Category: Wirral Globe

What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”

What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”

What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”

 

Councillor Paul Doughty asks a question of Julia Hassall about confidence in the Lyndale School closure consultation

Councillor Paul Doughty asks a question of Julia Hassall about confidence in the Lyndale School closure consultation

Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services) and David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive) answer questions from councillors on the Lyndale School closure consultation decision

Continuing from yesterday’s transcript of the Coordinating Committee meeting is a transcript of the next fourteen minutes of what officers said at the Coordinating Committee meeting of the 27th February 2014 that was to reconsider the Cabinet decision to consult on closing Lyndale School. On April 2nd, Wirral Council plan to start a twelve week consultation on the closure. The Cabinet report titled “Report seeking approval to consult on the closure of Lyndale School” can be read on Wirral Council’s website.

JULIA HASSALL
..are all included within the admissions book.

(heckling) I didn’t see it. I didn’t see it.

JULIA HASSALL
OK, if there are individual parents who are saying this evening they’ve not received that, then that’s something I will continue to look into.

(heckling)

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
So, quite right. My second question is errm, if you look at the, well the information tonight page 141, 140 to 141 2.5 if you skip the bullet points and go straight to the paragraph at the top of page 141, I won’t read the whole paragraph out but it just says that the changes proposed over a two year period, April 2014 to 16 and will be kept under review with regular reports to the Schools Forum. You’re looking to consult on closure for Lyndale, oh sorry.

JULIA HASSALL
Sorry Chair, is this the second report?

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
It’s the err…

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
The first.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
It’s the 21st of March?

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Quite right, that is under the funding report.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Oh no, no, no. Oh right. Maybe I should ask that? It’s not about funding.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
It is under the funding report. I’m afraid, sorry.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
OK, I’ll hold back on that. I’ll hold back on that question but I won’t forget.

Right, my next two questions are for David. You just said that you were involved when Lyndale sort of moved from Clatterbridge. How big’s the area, the size around Lyndale School’s on at the moment?

DAVID ARMSTRONG
I can honestly say Councillor Fraser that I don’t know the answer because I’ve deliberately because I don’t want it to confuse the debate and become a distraction, we have done no action whatsoever looking at the Lyndale site.

I said to Pat this evening after the parents spoke at the last meeting, I would very much like to have visited the school and have a look around, so I did talk to Pat but also to remind myself about the school as I was a mainstream teacher.

I deliberately haven’t done that because if I go to the school particularly with my current monitoring responsibilities everyone will think I’ve come to look at the building or look at the site or look at the land. I know the area that the site occupies but genuinely myself and no one else in my team that work with me would have come to look at the site. So I couldn’t actually quote that figure tonight.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Well if you’ve got, this leads me on to another point, without being difficult surely the Council has maps that you could look at? And also to see the size of the land? And also if the numbers at Lyndale are going down why are you extending Elleray Park?

(applause)

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
When my children went to school and I could choose the school, if there weren’t enough places there tough, you had to go to another school. Obviously it’s slightly different with special needs but I don’t understand why you’re not sending, suggesting that children go to Lyndale (making the most of the capacity)? Also I’d be interested if you looked at the map, how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?

(applause)

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, I’ll allow the officers to reply to that and then is that your questions finished?

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Sorry no, I’ve got one more.

DAVID ARMSTRONG
Thank you Chair, yeah but clearly I could look at maps Councillor Fraser. As far as I’m concerned it would be totally irrelevant to the discussion here, which is about whether we should consult on whether to close the school.

I tried to explain, that I am known as the asset person in the Council and currently I have all the baggage and tags that go with that. There has been no work done on looking to dispose of the site.

I think it is useful, very useful that you raised that point because I would just like to take you briefly through the process because if I set that out now then I think it should clear it away for future debate.

The work to Elleray Park stems from a Cabinet report from 2009, where we were asked to go away and bring forward plans to build two new schools, one at Stanley and one at Elleray Park linked to primary school sites.

Clearly we’ve just completed the Stanley one, located it next to Pensby and that was done through funding claiming for that purpose. Because of the national circumstances the funding was withdrawn in July 2010. There’s no prospect realistically of funding on that scale now.

We have £21.5 million worth of funding capital in 2010/11. Next year we’ll have £4.1 million so we know we’re facing a different landscape. So what we want to do is go back and invest in the schools that we know now that we’ll not be rebuilding and that’s where that deal comes from, it has its origins there.

