What did a 3 year FOI battle with Wirral Council reveal about councillors’ equipment and training?

What did a 3 year FOI battle with Wirral Council reveal about councillors’ equipment and training?                                                      A fortnight ago, required to do so by ICO decision notice FS50596346 Wirral Council finally provided some more information in response to my FOI request first made on the 29th March 2013. I will point out (in case … Continue reading “What did a 3 year FOI battle with Wirral Council reveal about councillors’ equipment and training?”

What did a 3 year FOI battle with Wirral Council reveal about councillors’ equipment and training?

                                                    

ICO Information Commissioner's Office logo
ICO Information Commissioner’s Office logo

A fortnight ago, required to do so by ICO decision notice FS50596346 Wirral Council finally provided some more information in response to my FOI request first made on the 29th March 2013.

I will point out (in case you’re wondering why it has taken nearly three years to get to that point) that this request has also been the subject of two other ICO decision notices FS50509081 and FS50569254.

So far Wirral Council has stated that the information requested would cost too much (section 12), that to give me the information would be prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs (section 36), that they class that doing an internal review of that decision as vexatious (section 14) and now finally when all of those prior decisions have been proven to be flawed, they withheld some of the information requested claiming it’s personal information (section 40).

My feeling about this is that Wirral Council, who refer to their approach in public as open and transparent have tried to engage in attrition warfare with myself and the regulator ICO over this request.

Mind you this is Wirral Council. Wirral Council is where responses to FOI requests from the press get delayed because they have to be "signed off" by the former head of their press office Emma Degg and their Monitoring Officer Surjit Tour?

So what did I request that was released a fortnight ago? One document was minutes of the Members’ (Members’ means Councillors’) Equipment Steering Group meeting held on the 7th February 2013. The other document was minutes of the Members’ Training Steering Group held on the 19th March 2013.

Quite what is in these two documents that requires a nearly three year cover up about their contents, I’m not sure. The scanned pages Wirral Council have supplied for the meeting of the Members’ Equipment Steering Group and the Members’ Training Steering Group are unfortunately scanned at a low resolution which can make them hard to read. So I will reproduce them both below starting with the Members’ Equipment Steering Group. As that mentions audio recording and webcasting of committee meetings I will declare an interest.

The part of this request that relates to the minutes of a meeting of the Headteachers and Teachers Joint Consultative Committee I have appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) and am at the stage of awaiting ICO’s response to my appeal.



Actions from Members’ Equipment Steering Group Meeting held on 7 February 2013

  1. Actions from the last Meeting
    I Pads had been discounted at the last meeting.

  2. Members’ Homepage and Toolkit
    – Homepage
    Members would consider the proposed content and come back to XXXXXXXXXXXX with any suggestions for inclusion.

    – Toolkit
    The proposed detail of the Members’ Toolkit was endorsed and XXXXXXXXXXXX would progress it.

  3. Councillor Equipment Device Options
    XXXXXXXXXXXX would obtain a price for the following devices:
    430 i 5
    430 i 3
    A recommendation will be made to the Cabinet subject to price and specification
  4. Councillor Equipment Printer Options
    The preferred printer was HP Office Jet 8000. In exceptional circumstances only would a Member’s own printer be connected to the network.
  5. Wireless in Wallasey Town Hall
    All Committee Rooms in the Town Hall would have wifi facilities by the time Members were in possession of their new IT kit.

    Officers will look at the possibility of Members being able to receive emails on smart phones via wifi.

  6. Councillor Equipment Rollout Timetable
    – Personally owned Ipad
    A system would be purchased, configured and installed by IT Services to allow Members to use their own Ipads.

    – Laptop
    This was an option. Members will keep their existing bag.

    – Router
    This was an option.

    – Telephone Handsets
    Members would keep their existing handsets.

    – Furniture
    New furniture would not be purchased

    – Modern.gov Application
    Modern.gov could provide an Application so that Personal Devices could access "Exempt Items" at a cost of £3000. This would not be taken up

    – Political Offices
    Office staff would not be included in the new equipment roll out.

