Tag: Cabinet

Cabinet (Wirral Council) 10th October 2013 | Minutes silence (Sylvia Hodrien) | Birkenhead Priory Heritage Lottery Grant | Declarations of Interest | Minutes | Annual Governance Statement 2012/2013

Cabinet (Wirral Council) 10th October 2013 | Minutes silence (Sylvia Hodrien) | Birkenhead Priory Heritage Lottery Grant | Declarations of Interest | Minutes | Annual Governance Statement 2012/2013

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Youtube Playlist of Cabinet meeting of 10th October 2013

Exterior of Birkenhead Priory
Exterior of Birkenhead Priory. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cabinet (Wirral Council) 10th October 2013 | Minutes silence (Sylvia Hodrien) | Birkenhead Priory Heritage Lottery Grant | Declarations of Interest | Minutes | Annual Governance Statement 2012/2013

                               

Prior to the first item the Chair of Wirral Council’s Cabinet, Cllr Phil Davies asked for people to stand for a minute’s silence in response to the news of the death of former councillor Sylvia Hodrien. Once the minute’s silence had finished, he reported the news (which was already reported by the Wirral Globe two days ago) that Wirral Council had been successful in obtaining a Heritage Lottery Grant for Birkenhead Priory of £393,100.

He said that the money would be used to improve the visitor experience, for a digital learning pack for schools and would lead to opportunities for volunteers. Cllr Davies was “delighted” at this “really good news story” and thanked the team at Wirral Council that had applied for the funding. He asked if Cllr Chris Meaden wanted to make any comments?

Cllr Chris Meaden referred to Jo McGuire the conservationist and pointed that this was the second Heritage Lottery Grant that Wirral Council had received for Birkenhead Priory. She also thanked the team.

1. Declarations of Interest 4:00

Cllr Phil Davies suggested that for item 17 (Proposed changes to school funding formula) that they make a block interest declaration as many of the Cabinet were school governors. Cabinet agreed to a block declaration of interest.

Cllr Harry Smith asked if he needed to declare that his brother was a lay reader at Birkenhead Priory? Cllr Phil Davies told them he didn’t need to.

2. Minutes 4:41

Cllr Phil Davies asked if Cabinet agreed the minutes of the last Cabinet meeting held on the 19th September? Cabinet did agree the minutes so Cllr Phil Davies signed them.

FINANCE
3. Annual Governance Statement 2012/2013 5:04

This item had a report and three appendices, appendix 1 (Annual Governance Statement), appendix 2 (Significant Governance Issues Action Plan) and appendix 3 (CIPFA (Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy) framework).

Cllr Phil Davies, Cabinet Member for Finance said that the Annual Governance statement was an important document and a draft had been presented to the Audit and Risk Management Committee meeting of the 18th September. He wanted to make a few general comments, first that he was pleased to see references to the progress made on getting Council’s finances on a sustainable footing which was welcome. Cllr Davies also said the report mentioned work on a new vision for Wirral Council and that there would be a councillor’s training session on Saturday to look at that.

He said that they’d be having an annual policy Council meeting in November of this year to look at the future direction of the Council and refresh the Corporate Plan. Ed – The policy Council meeting will be in December as was mentioned in an earlier blog post.

Cllr Davies said they’d done a lot of work on improving their corporate management procedures and making sure they got their risk management in good order. In section five of the Annual Governance Statement he said there were a number of challenges ahead, such as the bad debts issue, saying “I think we’ve taken quite strong and prompt action to address the bad debts”. Cllr Davies wanted to draw Cabinet’s attention to the conclusion which referred to the auditors being pleased about considerable progress made to address the governance issues and that this had been reflected in the recent Corporate Peer Challenge report that was debated in Cabinet and Council.

He said that it also recognised a number of developments put in place to address the further challenges in section five and that they needed to agree a plan and review process to check that the items were addressed. Cllr Davies described it as “generally an encouraging report and lots of progress has been made but a fair amount of progress still to be done”. He asked Cabinet to agree the recommendations, which were that the Annual Governance Statement, action plan for 2012/2013 and updated code on corporate governance were all approved by Cabinet. Cabinet agreed this.

Continues at Cabinet (Wirral Council) 10th October 2013 Cllr Phil Davies “we’re not out the woods yet by any means”.

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Irony is alive and kicking at Wirral Council: Freedom of Information and Policy Council

Irony is alive and kicking at Wirral Council: Freedom of Information and Policy Council

Irony is alive and kicking at Wirral Council: Freedom of Information and Policy Council

                                 

I was reading through the Council’s final Annual Governance Statement which is on the agenda for Thursday’s Cabinet meeting and came across this gem in it which is about principle 4 (taking informed and transparent decisions which are subject to effective scrutiny and managing risk).