In terms of bidding for the money, we’ve had that, we’ve been looking for that for a while. Yes when we bid internally for the money against our colleagues we did also make a reference to the fact that should a decision be taken to close Lyndale clearly we will need places at other schools but the Elleray Park building work is not dependent on any decision you make about Lyndale. The scheme at Elleray Park will be done for suitability reasons and flexibility reasons whatever the decision about Lyndale. So it is not dependant in any shape or form on a proposition about Lyndale.

It actually begins to sort out things again that I did in the mid 1990s, as a short-term measure. I converted the former caretaker’s house to teaching accommodation. I never intended that it would last the length of time that it did. The scheme deals with that issue.

It moves the kitchen from the back of the school to the front which makes sense in terms of deliveries, so it does deal with issues with the school that exist. In all schools we try and respond to parental choice. We provide extra accommodation where we can when people are clearly wanting to go to that school. That’s national policy and it’s something we’ve tried to do.

In terms of the site, the idea that we can somehow just sell the site and pocket the money is actually a bit, well it’s very far fetched. If the decision was taken to close Lyndale there’d be a stepped process. For me, if a decision was taken to close the school, that doesn’t automatically mean that it would mean there would be no education on the site.

The school could convert to a free school, it could convert to an academy. It could be a shared, split site school with another school and the site would carry on being used much as it is now.

If that didn’t happen, I’d want to look to see what other purposes we could put to it for children because it’s had investment as I say it had an investment in 1999 a substantial one. It’s one of only four schools we’ve got with pools and you’d want to explore other possibilities.

It has a youth hub and a youth club on the corner of the site so there’d be lots of other possibilities. If it came to the fact there was no school and no other use for it, we have to then apply to the Secretary of State. We have to get his permission to dispose of the site.

We have to do it under two pieces of legislation, one is section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act which covers the playing fields and the playing field is not just a pitch it’s any outside space and we have to do it under section 1 of the Academies Act for the rest of the site and the Secretary of State’s words are that “a presumption is against you” on this issue. So even if we went through all those processes and the Secretary of State did give permission to dispose of the site it could then be disposed of but that condition would be based on us having specific schemes where the funding would have to be reinvested in other schools.

So I think it’s useful to set all that out to show, it is a process we’ve gone through. We’ve relocated schools to school sites when schools have closed. We have disposed of sites but the money goes reinvested back into schools.

So there’s absolutely no motive on me and anybody else to address this as a capital or an asset issue. That comes at the end and I hope by going through that and it’s a legal process, it’s a national process that shows that really the debate needs to be had about the needs of the children not about the site.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Go on, you’ve got one more question Leah.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
No, you said I could have four, no, but we’ve got plenty of time! But errm right,

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
No sorry, I’ll let you put the question if you like.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Thank you Chair. My next question is, the email that Rochelle Smith mentioned, which I’m sure you were waiting for me to ask or somebody to ask that. From Paul Ashton “no plans for closure” sent in April 2012. What happened between April 2012 to a couple of months ago last year? That seems quite a change of policy, can you explain that?

DAVID ARMSTRONG
I think we’d like to. The letter came in when I was covering the Director of Childrens Services post, which we… Julia agreed upon to. So I was wearing two hats when that letter came in. I was covering the Director’s post but I was also still working with Andrew doing the finances. The letter was read in that context.

I asked Paul Ashcroft to reply to the letter because he was the specialist special, he was the senior inspector for special education, but I also had a discussion with him because if I sit there wearing the hat doing the thing with Andrew the very last thing we would want is for any member of our team, to be suggesting that children shouldn’t go to the school. It’s the very last thing we would want, it would make an already difficult situation even worse.

He went away, he replied to the letter, he replied to the parent and I also asked him to research whether he could come across any evidence of where our staff were directing children away from the school and that’s the most current and it’s interesting, it’s been really good to listen to what’s been said tonight because the references to me appear to have been mainly, if not exclusively to staff who work for another organisation and I think that’s an issue that Julia will research in her own way.

The situation is as I described at the very beginning, the national framework has now embedded itself in. Andrew and I are looking to the future landscape, we can see more hurdles that we’ll have to go through, other agencies will have to be involved in saying yes or no to the current arrangement we have with funding empty places, we see a clear direction now in special which is to move towards paying for the pupil rather than the place so it’s because, unbeknownst to us at the beginning of this, it’s that national context and also the numbers haven’t added, the numbers have stayed broadly stable and that clearly makes the problem difficult.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, next I’m going to deal with Paul, Pat and Adam in that order.

