Tag: Bill Norman

Council (16th July 2012) Parts 1 to 7

I’ve finally uploaded the video footage from last Monday’s well attended Council to Youtube. Links to each part are below with part 7 being in HD. Part 1 00:00 to 04:07 Part 2 04:08 to 06:34 Part 3 06:35 to 50:49 Part 4 50:50 to 53:43 Part 5 53:44 to 130:37 Part 6 130:38 to … Continue reading “Council (16th July 2012) Parts 1 to 7”

I’ve finally uploaded the video footage from last Monday’s well attended Council to Youtube. Links to each part are below with part 7 being in HD.

Part 1 00:00 to 04:07
Part 2 04:08 to 06:34
Part 3 06:35 to 50:49
Part 4 50:50 to 53:43
Part 5 53:44 to 130:37
Part 6 130:38 to 136:00
Part 7 136:00 to 169:33

A playlist of all seven parts is below.

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Wirral Council’s DASS: “The Airing of Grievances (Part 2)” Appeals SubCommittee 3/7/2012

I notice the delayed grievance appeal from the 5th March 2012 (adjourned for a whopping 17 weeks (119 days) is going ahead tomorrow afternoon (as I write this on the 2nd July 2012).

It seems there is a delayed grievance appeal from an employee of Wirral Council’s Department of Adult Social Services. Representing the historically dysfunctional Department of Adult Social Services at the March meeting was none other than Employee 19 of the AKA report, dramatic drum roll Mr. Richard O’Brien.

No, it’s not the famous Richard O’Brien who used to present the Crystal Maze on Channel 4 in the 90s, and yes I invite you in the comments to state the similarities between Wirral Council and The Crystal Maze, but a guy that goes by the shorter moniker of Rick O’Brien. Who’s Rick you may ask? He is the Head of Branch, Personal Assessment and Planning (whatever that is!?).

Basically he lines managers the managers (that manage the social work teams) for Wallasey, Birkenhead, West Wirral etc… so it must be to do with an employee in that branch of DASS (which doesn’t narrow it down much!)

Brenda Hall is representing the other side, as she’s a branch negotiator for Wirral Council’s UNISON.

Getting out my handy “Who’s Who at DASS”, I find Rick O’Brien’s email address is richardobrien@wirral.gov.uk, which is interesting as Rick O’Brien (as reported as an exclusive on this blog last year) was one of the people who Bill Norman emailed on the 12th December 2011 about not publishing AK’s preliminary draft report.

Wasn’t he the same Rick O’Brien getting criticism in the comments section of the Wirral Globe and mentioned by name in a response to a FOI request involving four week delays in care packages?

Oh and also mentioned in this Wirral Leaks post about the Commissioning conference in London?

Hmm, well he certainly manages to get himself mentioned a lot (and it seems sometimes for all the wrong reasons)! But then it seems, a Pete Sheffield is just met with stony silence over a FOI request for Rick O’Brien’s job description.

But if memory serves correct he was also “Employee 19” in the now infamous “Anna Klonowski Associates Ltd (AKA) Independent Review of the Council’s Response to Claims Made by Martin Morton (and Others)”.

Ahh yes, that Rick. Oh well, apart from my frivolous uses of the <A HREF></a> tags, it’s nice to see there are still people at DASS with grievances to air. I had high hopes for the new Director of DASS, Graham Hodkinson, but it seems that he’s inherited a lot of problems from his predecessor in the role, Howard Cooper. How long will it before the public and employees again trust Social Services/Wirral Council to do the right thing and have a bit more accountability?

I feel at times writing about Wirral Council that it would be so much easier if getting information out of it wasn’t about as painful as pulling teeth, but it’s getting late so I will bring this to a close.

Employment and Appointments Committee 22/3/2012 Wirral Council

As it was a short meeting I’ve already uploaded it to Youtube. It’s in two parts, part 1 (the first twelve minutes) and part 2 (the last eight minutes), which are also below.

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The agenda and reports can be found on Wirral Council’s website except at the time of writing this, the AOB item entitled “Proposed Change to Senior Management Position”. It’s four pages which I’ve scanned in, Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 and Page 4.

The result of these changes will be that:-

(a) David Armstrong is appointed Acting Deputy Chief Executive,
(b) Surjit Tour becomes Deputy Monitoring Officer and stops being Scrutiny Officer (Head of Legal and Member Services) and
(c) Shirley Hudspeth, Democratic Services Manager stops being Democratic Services Manager and becomes Scrutiny Officer (Head of Legal and Member Services).

The Committee agreed to recommend (a) and (c) to Council and noted (b).

Items 5 (Chief Executives Office) and 7 (Department of Regeneration, Housing and Planning: Senior Management Structure) were deferred to a future meeting.

Budget night at Wirral Council & Off licence application for 46 Hoylake Road, Bidston turned down

Well tonight councillors at Wallasey Town Hall meet to decide among other things Wirral Council’s Budget for 2012-2013.

So far we have had the surprise Labour Budget at its last Cabinet meeting on the 13th February, which was then rescinded by the new Conservative/Lib Dem Cabinet on the 21st February.

Labour councillors then “called-in” the decision by the Conservative/Lib Dem Cabinet of the 21st February to rescind their earlier Labour Budget recommendation to Council and the Budget procedure chosen by the Conservative/Lib Dem Cabinet. This call-in was decided at the Council Excellence meeting on Tuesday 28th February. This call-in failed mainly because Bill Norman said that Cabinet recommendations to Council from Cabinet weren’t subject to call-in as in his view it wasn’t an Executive decision, just a recommendation so Labour have tabled an amendment to the Budget procedure tonight.

Confused yet?

However in more local news the Licensing Act 2003 subcommittee of Cllr Steve Niblock, Cllr Mike Hornby and Cllr Don McCubbin decided yesterday to turn down an application for an off-licence at 46 Hoylake Road. The reasons given were the objections of Merseyside Police (both Sgt Jenkins and Inspector McGregor were against it as they thought it would lead to increased crime and disorder).

The committee also had serious concerns about the integrity of the person who’d made the application for the licence and his alleged association with criminal activities. Trading Standards also spoke during the meeting about how they had seized counterfeit goods from the person applying for a premises licence.

The Subcommittee also felt the person applying displayed no understanding of the licensing objectives, despite previous involvement with other licensed premises, one of which had had its licence revoked due to violent crime. The issue of under age sales was also given as a reason by the subcommittee.

If you’d like to come to the Budget meeting tonight (1st March) it starts at 6.15pm in the Council Chamber at Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Wallasey, Wirral, CH44 8ED .