    – Windows XP and Office 2010

    – Broadband Choices

    – Further Members’ Survey

  7. Councillor Case Management Systems
  8. Use of Personal Electronic Devices
  9. Use of Councillors own equipment
  10. iPad and HP Slate Autumn Trial
  11. Audio Recording and Webcasting of Committee Meetings
  12. Date and Time of Next Meeting

    XXXXXXXXXXXX to canvass Members and arrange the next meeting.

  13. Any Other Business


Below should be the Action Minutes of the Member Training Steering Group held on the 19th March 2013. On the original there is a third column with OD (Organisational Development) Team written next to points two to nine. It’s easier to write this in HTML without creating the way it is laid out as a table so I have left this out. I’ve also left out the page numbers and the filename/path on Wirral Council’s computer that it’s stored. However these can be viewed on the original.


Action Minutes

Member Training Steering Group

19 March 2013

Apologies -: Surjit Tour, XXXXXXXXXXXX

Attending -: Cllr McLachlan (Chair), Cllr Clements, Cllr Glasman, Cllr Gilchrist, Cllr Harney, Cllr Hornby, Chris Hyams, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

  1. Welcome and introductions

    The group welcomed XXXXXXXXXXX who is an associate tutor with the LGA and will be providing an overview of the Leadership Programme for Members

    Noted that Cllr Clements did not attend the last meeting and apologies had been received.

  2. Minutes and Matter Arising

    a) Terms of Reference
    Agreed that the Chief Executive would be included as support for the group.

    The group would continue to sign off requests for training and will continue to be mindful of the travel and accommodation costs.

    Agreed that OD would report back on a quarterly basis training approval decisions.

    Agreed to put the terms of reference into themes and circulate.

    b) Recruitment to Leadership Modules

    Agreed that Members should forward names to XXXXXX to reserve a place on the course and to contact XXX should they have any queries.
    An introduction session will run on the 10th April a Flyer will be sent out providing the details of the session. XXXXX explained that the Pre course briefing would cover an introduction to the programme followed by the completion of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire as this would form the basis for the content on Module one, feedback would then be provided either face to face, which preferable or over the phone, prior to the programme commencing on the 8th May.

    It was noted that participants are required to attend both modules to benefit from the programme.

    c) Elected Member training onto the committee calendar

    Agreed to escalate the request to include members training from the skills for Wirral programme into the committee calendar.

  3. Standing Item – Training Update (since last meetings)

    a) 13th February – Developing the Council of the Future

    Noted that 30 attended the event with a mixture of feedback

    Agreed to chase up the feedback from this event and share with Members.

    Agreed to look at how Member’s could be provided with more opportunities to feedback and participate in these events.

    b) Public Health and Wellbeing: 20 February 2013

    Noted that 9 attended with very good feedback

    c) Understanding Local Government Finance: 27 February 2013

    Noted that 8 attended with very good feedback

    d) Media Skills

    Noted that 2 attended with very good feedback

    e) High Level Communications Skills

    Noted that 5 attended with very good feedback

    f) Attendance on training

    Agreed to continue to send reminders for training but as a rolling programme of events that month and to include flash reminder the day of the training that spaces are available.

  4. Standing Item – Upcoming training ( Members Development Programme)

    a) Effective Surgeries and Caseload Management Training

    Agreed to look at were we are up to with an Electronic System for case load Management. Meeting already arranged with IT to discuss this and Members IT training, feedback would be provided at the next meeting.

    b) Training Venues

    Agreed to look at other venues rather than The Laurie’s Centre for Elected Member training sessions and move the training already book to other venues, to minimise costs.

  5. Standing Item – Approved Duty Requests

    No outstanding approved duties

    a) Spending for Approved duties

    Members to discuss and feedback as to how they would like to spend monies for approved duties, agreed to monitor on a case by case basis.

    b) Feedback from Events Attended

    Agreed to look at feedback from events and if particularly effective consider developing a Wirral version of the event.

  6. Standing Item – Budget

    a) Profile 2012-2013

    Budget profile discussed and noted that there would be an under spend this year. Details shared with the group.

    b) Profile 2013-2014

    Approximately £13,000 has been committed to date. Budget to be monitored at each meeting.

    c) Spending for Approved Duties
    Agreed to explore options around external funding available.

