Tag: Colas

Sherlock in Wirral Council and the mysterious case of the £1,725.04 plate

Sherlock in Wirral Council and the mysterious case of the £1,725.04 plate

Colas invoice Wirral Council plate gullies River Streets Birkenhead

Sherlock in Wirral Council and the mysterious case of the £1,437.54 plate

                           

As usual you can click on the invoice for a higher definition and probably easier to read version. This Colas invoice is for a plate over gullies in the River Streets (presumably to stop them gumming up with detritus). River Streets is the local name for an area in Bidston & St. James ward where the roads names are all rivers (Ribble Street, Avon Street, Solway Street etc). The invoice states it is only for one plate, which certainly makes it the most expensive plate I’ve ever heard of! The invoice states that any queries are to be addressed to an Andrew Sherlock of Colas, which makes this blog post “Sherlock in Wirral Council and the mysterious case of the £1,725.04 plate”.

So why did Colas on Wirral Council’s instructions fit a plate to the drainage gullies here? Was detritus a particular problem? Was there a previous plate that was stolen for its scrap value? Sadly I do not have the answers to these particular questions but I’m sure Sherlock would know!

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Incredible: Wirral “spending freeze” Council overpay £½ million to Colas in ten Colas payment blunders

Incredible: Wirral “spending freeze” Council overpay £½ million to Colas in ten Colas payment blunders

Incredible: Wirral “spending freeze” Council overpay £½ million to Colas in ten Colas payment blunders

                                        

Wirral Council Colas credit invoice half a million pounds

The invoice above (which you can click on for a more readable version) received by Wirral Council from Colas in April 2012 showed that while they had a spending freeze on non-essential expenditure that they’d managed to overpay Colas to the tune of £548,734.16! Incredibly ten separate overpayments to Colas were made ranging from £4,660.51 to a staggering £122,330.62.

Although the £½ million credit will count towards later Colas invoices, it makes you wonder if Wirral Council really are as hard up financially as they claim? Wirral Council stamped the invoice from Colas advising them of the £548,734.16 as “paid”, perhaps they don’t have a stamp for overpaid?

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£879,406.02 spent by Wirral Council on Seagulls

A blog post about a Colas invoice for services to Wirral Council totalling £879,406.02 (+VAT)

£879,406.02 spent by Wirral Council on Seagulls

                                       

Wirral Council Colas invoice seagulls small

I wrote on Twitter recently that not much surprises me with regards to Wirral Council. However this Colas invoice, you can click on the image for a larger version, received by Wirral Council in March from Colas is for £879,406.02 (+VAT) for work raised through its Seagulls system.

The detail as to what the taxpayer gets for just over £1 million spent on this item isn’t detailed on the invoice but a part of the contract details what the work on Seagulls refers to. The Colas contract shows that the Council has to raise work orders with Colas through a system that Wirral Council called Seagulls which keeps a track of various assets like drainage gullies. The Colas contract for Seagulls (and other matters) runs to 2014 and Wirral Council is looking for another company to do the work under a new contract.

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Incredible: Cllr Foulkes “we seem to have some whistleblowers who are courted, almost feted”

A report on Wirral Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee Incredible: Cllr Foulkes “we seem to have some whistleblowers who are courted, almost feted”

Incredible: Cllr Foulkes “we seem to have some whistleblowers who are courted, almost feted”

                                                       
The above quote is from Cllr Foulkes at Wednesday’s Audit and Risk Management Committee in a long comment on Wirral Council and whistleblowing which starts here.

His extremely honest comments call for a further report on the BIG & ISUS business grants program, partly because the Council’s auditors won’t sign off on Wirral Council’s accounts until it’s resolved. Surely after spending an estimated £50,000 on reports by Grant Thornton’s forensic department an officer at Wirral Council must have some answers for Cllr Foulkes? He accuses whistleblowers of raising issues that "drag the Council back into the past" and hopes (rather optimistically) that all the outstanding whistleblowing issues will be resolved "simultaneously".