COUNCILLOR PAUL DOUGHTY
I am at an advantage actually over some of the parents and members of the audience because I know you as individuals and I know as individuals how passionate you are about children and your responsibilities towards them and our parents and members of the audience here don’t know that and they don’t have the advantage that myself and some of the other councillors have.

I think one of the problems we’ve got is the language that’s been used in some of the communication, perhaps in the newspapers and their responsibility for that. Also perhaps the, we referred to you that know some of the perhaps careless language of NHS staff perhaps and so we have a challenge really as a local authority as to how we can reverse that negative view that parents have so the question is given some of the comments that have been made to us where parents have a lack of confidence in the process and the consultation is there anything else that you feel that as officers we can do to try and restore confidence in the consultation process that haven’t already been presented tonight?

JULIA HASSALL
OK Chair, if I start the answer to that. One of the things that we’re deeply committed to doing should the decision be to proceed with the consultation is to talk with parents and each child, talk with the school and really make sure we’ve got as up to date assessment of the needs of each individual child at Lyndale School.

So that as we go forward, we are very genuinely looking at options in the knowledge of each individual child so that when we apply what’s called the SEN Improvement Test, we’re doing it based on our understanding of what each individual child needs and looking at how their needs can and if they can be met in a different setting.

So it’s making sure amidst what you say Councillor, a lot of the language that’s been used that we pull it back to first principle and say this is about getting it right for some exceptionally vulnerable children and how to care deeply about their children and we’ll need to be absolutely reassured whether the child is going to school they have staff in that school who can absolutely respond to their children’s needs in a very caring appropriate way and that is the very heart of what we must do as we take this forward.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, Pat and then Adam and then Leah and that… and I do want to spread it round the committee, all ok?

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
I’ll try and keep my questions to the question of debating whether we should have a call in on, oh a consultation. One of the parent witnesses Julia has said earlier that she had or that parents had forwarded questions to you and not received replies. My question to you is, have you been waiting to reply to these queries on the fact that the parents have raised objections to the proposed current consultation? I’ve got one more question.

JULIA HASSALL
Thank you Councillor, I’m glad you asked me that question. I met with staff at the school and with parents on the 19th of December. It was the soonest date we could arrange after I met with the governing body at Lyndale School and I brought with me a colleague who took very detailed notes at the meeting.

Quite soon after Christmas, there were very detailed questions and did need to canvass a number of views to get accurate responses and Mrs Dawn Hughes who was a parent who spoke at the Cabinet meeting, I think Dawn is here this evening, on the 16th January very helpfully wrote to me saying this is a summary of the questions we asked and here are some additional questions and she did that under the freedom of information process and what I did I was a little delayed, but I did respond to Mrs Hughes within the freedom of information timescale which is about three weeks or so ago.

I’m probably mistaken because I understood that those questions and responses would be circulated to other parents. If that’s not happened I will do that tomorrow.

(heckling) The answers given they weren’t answers.

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
One other question Chair.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK.

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
Another witness referred to the fact that the closure of Lyndale School has been brought to their attention by members of staff from another organisation. Have you had any contact yourself with the NHS about Lyndale School and the staff that were mentioned?

JULIA HASSALL
Councillor Glasman, I’ve been slightly chary about going very broad on consultation at this point, but I I I have indirectly made contact with Doctor Steiger but I will want to if the consultation proceeds, certainly meet with a group of community pediatricians to elicit their views and meet with other health professionals who are involved and I know that there are some who are actually directly working within the Lyndale School and I want to very much take soundings from them and from any other professional who’s directly involved.

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
You want to emphasise to them that (inaudible)

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, Adam.

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Wirral Council plan to spend £22,500 on a Birkenhead community newspaper. Will it fall foul of Pickles’ publicity law?

Wirral Council plan to spend £22,500 on a Birkenhead community newspaper. Will it fall foul of Pickles’ publicity law?

Wirral Council plan to spend £22,500 on a Birkenhead community newspaper. Will it fall foul of Pickles’ publicity law?

                             
A recent meeting of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee who will consider proposals to spend £22,500 on a Birkenheadcommunity newspaper
A recent meeting of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee who will consider proposals to spend £22,500 on a Birkenhead community newspaper

Buried among the appendices published ahead of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee on Thursday are two interesting reports.

