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

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Youtube playlist of Cabinet meeting of 10th October 2013

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

FINANCE
4. Statement of Accounts 2012/13 8:26 | Cabinet report | Statement of Accounts 2012/13

Cllr Phil Davies said, “OK so that takes us on now to item four, the err Statement of Accounts for 2012/13.

Errm, again, errm this err, I think these Statement of Accounts have been to Audit and Risk Management Committee, err err, but the thing that err again I want to draw your attention to is in paragraph 2.10, clearly this is a report that relates to 12/13, the statement of accounts relates to 12/13, err when we had a number of errm pretty err you know big challenges err on errm to you know address. Not least errm a £17 million overspend from the previous administration errm which you know which was a huge challenge and again I think it reflects the distance that we’ve travelled, that we’ve addressed that and later in the financial monitoring report we’re actually reporting an underspend now in the first few months of this year which is err great.

Errm but I think the the the paragraph 2.10, errm Grant Thornton err recognise the progress made by the Council during 12/13 with the direction of travel being rated as amber, errm so I think that’s, err we’re not out of the woods yet by any means, but I think that’s encouraging errm external validation if you like of the progress that we’ve made, so I think that’s very welcome.

So I don’t really want to say much more than that except to say that we’re err being asked to note the Statement of Accounts err and the audit report by Grant Thornton and that errm at 12.2 progress on delivering the actions identified in the audit findings report will be monitored by Audit and Risk Management Committee. So can we agree those recommendations?”

Cabinet: “Agreed”

Cllr Phil Davies: “OK, very good thank you.”

Ed – although Cllr Phil Davies refers to a £17 million overspend which he blames on the previous Conservative/Lib Dem administration, this wasn’t an overspend but a projected overspend of £17 million, which after a spending freeze reduced to £4.7 million. The Labour Cabinet in October 2012, after the projected overspend of £17 million was known, agreed to extra spending (beyond what was in the 2012/13 budget) of £700,000.

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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

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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Local groups can bid for £40,000 of grants from Wirral Council to improve the appearance of their local area

Love Wirral logo While looking through the recent delegated decisions made by Cabinet Members, I came across this recent decision about the Love Wirral grant and the accompanying report authored by Head of Neighbourhoods and Engagement, Emma Degg.

So what is the Love Wirral grant scheme you may wonder? Well it’s £40,000 of money split four ways between each constituency and will be available for “individuals, groups, schools and businesses” to “improve and look after their neighbourhoods”. The money can be applied for between 28th October 2013 and noon on 6th December 2013 with the sole aim of the project being “to improve the appearance of the local environment”.

Between the 13th and 24th January of next year the public will be able to vote online either yes or no to each project, councillors will decide which projects get the funding in the first half of February and successful projects will get the money in the middle to the end of March (the cynic in me would point out that’s just in time for it to be included in various candidate’s election leaflets taking credit for it). However in the report itself it states “this project will enable communities to play an active role in presenting Wirral to the world during the Open 2014”.

A third unstated reason behind all this would be the £1 million cut to the street cleansing contract this year and the threatened strike action that was reported in the Wirral Globe with the rather alarming threat from the unions that Wirral would be engulfed by a “tidal wave of filth”. You only have to look around to tell that the streets aren’t cleaned as often as they used to. So are we heading slowly towards the American “Adopt-a-Highway” system where local community groups are responsible for regular litter picks on a local stretch of the road? Is Wirral’s problem with litter made worse by Wirral Council cuts to enforcement too (which has meant fewer people fined for dog fouling as well as litter)? As usual your thoughts on this topic in the form of comments are appreciated.

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EXCLUSIVE: Million pound contract between Wirral Council and Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd for ISUS scheme was never signed

A blog post about the unsigned contract between Wirral Council and Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd for the ISUS (Intensive Startup Support) Scheme

Million pound contract between Wirral Council and Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd for ISUS scheme was never signed

In my previous post on a Freedom of Information Act request I made to Wirral Council I stated that it would be one of a series of blog posts on interrelated topics, this is the second on audit rights.

Each year (this year it was from 15th July to the 9th August as you can read from this notice published on Wirral Council’s website), anybody can inspect the accounts for Wirral Council for the previous financial year and any books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts. This is a right the public have enshrined in legislation. If this person is also someone who can vote in the Wirral area they also have a right to make objections to the auditor (which in Wirral Council’s case is Grant Thornton UK LLP (previously it was the Audit Commission)).