  7. Members Development Charter.

    a) PDP Returns
    46 PDP have been completed with 6 scheduled for April. This would bring the total to 52 PDP completed, which takes us over the 75% requirement for completion of the Members Charter. Agreed to continue to encourage the completion of all outstanding PDPs.

  8. Members Development Programme Accreditation

    a) Agreed for flyer to be sent to all Elected Members to promote the programme

    b) Additional information from ilm to be sent to Cllr Harney

  9. AOB

    a) 4th April New Constitutional Event 6pm – 8pm Floral

    b) 16 May Key Transformation and Improvement Agenda Session
    Suggestion from Cllr Glasman Ethics and Conduct.

    c) Training for Members – Directorships and Trusts

    Advert to be sent to Elected Members when programme agreed

  10. Date and Time of next meeting

    30 April 2013 4 – 5.15pm



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Council (Wirral Council) 14th October 2013 Answers to Questions to the Cabinet Member for the Economy (Cllr Pat Hackett)

Council (Wirral Council) 14th October 2013 Answers to Questions to the Cabinet Member for the Economy (Cllr Pat Hackett)

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These questions start at 23:18 in the video above and continues in this video clip.

Council (Wirral Council) 14th October 2013 Answers to Questions to the Cabinet Member for the Economy (Cllr Pat Hackett)

                         

Continues from Council (Wirral Council) 14th October 2013 Questions to the Cabinet Member for the Economy (Cllr Pat Hackett).

Cllr Pat Hackett, Cabinet Member for the Economy answered, “In no particular order, if I could just link here Cllr Elderton’s and Cllr Watt’s car parking question in terms of Cllr Elderton’s question in terms of extra development and also Cllr Watt in terms of West Kirby.

I mean first of all, we need to ask the Government to give us more money particularly Eric Pickles which will help in this situation but I think it’s also quite .. on what Cllr Doughty said just before that the scrutiny committee is looking at car parking charges and according to what Cllr Doughty just said as well, there was non involvement of a lot of your Members in it. So I think a lot of your Members around the room aren’t that interested. So I would suggest that a number of them can go along to a scrutiny committee and give their views on that.

In terms of Cllr Blakeley and the issue of broadband and the questions he asked around that. Can I just say this project that was in the news the last few days, in the papers, this project focuses on addressing and it’s a great project by the way, focuses on addressing those particular areas across Merseyside where the private sector failed to provide super fast broadband services to date. Based on the existing level of super fast broadband it’s been allocated to Merseyside a sum of £5.4 million. The Government allocation comes with a requirement that public match funding must be found and approval was granted if you recall on the 26th of March this year for £5.5 million of ERDF money giving the project a total of £10.9 million. A private sector contribution consisting of twenty percent will also be forthcoming … procurement process has concluded.

There are many benefits Mr Mayor to the City Region of having great access to super fast broadband, in summary it will improve the attractiveness of Wirral to inward investment and generate additional GVA for the City Region of around £50 million and more importantly help raise the digital divide to provide a platform for more efficient delivery of public services.

In relation to the very helpful question from Cllr Rob Gregson regarding the Wirral apprentice. He will recall, Members will recall this is a saving from last year that I’m trying to remember how we looked at different ways to deliver this. I’m glad to say that we have had strong interest in the new scheme and secured fifty-five apprentices in February for the unemployed and those not in employment and education and training. Young people in forty-eight businesses in Wirral, including the four places set aside for care leavers.

Recruitment of young people is taking place throughout this month with vacancies advertised by the National Apprentice Scheme, also Job Centres and also the website. Sixteen have already started and we expect them all to take place near November. The jobs that take place Mr Mayor are with small businesses and there have been high interest from the engineering sector with new vacancies secured in the marine sector and supply chain. It ties in really well with our Regional Growth Fund ambitions and focuses Mr Mayor on keeping our growth in this sector. When we’ve fully recruited we will begin the full breakdown of age, qualification, … and business sector et cetera, but thank you very much for that very helpful question.”

Continues at Council (Wirral Council) 14th October 2013 Questions to the Cabinet Member for the Environment and Sustainability (Cllr Brian Kenny).

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