“In December 2012, the Information Commissioner’s Office announced that Wirral would be monitored for three months after concerns emerged regarding the timeliness of responses to freedom of information requests. The Council has also put in place robust processes to respond to freedom of information requests which are regularly reviewed by the Chief Executive’s Strategy Group to ensure that a timely response is provided. These improved processes are having a significant impact on the Council’s response to freedom of information requests.”

At the start of September I made this perfectly reasonable request for the minutes of the Chief Executive Strategy Group meetings of the 5th June 2013 and the 30th August 2013. No response came from Wirral Council within twenty days (they are required by the Freedom of Information Act to respond within twenty working days). So on the 2nd October I requested an internal review and a week later, still no reply from Wirral Council.

Therefore this raises the following questions:-

1. If the Council does have “robust processes to respond to freedom of information requests” how did this one slip the net?

2. How regularly is “regularly reviewed”? I suppose this one is also an answer to how often does the Chief Executive’s Strategy Group (or its subcommittees) meet, monthly, quarterly?

3. Why didn’t the Chief Executive’s Strategy Group make sure a “timely response was provided” to this request?

4. Does “improved processes are having a significant impact on the Council’s response to freedom of information requests” mean they’ve given the council employees involved a big book of FOI exemptions as it’s quicker to turn a request down however thin the reason for the exemption rather than spend time answering it?

Another curious paragraph I found in the same document was this:-

“An annual Policy Council meeting will take place with the first scheduled for November 2013 in order to discuss, debate and further shape the future purpose of the organisation and its response to key national and local drivers. Policy Council will play a direct role in informing the annual review of the Corporate Plan and future savings for the Council, as well as contributing to the development of a longer term vision for the borough in 2030 in partnership with other key stakeholders. A state of the borough report is being prepared as the foundation for developing this long-term vision.”

Curiously the only Council meeting in November scheduled in the calendar is the Youth Parliament meeting on the 12th. Surely this is not what’s meant by a “Policy Council”? The mystery of this is easily solved when you look at the calendar for December and on the 18th there’s a “Budget and Corporate Plan” Council meeting.

At the bottom of this document that I’ve already heavily quoted from is space for the signatures of the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive both putting their names to this following statement:

“We are aware of the implications of the review of the effectiveness of the adequacy governance framework and are absolutely committed to addressing the identified weaknesses and ensuring continuous improvement of the system is in place.

We are pleased that considerable progress has been made to address the significant governance issues identified and this is acknowledged by the Council’s recent Corporate Peer Challenge. However, it is also recognised that a number of the developments that are being put in place have recently been agreed and require implementation and
robust review.

We will take prompt actions over the coming year to ensure that all of the above matters are addressed as appropriate to enhance our governance arrangements further. Many improvement actions represent work already in progress and we are committed to increasing the pace of these actions. We are satisfied that these steps will address the need for improvements that were identified in our review of effectiveness and will monitor their implementation and operation as part of our next annual review.”

Let’s hope the “robust review” of the Council’s corporate governance arrangements result in changes rather than the “robust processes to respond to freedom of information requests” which just seem to have led to more Freedom of Information requests turned down so the Council can meet its target and tell to the Information Commissioner’s Office that things have improved.

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Wirral Council’s Cabinet Agree New Death Tax

Wirral Council’s Cabinet Agree New Death Tax | Department of Adult Social Services starts charging 4% on outstanding debt owed by the dead

Wirral Council’s Cabinet Agree New Death Tax

Seemingly at every opportunity they can, Wirral’s Labour councillors moan about the “bedroom tax” yet last Thursday Wirral Council’s Cabinet agreed a new tax on Wirral’s citizens of their own. Wirral Council’s Department of Adult Social Services, keen to find ways to pay back the temporary budget of £8.8 million they’ve been given this year, have come up with a new plan endorsed by Wirral Council’s Cabinet last Thursday.

If you owe Wirral Council’s Adult Social Services department money, have been dead for more than fifty-six days and not paid it back, Wirral Council will now charge 4% interest on the outstanding debt. Previously Wirral Council didn’t charge interest on outstanding debts if you were dead, but now trying to encourage repayment they will.