The first report is the result of a Surveymonkey survey sent out to all residents that Wirral Council has an email address for in the “CH41, CH42 or CH42 postcode” areas. It seems however this is just a typo and residents in CH43 (which covers Bidston & St. James, Claughton, Oxton and Prenton) were also included as I received an email about the survey with the subject “Would you like to receive a community news update?” on 27th February.

Most people responding to the survey stated that what they liked most about the local free newspapers was local news, however question three revealed that around half responding to that question said that they don’t read the local free newspaper as it isn’t delivered to them any more. This answers concurs with statistics in the other report that states that out of the 39,823 households in Birkenhead, 24,962 receive the Wirral News (62.7%) and 22,091 the Wirral Globe (55.5%).

The survey continues with asking what people want they would want included in a “Birkenhead Constituency Committee news update” and the top answer was “unbiased, relevant local news” closely followed by finding out about local services, events and activities.

Interestingly there were also responses about why people didn’t currently read the newspapers from surveys in public locations where people gave responses such as “Council matters only appear if news editors think that they are controversial” and “fed up of hearing about bad people doing bad things and getting away with it”.

When asked about what information they thought should be included in a Birkenhead Constituency Community Newspaper there were a range of responses such as “find out about positive local news and important council information concerning regeneration and development”, “main council committee decisions – with commentary if necessary”, “planning applications”, “proposed road & transport information” but interestingly and this one seems to be a reference to Labour Rose/Lib Dem Focus “but not of councillors’ photographs at places where council work has been done at their behest”.

Not unsurprisingly not one of the questions asked residents if they thought that spending £22,500 of taxpayer’s money for three editions was a good idea. What is proposed is a pilot of three editions over six months (each edition being bi-monthly) of an eight page publication (whether it would be colour or black and white is not mentioned). It’s stated that “It will be non political and inform people of news they are interested in.” Quite how it will manage to write anything about Wirral Council that people are interested in (which means the more controversial political news), yet remain “non political” remains to be seen. The long term aim is to have advertising from “public sector partners”, grants and “appropriate advertising” cover its costs for future editions.

It will be edited by Lairdside Community Together, who will be recruiting an apprentice to work on it through Wirral Metropolitan College. Interestingly it won’t be delivered by paid deliverers but by volunteers with ward councillors suggesting an organisation in their ward (sports clubs and scout groups are mentioned in the report). These organisations would then receive “an incentive”.

However the future is not looking particularly rosy for such Council run publications. Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP is not as keen on them as the Birkenhead Constituency Committee. In approximately a week (30th March 2014) s.39 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 on the code of practice on local authority publicity comes into force. This section gives Eric Pickles the legal power to tell Councils off who aren’t complying with the “Code of practice on local authority publicity” and force them to comply. This section also allows the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP to create a new law making it a legal duty for all local Councils to comply with the Code of Practice on Local Authority Publicity.

So what is the Code of Practice on Local Authority Publicity (which also comes with an explanatory memorandum and how could the proposed Birkenhead Constituency Community Newspaper fall foul of it?

Section 2 of the code makes it quite clear that it applies to such publications “The code therefore applies in relation to all decisions by local authorities relating to paid advertising and leaflet campaigns, publication of free newspapers and newssheets and maintenance of websites – including the hosting of material which is created by third parties.”

Section 4 outlines some principles applying to “publicity by local authorities”. These are that it should be cost effective, objective, even-handed, appropriate and “be issued with care during periods of heightened sensitivity”. I think that last bit refers to the period in the lead up to elections.

Going back to what somebody wanted in such a newspaper being “main council committee decisions – with commentary if necessary” section 15 would appear to rule that out “Such publicity may set out the local authority’s views and reasons for holding those views, but should avoid anything likely to be perceived by readers as constituting a political statement, or being a commentary on contentious areas of public policy.”

Section 28 is specifically about such newspapers, restricts their frequency to quarterly and restricts what can be put in it “Local authorities should not publish or incur expenditure in commissioning in hard copy or on any website, newsletters, newssheets or similar communications which seek to emulate commercial newspapers in style or content. Where local authorities do commission or publish newsletters, newssheets or similar communications, they should not issue them more frequently than quarterly, apart from parish councils which should not issue them more frequently than monthly. Such communications should not include material other than information for the public about the business, services and amenities of the council or other local service providers.”

