A blog about Wirral Council's public meetings, Wirral Council's councillors, Bidston & St. James ward and other public bodies on Merseyside
Everyone was present, so the Chair Cllr Mark Dowd started the meeting at 2.30pm by wishing everyone a very pleasant time. He asked for declarations of interest. Cllr Chris Blakeley declared an interest as a Fast Tag holder and an interest in item 5 as a recipient of allowances from Merseytravel.
The Chair declared an interest for everyone else in item 5. He asked if the minutes were ok? They were and agreed. The Chair then wanted to move a recommendation c in respect of the item on the Mersey Tunnel tolls. Cllr Chris Blakeley said he wished to move an amendment (which is below).
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AMENDMENTS SHEET
MERSEYSIDE INTEGRATED TRANSPORT AUTHORITY
Authority/Committee/Sub-Committee: Integrated Transport Authority Budget Meeting
Date: 09 February, 2012
Agenda Item/Minute No: Item 3 – Mersey Tunnel Tolls
Amendment moved by: Councillor Chris Blakeley. Seconded by: Cllr Les Rowlands
11 Recommendations
Accept all recommendations and add new clause (d)
(d) The Authority asks the Interim Director General / Director of Resources to investigate the cost implications, as well as any implications to the Tunnels Act 2004 of bring forward a further discount for Fast Tag users in order to reduce the burden of tolls on regular users of the Mersey Tunnels. The results of that investigation to be brought back to an Authority meeting in October 2012 prior to the review of the Mersey Tunnel Tolls for 2013 as per the Tunnels Act 2004.
C/MISCELL / SR / DW
23rd July 1991
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He said he “won’t keep us too long” as he was not calling for tunnel tolls to be removed. He was not going to shout for immediate reductions. He felt that the 2004 Act had taken away some of their powers, as they couldn’t vote against an increase, but they did have the power to discount. He had trouble with the Tunnels Act but was delighted that tolls would not increase. The small reduction he asked for Fast Tag users had been circulated.
The Chair said Cllr Blakeley’s motion was ” ill-conceived” as the Tunnels Act had been agreed by Merseytravel before going to the House of Lords. He said they should be doing this anyway, so why do what they should be doing?
Another councillor said wasn’t Cllr Blakeley up for election, therefore wasn’t this political?
Cllr Blakeley said he moved an amendment every year and there was nothing peculiar.
The Chair asked for a vote on the amendment. Five voted for the amendment (including Cllr Blakeley and Cllr Rowlands). The others voted against the amendment so the amendment was lost.
All councillors ten voted in favour of the original motion.
The Chair moved the meeting onto the 2012/13 Budget.
Jim Barclay introduced the report.
A councillor asked where the £2.985 million grant came from for the ferries?
The answer given was that Mersey Ferries Limited was a limited company, the subsidy was reduced in order to trade in line with its constitution. He was thanked.
Another councillor pointed out an error on page 31 in the 4th paragraph. Jim apologised for the error.
The councillors approved the 2012/13 Budget unanimously.
The last report on the agenda was the independent review of Members Allowances. The Chair welcomed Professor Hall and also circulated a recommendation from the Labour Group to not accept an increase in the Basic Allowance or Chair’s Allowance.
Cllr Chris Blakeley welcomed what had been moved, but asked for clarification. Were they accepting the other recommendations?
The quote of the evening goes to Cllr Foulkes who stated:-
“I get the blame for everything else these days so I may as well accept the blame.” in regards to his Cabinet’s decision to transfer of the River Streets Community Centre to Wallasey Gymnastic Club at a 99 year peppercorn rent and its partial demolition.
The prize for persistently asking a question in about a dozen different ways goes to Charlie Wright, who only stopped when local police Inspector McGregor asked him to.
Cllr Foulkes also said he’s “not going to try to rewrite history” that he “can’t rewrite history” and described Birkenhead Town Centre as “dying on its feet”.
But wasn’t it Cllr Foulkes’ Cabinet in a behind closed doors meeting that sold off the Wirral Council car parks there to Asda which affected trade in Birkenhead? The recession had some role to play, but Asda clearly accelerated the demise of some businesses.
You almost get the idea that Cllr Foulkes is looking for some sympathy to the predicament he now finds himself in, being hoist by his own petard. Wasn’t it only a few years ago he was proudly standing up at the Lauries Centre telling the world of his vision for closing half the Borough’s libraries and flogging off its community centres despite the sixty thousand Wirral residents that didn’t want their leisure centres, libraries or community centres sold? What will be cut from Wirral Council’s Budget when Labour announce their 2012/2013 Budget in a few weeks time?
Thankfully his colleagues are now trying to consult with the public over the libraries (a lesson learnt from Sue Charteris was that they should consult first) and parks, beaches and open spaces.
One would almost think there are local elections less than three months away, in which Labour seek to gain majority control of Wirral Council. Yet with £millions to find in Budget savings for 2012/2013 in the next few weeks, all eyes are on the two no confidence motions in Cllr Foulkes’ leadership of the Borough next Monday… will he pull a rabbit out of a hat, or like the proverbial cat with nine lives has he used them all up?
Following on from part 1 Bill Norman continued.
