as “active” yet (as “active” in such cases is defined as from the point when a hearing date is set), I can reveal that the only major development in that case is that Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council has been added as a party to the appeal as second respondent (originally the case was just between myself and the Information Commissioner).
I’m still awaiting the Information Commissioner’s response (due by the 17th March 2016) and Wirral Council’s response is due not more than 21 days after they receive the Information Commissioner’s response.
Once the Information Commissioner responds and Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council responds to the Information Commissioner’s response, I have up to 14 days to respond to their responses.
The Tribunal have asked all parties to notify them of any dates they are not available between 6th June 2016 and 29th July 2016, so I presume a hearing date will be set on some day between those two dates.
I’m sure there are those that could comment better than me about a practice direction that leads to hearings discussing the secret information while one of the parties to the appeal is excluded (secret hearings) and a guide to keeping information secret from one of the parties to the case.
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Why is a Labour councillor denying a vote took place on Girtrell Court?
Cllr Moira McLaughlin (second from the left) voting against Girtrell Court motion at Coordinating Committee 16th February 2016 thumbnail
As you can see from the still from a video I took of the Coordinating Committee meeting held on the 16th February 2016 Cllr Moira McLaughlin (second from the left in the background) is quite clearly voting on Cllr Phil Gilchrist/Cllr Wendy Clements’ motion about Girtrell Court.
Following publication of that piece, one of my readers emailed the Labour councillors involved in the vote. The reader forwarded a copy of a response received from Cllr McLaughlin which is included below (along with the original email). Cllr McLaughlin is Vice-Chair of Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee (therefore expected to lead by example when it comes to standards) but she responds in her role as Chair of the Coordinating Committee.
I have asked the reader for permission to publish this email, but at the time of publication have not heard back yet. Therefore I have removed their name, email address and signature block from both emails.
However considering Cllr McLaughlin’s denial in the email that a vote on Girtrell Court happened, I felt it was in the public interest and important that this is published before Budget Council meets on Thursday evening. Maybe Cllr McLaughlin can explain at Thursday’s meeting why she wrote this in an email (not just to the resident, but a number of other Labour councillors too)? This is one of those rare times I make a decision as editor using s.32 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to publish such material.
I have not approached Cllr McLaughlin for a right to reply to this piece as I believe her views are conveyed in publication of the email itself.
From: McLaughlin, Moira (Councillor)
Date: 29 February 2016 at 14:44
Subject: RE: GIRTRELL COURT
To: ************** <****************>, “Abbey, Ron O. (Councillor)” , “Brightmore, Phillip A. (Councillor)” , “Smith, Walter W. (Councillor)” , “Sullivan, Michael (Councillor)” , “Williams, Jerry (Councillor)” , “Williamson, Janette (Councillor)” , “Williams, Irene R. (Councillor)”
Cc: “Davies, Phil L. (Councillor)”
Dear Mr. **********,
Thank you for contacting us.
I`m afraid , though, your information is inaccurate .
We have had no vote, as yet, on the future of Girtrell Court and I`m really not sure what information you have based this email on.
I don`t think it is appropriate for me to address the other points you make in your email
Regards
Moira
Councillor Moira Mclaughlin
Councillor for Rock Ferry Ward
Tel: 0151 644 8234
Fax: 0151 652 3248
The contents of this e-mail are the personal view of the author and should in no way be considered the official view of Wirral Council
From: ****************** [mailto:******************] On Behalf Of ****************** Sent: 29 February 2016 14:07 To: Abbey, Ron O. (Councillor); McLaughlin, Moira (Councillor); Brightmore, Phillip A. (Councillor); Smith, Walter W. (Councillor); Sullivan, Michael (Councillor); Williams, Jerry (Councillor); Williamson, Janette (Councillor); Williams, Irene R. (Councillor) Subject: GIRTRELL COURT
Dear All!
Cllr Moira McLaughlin (Labour) (Chair)
Cllr Ron Abbey (Labour)
Cllr Phillip Brightmore (Labour)
Cllr Walter Smith (Labour)
Cllr Michael Sullivan (Labour)
Cllr Jerry Williams (Labour)
Cllr Janette Williamson (Labour)
Cllr Irene Williams (Labour)
Is my interpretation correct that the above-named Councillors voted against a delay in the closure of Girtell Court until alternatives are in place?
If so, hang your heads in shame.
As a life-long Labour Party supporter, I believe in looking after the vulnerable in our society.
Since having become one of those vulnerable people (I am disabled), I had been hoping that the Party would help look after me. Now I see that it cares not one jot nor tittle. The Conservative Party looks after those able to cope with the vicissitudes of life. To whom must I turn at the next and future elections?
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