Cllr George Davies | A blog about Wirral Council, Wirral Council's councillors & officers

Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee 7th November 2011 Part 12 Performance and Financial Review

Cllr Mountney said he welcomed the report and the financial information included. The Chair said he wanted to add something to the work program. Cllr Wittingham referred to 4.4.1, 4.4.4 in reference to a 21% decrease in contracts made. The Chair said he wanted to carry on with the point about why the next two pages had come here. David Ball said the previous performance report format had covered what was relevant to the committee what worked well, performance indicators and actions which gave an opportunity for scrutiny and comment. The second half was lifted from a report of Jim Wilkie to the Cabinet. He thought the corporate information might be of interest, but was not directly relevant to the report. The reports had been merged together. In reference to Cllr Wittingham’s question he would have to go away, ask and circulate an answer to the committee as he didn’t deal with those areas.

The Chair said he would be more comfortable if they only received information relevant to the scrutiny area and were just asked to cover the remit of the committee and not ground other committees cover.

Cllr George Davies said the second part followed on from a two-part report on finance and the economy. He understand that the financial part had been added but he didn’t see the relevance to the Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Chair said he would move that in future only performance indicators relevant to the committee would be used. Cllr Ellis said it was helpful background information to see and note.

Wirral Council Cabinet 13/10/2011 Child Poverty Strategy Action Plan – Progress Report Part 3

Cllr Ann McLachlan said [the Child Poverty Strategy Action Plan] was an “important piece of work” whose “natural home is the Children’s Trust Board”. She said she wanted to move a motion.

Cllr George Davies mentioned Cllr Sheila Clarke and Cllr Mark Johnston. He said that they “owe it to the people of Wirral” and the “statistics are frightening”. He talked about a Tranmere Community Project which had welcomed people from the United States of America to share views. He said certain parts of the Wirral had not altered in the areas of unemployment, housing and deprivation. He said, “Talking has to stop, action has to start.”

Cllr Steve Foulkes referred to the conference and the will to tackle the issue as well as recent press coverage. He also talked about the governance priorities, trends going forward into the future and the last paragraph in which it was declared to be a Budget priority. He said in light of the consultation exercise, he would prefer to call it a “key priority” as it was premature to fit it in the Budget. He said the last paragraph reflected that they would make it a key priority for 2012/13.

Cllr Ann McLachlan said she recognises the issues and welcomed the Action Plan. She emphasised the extreme urgency and referred to an Institute for Fiscal Studies study and referred to 600,000 in child poverty by 2012/13 which would mean the 2010 targets would be missed. She asked Cabinet to agree the recommendations. She thanked people and wanted to make tacking child poverty a key priority. Cllr Steve Foulkes seconded the motion which was agreed.

Election Expenses: 2011 (Wirral Borough Council) Claughton ward Candidate: Stephen Foulkes Agent: George Davies 2011

Here’s an index to the pages so far. From what I remember the rest are blank (other than whatever was on that part of the form) apart from a page number the agent had written on each page. The only “blank page” included is Page 5 – B (Unsolicited material to electors).

However Cllr George Davies’ numbering system is two ahead of mine as he includes the candidate and agent declaration as the first two pages.

It’s split into three sections, election expenses form (the standard one for local government elections in England and Wales issued by the Electoral Commission), accompanying invoices and donation letter.

Election Expenses Form

Page 1 – Section 1 (details of candidate and election) & Section 2 (details of agent)

Page 2 – Section 3 (summary of spending), 3a (types of payment) & 3b (Categories of spending)

Page 3 – Section 4 (donations)

Page 4 – A (Advertising)

Page 5 – B (Unsolicited material to electors)

Page 12 – Donations

Accompanying invoices
Page 14 – Invoice from SS Radio for hire of care P/A system on 5th May 2011 £30.00

Page 15 – Invoice from Wirral Labour Group (for election address) £245

Page 16 – Notional expenditure by Wirral Labour Group (for leaflet) £188

Page 17 – Invoice from LT Print Group Ltd for 2,600 eve of poll leaflets (2 kinds) £314.00

Donation letter
Page 18 – Letter from donor (Mr. Ken Tasker) who donated £50