Section 34 bans such publications in the lead up to elections “During the period between the notice of an election and the election itself, local authorities should not publish any publicity on controversial issues or report views or proposals in such a way that identifies them with any individual members or groups of members. Publicity relating to individuals involved directly in the election should not be published by local authorities during this period unless expressly authorised by or under statute. It is permissible for local authorities to publish factual information which identifies the names, wards and parties of candidates at elections.”

As it states in the explanatory memorandum “Council newspapers, issued frequently and designed to resemble a local newspaper can mislead members of the public reading them that they are local newspapers covering council events and give communities a biased view of the activities of the council.” There’s also the concern that such publications (as this one is expected to be funded after the first three issues through advertising) will take advertising away from local newspapers and make them less financially viable.

So I’m starting a poll to see what readers think about the community newspaper proposal ahead of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee on Thursday which will consider it.

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The reasons why Wirral Council’s Lyndale School call in is being delayed

The reasons why Wirral Council’s Lyndale School call in is being delayed

The reasons why Wirral Council’s Lyndale School call in is being delayed

                                  

Labour's Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) explains at a Wirral Council Cabinet meeting why he thinks the Cabinet should agree to consultation on closure of Lyndale School
Labour’s Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) explaining at a Wirral Council Cabinet meeting why he thinks the Cabinet should agree to consultation on closure of Lyndale School (which is the decision that was called in)

I read the Wirral Globe article headlined “Town Hall bungle means Lyndale meeting called off” with interest as it was related to my earlier blog post headlined “Is the Lyndale School call in going to the wrong Wirral Council committee?”.

Basically Wirral Council is stuck (and apologies for the cliché) between a rock and a hard place. Their new constitution states call ins have to be decided by the Coordinating Committee, however a law (The Education (Parent Governor Representatives) Regulations 1999) means it has to be decided by a committee with parent governor representatives on and a previous case Transport and General Workers Union and Hilary Hollington v Wallsall Metropolitan Borough Council [2001] EWHC Admin 452 means that if they went ahead and made a decision on the Lyndale School call in by the Coordinating Committee without any parent governor representatives having a vote as part of that committee’s decision, then such a decision would almost certainly be quashed (based on that bit of case law) by a High Court Judge if any of the parents requested a judicial review.

The only committee that could legally decide the call in (that has parent governor representatives on it) is the Families and Wellbeing Committee (however for it to do so would currently be unconstitutional). There was a meeting scheduled of the Families and Wellbeing Committee for Thursday but it was mysteriously cancelled. If anybody knows what this cancelled meeting was about and if it was related to the call in please leave a comment.

So what happens next? Well the Coordinating Committee will meet on Wednesday 5th February as planned, but at the meeting will probably receive legal advice that they can’t make a decision on the call ins as they don’t have any parent governor representatives on their committee.

To progress with this matter will need a change to Wirral Council’s constitution. Such changes originate as a recommendation by the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee first (usually on the advice of Surjit Tour), which next meets on the 24th February. A recommendation would then be made to change the constitution to Budget Council on the 25th February and presuming the change is agreed to, the call in will be decided on the 27th February by the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee.

The quote from Cllr Leah Fraser in the Wirral Globe article of “The parents and staff of Lyndale School deserve better than this chaos” is one I agree with. Both the quotes of Cllr Phil Davies and Joe Blott leave out an important point not mentioned, which is that the parent governor representatives will have a vote in the decision over the call ins. I’m not sure if the Diocesan representatives have a vote too (it’s something I’d have to look into), but as far as I recall one of the two Diocesan representative positions on the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee is vacant (although an appointment to it could be made at the next Council meeting).

However taking from 16th January (date of the original Cabinet decision) to 27th February (date of the proposed Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee to consider the call in) is a total of one month and eleven days. Certainly it is not ideal for the parents and staff of Lyndale School to face uncertainty over the outcome for such a prolonged length of time.

What Wirral Council’s constitution currently states on call ins is included at the end of this blog post. Changes to it will need to be made if the Lyndale School call ins are to be made by the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee on the 27th February.

The controversial rewrite of Wirral’s constitution (which included changing the call in procedure) happened at an extraordinary meeting of Wirral Council last April.

Here are some quotes from what councillors said at the time back in April 2013 about the constitutional changes which Labour councillors voted for, but Conservative and Lib Dem councillors were opposed to.