So will this change in charging policy persuade grieving relatives to clear their loved one’s debts to Wirral Council? Time will tell, but judging by a recent Liverpool Echo headline about the over five thousand Wirral residents Wirral Council is taking to court for unpaid Council Tax, a lot of Wirral people just don’t have the spare money to pay whether Wirral set an interest rate of 4% or none at all.

What do Wirral Council call this policy? It’s called Fairer Charging.

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”

Continued from Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes “it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”

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Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr John Hale “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”

Council meeting Extraordinary 30th April 2013 Revisions to the constitution Cllr John Hale

Cllr Hale thanked Cllr Tom Harney for his kind remarks. He referred to the Chief Executive’s report to Cabinet of the 18th April, page 46 (page 8 on the file that’s linked to) and quoted from 5.3 “The views of the Democracy Working Party which has met on a number of occasions have helped inform these proposals.”

He considered it to be misleading as it could be read that there was general support for the proposals, in fact a majority of the Democracy Working Party were opposed to the proposals. The Democracy Working Party had only met on five or six occasions for one and a half hours at a time, although it did overrun by ten minutes at its last meeting. Cllr Hale said that this was to review a constitution of one hundred and ninety-nine pages. He said, “I don’t believe this to be anything else except a cynical exercise carried out in order to claim full cross-party consideration and consultation when nothing could be further from the truth.”

Cllr Hale said the result would be to give greater power to Cabinet and the Chief Officers. Fourteen months ago over 70% of councillors voted for a return to the committee system. He said even if they assumed that the new councillors were against a return to the committee system that there would still be a majority in favour of it. Cllr Hale said that this had been the result of a secret ballot.

He said democracy was best served when all parties in proportion to their numbers were represented in the decision making process at all levels of the Council. Cllr Hale referred to the freedom that overview and scrutiny committees have and that no new powers were given to them, just their names were changed.

Cllr Hale said the coordinating committee would have ample opportunity to interfere with and constrain the overview and scrutiny committees. He felt the changes to the Council meeting procedures would reduce the time for opposition councillors whilst increasing the time for the majority party councillors. Cllr Hale said “any third world dictator would be proud” and that “these proposals should be consigned to the dustbin where they belong”.

Continued at Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Darren Dodd “this is what the people of Wirral have been asking for for a very long time”.

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Blakeley “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Blakeley “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Continued from Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Harney “We don’t know where we came from, we don’t know where we’re going”

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Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Blakeley “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Council meeting (Extraordinary) 30th April 2013 Revisions to the Constitution Cllr Chris Blakeley

The Mayor thanked Cllr Harney, he asked councillors to keep their speeches to three minutes so that everyone who wanted to could have a say.

Cllr Blakeley said he would stick to three minutes. He said that twelve years ago when the Cabinet form of local government had been started, there was a select committee for each portfolio. This was so there would be no overlap and Cabinet Members were invited along to be asked questions, he said “everything seemed to work ok”.

These were deemed to be “too unwieldy” and “taking too much of officer’s time” so they were reduced to six, although there were some overlapping responsibilities it “was in the main manageable and workable”. Now they [the Labour administration] wanted to cut six committees to three, which Cllr Blakeley regarded as “extremely dangerous”. Cllr Blakeley referred to the Children and Young Peoples Overview and Scrutiny Committee and high-profile cases that had happened in other Boroughs such as Victoria Climbié and Baby P.

He asked them not to forget the overcharging of vulnerable adults on Wirral. He said the new committee would have to “scrutinise these two vast departments”. Cllr Blakeley said, “This is typical of Labour’s control freak dictatorial ‘We know what’s best’ capacity”.

He said that Area Forums made a difference by “giving local people a real opportunity to have a say”, “yet here we have Labour wanting to grab power back to the centre” and that the new constituency committees would be given a “token amount of funding” far less than the funding to the Area Forums they replaced. Cllr Blakeley said it was a “failure to understand what people of this Borough want”.

On the changes to Council meeting procedures, he said if it went through it would “effectively gag councillors from debate in the Council Chamber and put even greater power in Labour’s hands”. Cllr Blakeley said, “Sadly tonight Mr. Mayor, we are witnessing the destruction of the last vestiges of democracy in Wirral and the residents of this Borough will be ruled by a controlling, tyrannical Labour Group”.

He referred to the refusal of the £1.3 million Council Tax Freeze Grant, increases to car parking charges, the brown bin charges and asked “Where will it end, what next? Will Wirral be twinned with Pyongyang?”

Continued at Council (Extraordinary) (Wirral Council) 30th April 2013 | Revisions to the Constitution | Cllr Foulkes “it was the committee system that actually put in the policies that led to the overcharging within the Klonowski report”.