Bill Norman said that a number of names should be disclosed to councillors. One of those names was his and he had no reason in them not knowing which number he was in the report (although some may have already guessed). He was working towards giving them this information, but pointed out it had been a non-statutory inquiry.
Cllr Simon Mountney asked if he was correct that there was no unredacted report?
Bill Norman said there was no unredacted report in his possession. However there was a list of names with the draft report which had been circulated to a small number of officers and councillors.
Cllr Paul Doughty said he found it amazing that the party opposite were looking towards making political points.
Cllr Mike Hornby said it was the people of Wirral who’ve suffered by it being “swept under the carpet” and the “deplorable” way it had been handled.
Cllr Sheila Clarke said as Carer’s Champion she had hit the “brick wall of legal” and didn’t know of the report into Kent House which went into serious safeguarding issues regarding its vulnerable residents. She said that someone from the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership [NHS Foundation Trust] was here tonight. She said all this was done by bypassing the formal scrutiny process.
The Chair, Cllr Patricia Glasman said it was on the Cabinet papers and went before Cabinet on the 2nd February and that it had “not been kept from view”.
Simon Wagener talked about accountability and transparency. He wanted to echo the views of users and carers, who didn’t believe that the option of anonymity should’ve been extended. He said that those identified should be held responsible and have to be held to account. Mr. Wagener said a senior manager in the Department of Adult Social Services had said their responsibility lay to the Director of the Department. He said this was a conflict of interest and that they need to be held accountable to the people they serve and carers. He said to have those people “kept in the dark” was “not in the public interest” or in service user’s interests.
Graham Hodkinson, Director of Adult Social Services said that all officers had a clear responsibility to the people they serve. He suggested that the officer had wrongly informed [Simon] and that they all have legal and professional registration as individual professionals which covered accountability and responsibility. He agreed that officers are accountable to the people of Wirral.
Simon Wagener said there was mention of an ongoing review, who had this been conducted by?
Cllr Mike Hornby said the report had been commissioned by the Council and paid for by taxpayers.
Bill Norman said yes it was paid for by the Council, but they had been informed by Anna that assurances had been made that names were not appearing. It was a voluntary process and assurances had been given, therefore there was a legal and moral obligation to respect this, which they were seeking to clarify through independent lawyers. He understood they were working towards that goal but there might be legal consequences.
The meeting started off cordially enough with the Chair Cllr Patricia Glasman welcoming people to a special meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
She asked for declarations of interest. Cllr Denise Roberts said she was a member of the Members’ Working Party and wanted clarification on whether it was an interest. In Bill Norman’s view it wasn’t an interest she needed to declare.
The Chair asked for any party whipping arrangements, none were declared. She said she had something to read and circulated a motion. A Conservative councillor asked for a ten minute recess so after three minutes the meeting was adjourned.
After the adjournment the Chair asked if she wanted them to read out her motion. They did, so she read it out in full.
Cllr Cherry Povall, spokesperson for the Conservative Party said her first point was that they’d only just been handed the Improvement Plan and that it was designed to bypass scrutiny.
The Chair pointed out that the Action Plan was published on the intranet on the 2nd February and had been available since then.
Cllr Simon Mountney said, “It’s taken four years almost to get to this point and members of the public are currently asking for us to name and shame. Well to be honest I think it’s even more than that. I think it’s name and hold to account. If people prove under that process to have something to answer, then in fact there might even be prosecutions to follow, as I understand the police are involved in this.
So how do you expect to sweep this under the carpet whilst there is a police investigation into this issue is beyond me? This is one of the most serious matters this Council…”
The Chair interrupted and denied that they were trying to sweep it under the carpet.
Cllr Simon Mountney said “Well I think by this statement that you’ve issued just now, what you’re looking to do is move on. Well I’m not ready to move on and I don’t think my colleagues are ready to move on. We need to know who is responsible for this and at this point in time we don’t! We haven’t even had a non redacted version of the report. How can you expect this Council to move on when we don’t know who was responsible for one of most serious issues to happen in this Council for many years?
It’s just beyond me how you have the audacity to issue this kind of report saying let’s move on. We don’t have the answers yet! How can we possibly move on? The report talks about people turning up with baseball bats and you want us to move on? It’s just absolutely beyond me, I don’t understand how your party and you as an individual can continue with this ridiculous issue that it’s going to go away.
This is not going to go away and I’m going to make sure it doesn’t go away till I get the answers that I’ve been seeking for four years. Now we’re getting to a point perhaps where the answers will start to come out, because it will go to a public investigation of some sort. It will. So don’t, let’s not try and sweep it under the carpet because that’s what you’re trying to do.”
The Chair, Cllr Patricia Glasman said “I’m not trying to sweep anything under the carpet. Nobody is and I’m…”
Cllr Simon Mountney said “You are trying to sweep it under the carpet by saying let’s move on!”
The Chair said, “I would be very grateful if nobody here tonight reduces this to the level of personal abuse. With regards to the issue of naming names, I’d be grateful if the Director of Law could answer that.”
Cllr Simon Mountney asked who had put together the statement, whether it was the Chair and if it wasn’t he’d like to know who?
Bill Norman, Director of Law, HR & Asset Management said, “Following a previous meeting of this committee I was informed there was a request from a number of Members to seek an unredacted copy of the Anna Klonowski report. Errm when we received the request for an unredacted version…”
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