Cllr Phil Davies (Labour’s Leader) (who recommended the constitutional changes which included changes to the call in system) said, “What are the aims of the changes we’re proposing? Well we want to clearly improve our governance and decision-making procedures.”

Cllr Jeff Green (Leader of the Conservatives) said, “One of the elements of these changes is to remove the Children and Young People’s and the Adult Social & Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committees. Given Wirral’s history …. it seems to me a backward and dangerous step to actually remove any of the scrutiny.”

Former Councillor Darren Dodd (Labour) said, “This is what the people of Wirral have been asking for, for for a very long time.”

Cllr John Hale (Conservative) said, “These proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”.

Cllr Chris Blakeley (Conservative) said, “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Cllr Tom Harney (Liberal Democrats) said, “We don’t know where we came from, we don’t know where we’re going.”

Excerpt from Wirral Council’s constitution on call ins

35. Calling in of decisions

(1) All decisions of:
(i) the Executive Board,
(ii) an individual member of the Executive Board or
(iii) a committee of the Executive Board, and
(iv) key decisions taken by an officer;
shall be published, and shall be available at the main offices of the Council normally within 2 days of being made. All members of the Council will be sent a copy of the decision.

(2) That notice will bear the date on which it is published and will specify that the decision will come into force, and may then be implemented, unless the decision is called in for scrutiny by 9a.m. on the Thursday following publication of a decision on Friday. (Adjusted by a maximum of one day in there is one or more Bank Holidays in that period)

(3) (a) During that period, the Chief Executive shall Call-In a decision for scrutiny by the Co-ordinating Committee if so requested by any six members of the Council who have given detailed reasons for the Call-In of the decision. The detailed reasons must be provided by the Lead signatory, by the Call In deadline. When a Call In is requested the Chief Executive shall liaise with the Member listed first on the Call-In schedule, to ensure there is sufficient information provided to enable the Call-In to proceed. As long as there is a clear reason given, the call-in should be allowed. He/she shall then notify the decision-taker of the Call-In. He/she shall call a meeting of the Committee on such date as he/she may determine, where possible after consultation with the Chair of the Coordinating Committee, and in any case within 7 working days of the decision to call-in.

(b) The relevant Chief Officer and all members will be notified of a call-in immediately and no action will be taken to implement the decision until the call-in procedure has been completed. A decision of the Cabinet, a committee of the Cabinet or individual Cabinet member may be called in only once.

(4) Having considered the decision, the Co-ordinating Committee may:-
(i) refer it back to the decision making person or body for reconsideration, setting out in writing the nature of its concerns or;
(ii) refer the matter to full Council. Such a referral should only be made where the Co-ordinating Committee believes that the decision is outside the policy framework or contrary to or not wholly in accordance with the budget. The procedures set out in those rules must be followed prior to any such referral.

(5) If a decision is referred back to the decision making person or body it shall be reconsidered in the light of the written concerns of the Co-ordinating Committee before a final decision is made.

(6) If following a call in, the Co-ordinating Committee does not refer the matter back to the decision making person or body and does not refer the matter to Council, the decision shall take effect on the date of the Co-ordinating Committee meeting. If the Co-ordinating Committee does not meet the decision shall take effect from the date when the Committee should have met.

(7) If the matter is referred to full Council and the Council does not object to a decision which has been made, then the decision will become effective on the date of the Council meeting.

(8) If the Council does object the Council may take a decision, which is outside the policy and budgetary framework. Otherwise the Council will refer any decision to which it objects back to the decision-making person or body, together with the Council’s views on the decision. That decision making body or person shall choose whether to amend the decision or not before reaching a final decision and implementing it. Where the decision was taken by the Executive Board as a whole or a committee of it, a meeting will be convened to reconsider within ten working days of the Council request. Where the decision was made by an individual, the individual will reconsider within ten working days of the Council request.

(9) Call-in should only be used in exceptional circumstances where members have evidence which suggests that the decision was not made in accordance with the principles of decision making in the constitution.

(10) Call-in and urgency
(a) The call-in procedure set out above shall not apply where the decision being taken by the Cabinet is urgent. A decision will be urgent if any delay is likely to be caused by the call-in process would seriously prejudice the Council’s or the public’s interest. The record of the decision and the notice by which it is made public shall state whether, in the opinion of the decision making person or body, the decision is an urgent one, and therefore not subject to call-in. The Chief Executive must agree both that the decision proposed is reasonably in all the circumstances and to it being treated as a matter of urgency. Decisions taken as a matter of urgency must be reported to the next available meeting of the Council, together with the reasons for urgency.