One of the areas I was interested in is to do with Nigel Hobro’s question to Cllr Phil Davies at the last Council meeting and the Grant Thornton report into the Business Investment Grants program. The end of Cllr Phil Davies’ answer to Mr. Hobro was “Errm however if it turns out that err others have been affected similarly since the report came to us I’m happy to ensure they’re properly investigated and indeed if there are any further evidence of wrongdoing or the irregularities of accountancy methods brought to my attention, then errm I am errm willing and indeed I make a commitment to refer those to others.”

On the 17th July I requested the following (using the above audit rights) “I’d also be interested to see and have a copy of any contract Wirral Council has with Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd” and on Tuesday afternoon (20th August) I was invited along to receive it (I’ve since scanned in and links to all of it are at the start of this blog post). It is for the ISUS (Intensive Startup Scheme) side of the business grants program and covers “awareness and development workshops”, monitoring the businesses that receive grants for three years after they receive grants at at least ten points over that three years and for “provision of specialist post start and aftercare adviser support”. Basically all pretty important things for Wirral Council to prove value for money for the taxpayer for these grants.

The contract states just under a million pounds of taxpayer’s money is involved and as a lot of records would rest with Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd requires them to supply information to do with the project including invoices, certificates, vouchers, books and records if required as well as keeping copies of documentation (and make them available for inspection) for seven years after the grants are awarded.

Section seventeen of the contract allows Wirral Council to vary the amount of grant payable, suspend payment of grant, withhold payment of grant or require Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd to repay some or all of the grant if the terms and conditions are breached at any time before three years after Wirral Council has last paid them the grant. It also requires Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd to if required to pay back money to Wirral Council to do so within fourteen days, otherwise interest at 3% above the base lending rate of NATWEST Bank plc will be charged.

However the most interesting bit of the contract is page ten. It’s not signed by Wirral Council or Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd. However invoices from Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd were paid and according to this Freedom of Information Act request Wirral Council also used Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd to produce business plans for organisations wanting to take over Council assets as part of the Community Asset Transfer program (in the request’s case New Brighton Community Centre).

In that FOI request the Council admits “there was no contract with Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd” and the fact that the one drafted between Wirral Council and Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd for the ISUS project (which according to the copy I’ve been given wasn’t signed by either party) how can Wirral Council prove it got value for money both to the public (and its auditor)?

Isn’t actually getting a signed contract in place, before you make any payments the kind of basic good governance that Wirral residents should expect from Wirral Council?

Is Cllr Davies’ commitment if he knows of “further wrongdoing” or “irregularities of accountancy methods” to “refer these to others” going to help matters? Referring the whistleblower’s concerns to Grant Thornton and Merseyside Police allowed Wirral Council to draw a veil over the matter and claim exemptions to legitimate questions asked by the public through Freedom of Information Act requests. Councillor Phil Davies is the Cabinet Member for Finance, he’s the elected politician at Wirral Council with democratic accountability to the public for financial matters. I clearly remember Cllr Davies saying last year that when he became leader that there would be more openness and transparency, not less.

Unless politicians (of all political persuasions) are willing to persistently ask difficult questions of senior officers at Wirral Council and put them on the spot during public meetings, instead preferring to be seen to be doing something by requesting reports (there’s the recent example of the case of the Grant Thornton report into the BIG scheme which was never published in full) I fear that all the talk about improved corporate governance and glowing peer reviews at Wirral Council won’t be believed by the public.

Wirral Council’s Cabinet Agree to Consultation on Merseyside Combined Authority Plans

A report on the special Cabinet meeting of the 8th August 2013 convened to discuss the plans for a Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

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Yesterday in a short meeting, Wirral Council’s Cabinet agreed to consult the public on plans for a new combined authority for Merseyside (and Halton) covering transport (taking over the responsibilities of Merseytravel), economic development and employment. The reason behind the plans are the promise of further funding from government if it goes ahead.

Once the consultation finishes the plans are to be discussed at an extraordinary meeting of Wirral Council on the 19th September. One of the policy and performance committees will also examine what’s proposed during the consultation period. The idea of a new authority doesn’t attract universal support among Wirral councillors, with Cllr Lewis claiming that the proposal would cost millions to bring about. Cllr Phil Davies disputed this saying it would “be cost neutral”.

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

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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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Local groups can bid for £40,000 of grants from Wirral Council to improve the appearance of their local area

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Million pound contract between Wirral Council and Enterprise Solutions (NW) Ltd for ISUS scheme was never signed

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