(b) The operation of the provisions relating to call-in and urgency shall be monitored annually, and a report submitted to Council with proposals for review if necessary.

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The letter Wirral Council wrote gagging Councillor Gilchrist

The letter Wirral Council wrote gagging Councillor Gilchrist

The letter Wirral Council wrote gagging Councillor Gilchrist

                         

Just before Christmas started I published a letter from Cllr Phil Davies to Cllr Jeff Green that was also published on Wirral Council’s website.

To recap it involves a male senior councillor in the Labour Group who made an “adverse comment” about an unnamed senior employee at Wirral Council. The councillor admitted he did make the comment and a report was written detailing that this Labour councillor had breached the Code of Conduct.

Previously if there’s been a report detailing a councillor has breached the Code of Conduct, even if officers recommended the report be exempt, the Standards Panel have decided to make the report public as you can see from that previous blog post detailing a seven page report and two page appendix into an allegation that former Councillor Denis Knowles breached the Councillor’s Code of Conduct in relation to a comment he made online.

Since then, in the Summer of 2012 the legislation regarding complaints made about councillors breaching the Code of Conduct has changed. This explanatory note on Wirral Council’s website explains some of the changes, but basically there are now two legal requirements on Wirral Council. The first on Wirral Council is that it “must promote and maintain high standards of conduct by Member and Co-opted Members” (Members in this context means councillors and Co-opted Members means people co-opted to Council committees). The second legal requirement is that they must have arrangements in place for investigating allegations and making decisions on allegations. The policy on this is here, the new Code of Conduct here and a an online form for people to use is here. Wirral Council has also appointed four independent persons that have a role in determining whether complaints made are worthy of investigation.

The letter to Cllr Phil Gilchirst basically asking him to sign a commitment gagging him from talking to anyone about what was in the investigator’s report can be read by following that link and to my knowledge is published for the first time in full on this blog (although there is a Wirral Globe story headlined “Wirral Council accused of ‘over the top’ secrecy” that quotes from it).

So do you think we should return to making investigator’s reports public if they have a finding that a councillor (and he acknowledges that he did in this case) breached the Code of Conduct? Surely if the “senior officer” wants their name kept out of it, the report could be released with their name redacted and does not naming the councillor involved make people think that Wirral Council takes its legal obligation that it “must promote and maintain high standards conduct by Member and Co-opted Members” seriously? Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts on these questions.

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Secrets about Wirral Council’s Birkenhead Town Centre Regeneration revealed

Secrets revealed about Wirral Council’s Birkenhead Town Centre Regeneration plans and Neptune

Secrets revealed about Wirral Council’s Birkenhead Town Centre Regeneration plans and Neptune

                             

Indicative illustration of Neptune Development Limited’s masterplan for Birkenhead Town Centre
Indicative illustration of Neptune Development Limited’s masterplan for Birkenhead Town Centre

Earlier this year I made a Freedom of Information request for the procurement advice that Wirral Council received from Peter Oldham QC and also Weightmans’ partner Sean Crotty about the regeneration of Birkenhead Town Centre.

A Rosemary Lyon (one of Wirral Council’s in-house solicitors) refused this request on grounds of commercial confidentiality (its own and other third parties). She stated that providing the information would “adversely affect its [Wirral Council’s] bargaining position concerning potential regeneration of Birkenhead Town Centre which would result in less effective use of public money” and “make it less likely that companies or individuals would provide the Council with commercially sensitive information in the future and consequently undermine the ability of the Council to fulfil its role”. They even went so far as to claim that releasing the information “would adversely affect the course of justice”.

However, this blog post is the story behind what went on behind the scenes that Wirral Council clearly (according to the response to my Freedom of Information Act request) didn’t want to be disclosed to the public or written about in the media for reasons I will go into below.

On the 16th July 2013, the Leader of Wirral Council Cllr Phil Davies (under delegated decision making powers meaning that he made the decision on his own) gave his agreement to a “preferred development agreement” with Neptune Developments Limited to “allow them to work up a comprehensive redevelopment proposal for Birkenhead Town Centre incorporating Council owned land on Europa Boulevard and involving the re-modelling and offer of Birkenhead Market”.

In the report seen by Cllr Phil Davies before reaching his decision reference was made to “a commitment to develop a clear master plan for Birkenhead Town Centre” in the 2013/16 Corporate Plan. Reference was also made to the previous offer to Wirral Council in 2010 by William Tar Developments to build a casino on two out of three plots of land owned by the Council on Europa Boulevard. That offer was rejected in September 2010.

However what’s not been known widely by the public until now is that “At the same time and in response to the marketing exercise Neptune Developments Limited (NDL) submitted a proposal requesting that the Council move away from disposing of the sites separately and instead work with them to develop a wider regeneration scheme for Birkenhead. NDL had already secured an interest on a vacant site on Conway Street and they suggested that this coupled with Council owned land on Europa Boulevard could be combined to allow a more comprehensive redevelopment scheme to be worked up and in turn would give a far greater regeneration impact than if the sites were developed separately” and that “negotiations have been continuing with NDL since the completion of the marketing exercise”.

Detailed below is Neptune’s proposal,

“Neptune proposes that the project is taken forward on the basis of a two stage agreement. The first, which is the subject of this Report, will involve granting NDL Preferred Developer Status which will be extendible to a period of 12 months and will be subject to NDL meeting the following performance targets:


  • Work up the Master-plan into a detailed implementation strategy for approval by the Council

  • Working with the Council, NDL will develop proposals which will reposition the town as a retail and leisure destination

  • NDL will negotiate further site acquisitions if necessary to deliver the agreed strategy.”

Subject to securing Members (Ed – Members means councillors) approval to the Strategy and Master-plan NDL would then be required to enter into a second Conditional Development Agreement which would commit them, at their own risk, to work up the proposals into a position were they could be implemented and to deliver the returns that are needed to secure the wider regeneration of this part of the Town.

It is proposed that the Conditional Development Agreement with NDL will be structured to ensure the Council receives the best value obtainable for the 3 sites on Europa Boulevard which will be determined by an independent valuation and all works will be undertaken on an open book basis with NDL working on a fixed developer return on cost which varies depending on the nature of the risk.”

In a section titled “Other options considered” it’s basically stated that no other options were considered because NDL has an interest in the land needed to build Birkenhead Market on once its moved.

“An initial assessment of the NDL proposals confirms that if delivered the scheme will have the potential to revitalise an important part of Birkenhead Town centre delivering a far greater regeneration impact than if the sites identified in this report were developed out separately. No other options have therefore been considered as NDL has already secured an interest in the balance of the land that is needed to deliver the re-provided market.”

The section on consultation states this “There will be a need to carry out extensive consultation on the scheme prior and during the detailed planning process. This will be carried out jointly between the Council and NDL.”

The section on legal implications refers to the advice that my Freedom of Information request in September was about (and refused). Once again Members means councillors.

“7.1 In the event that Members want to pursue this proposal and to ensure that it is compliant with current EU procurement law, Officers have sought advice from Weightmans LLP and Counsel about its legality.

7.2 The advice has now been received and it concludes that the Council would at this stage be able to enter into a Stage 1 Preferred Development Agreement on the proviso that a final test of lawfulness is carried out when the Stage 1 work has been completed and the detailed arrangements can be assessed.

7.3 NDL is aware of this advice and would be prepared to complete the first stage obligations at risk to allow the final lawfulness test to be undertaken when the scheme has been fully worked up.”

In other words Wirral Council’s happy to pass on the advice it received (at a cost of £7,404 of taxpayer’s money) to Neptune Development Limited to help them in a commercial venture as it may result in Wirral Council receiving money in the future for land in Birkenhead that it doesn’t want.

According to this article in the Wirral Globe in July 2013 Wirral Council wants to rebuild Birkenhead Market and move it.

Neptune Development Limited clearly as they have “already secured an interest on a vacant site on Conway Street” have a commercial interest in any master plan proposals and would be able to “negotiate further site acquisitions” in advance of the master plan becoming public knowledge.

Doesn’t this all sum up how Wirral Council tries to operate though and considering the public interest in the regeneration of Birkenhead Town Centre being done in accordance with EU procurement law do you dear reader think I should make a further Freedom of Information request to Wirral Council for the advice they received from Peter Oldham QC and Sean Crotty of Weightmans in relation to this matter in the hope that they would provide it this time?

P.S. If anyone would like to have a stab at translating ”all works will be undertaken on an open book basis with NDL working on a fixed developer return on cost which varies depending on the nature of the risk” into plain English that can be understood by the average person please leave a comment!

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