He then went on to say that some whistleblowers were "courted almost feted" whereas others were forgotten, such as the group over the Highways and Engineering Service Procurement Exercise contract. The whistleblowing over the Highways and Engineering Service Procurement Exercise contract hasn’t been forgotten. In that case the name of one of the whistleblowers, who wanted to remain anonymous was published on Wirral Council’s website. The matters raised by that group were written about at length by the independent person, Richard Penn (whose report was published) and although not everyone agrees with Penn’s opinion and interpretation of events, in most people’s minds the matters regarding the senior officer suspensions has been resolved. Colas’s contract ends next year and will be put out to tender with Colas stating that they won’t bid for it.

Cllr Foulkes also believes that "whoever blows the whistle or complains should be taken seriously and dealt with as efficiently and quick but in all senses fairly". He also said he finds the whistleblowing issue "quite worrying". Would whistleblowers be offered and be paid large amounts of money if they had been treated fairly? He also said that they "have to be fair to those in the firing line of a complaint". The whistleblowing concerns of late haven’t been because of one anonymous and unknown Inspector Clouseau type employee that sadly Wirral Council can’t sack, but have been brought about by systemic failings in Wirral Council’s corporate governance systems and its culture. These two areas are the responsibility of many different individuals including its politicians. Cllr Foulkes said that "words I’ve said tonight may be misconstrued".

He said that many councillors found themselves being contacted by people with complaints, complaints that he found the resolution of "almost impossible". He said he "did not believe whistleblowers should ever be used in a political fashion" and that councillors "don’t seem to have an up to date picture" as to how whistleblowers concerns were being resolved.

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Richard Penn clears Dave Green following whistleblower’s allegations surrounding the Highways and Engineering Services Contract award to Colas

Richard Penn clears Dave Green following whistleblower’s allegations surrounding the Highways and Engineering Services Contract award to Colas

Yesterday I read the thirty-nine page report of Richard Penn about Dave Green and the reasons behind his suspension.

For anyone reading it, it doesn’t make much sense without reading the background documents first, so below is a list of two of the background documents I could find online and a link to the minutes of a meeting from 2010 at which one of the reports was discussed.

Highways and engineering services contract Award and Management (Report in the Public Interest) (Audit Commission) 8/6/12

Procurement follow up of Public Interest Disclosure Act disclosure (Audit Commission) 16/9/2010 and the minutes of the Audit and Risk Management Committee of 28th September 2010 that discussed it

The rest of the documents such as the Council’s Conflict of Interest Policy and Conflict of Interest Policy Procedure don’t seem to be on Wirral Council’s website although I did find the Equality Impact Assessment for the Conflict of Interest Policy which refers to the M15 Conflict of Interest Declaration Form and the annual Key Issues Exchange.

The Equality Impact Assessment from the 8th February 2008 states “following Audit advice employees are continually reminded of their obligations to declare any conflict of interest” which raises the point as to whether this was actually happening in practice.

When Dave Green realised there was a conflict of interest on 20th October 2008 if as an employee he was being “continually reminded of his obligations”, he would have stated this conflict of interest using the M15 form, rather than as stated in the report he “immediately sought advice from Simon Goacher regarding the potential for conflicts of interests” (which delayed the M15 form being submitted for three weeks which meant it was after the whistleblowers made their allegations about him).

Moving to the part of the report that states “Dave Green also commented on what he described as the inaccurate reporting of facts in the local press. The Council has done nothing to correct the incorrect reporting largely generated by the Council publishing and considering the wrong report at the July Council meeting.” and “Dave Green considered that it was absolutely unreasonable for the Council to allow such inaccurate reporting to continue and demonstrated a poor ‘duty of care’ to him as one of its employee.”

Certainly there was something in the Council’s press release in response to the Audit Commission report entitled “Council response to District Auditor’s report” dated 8th June 2012 that someone took exception to it as it’s been removed from Wirral Council’s website and was the press release that this Wirral Globe story was based on.

The part of the Council meeting referring to Dave Green’s suspension was unusually held in private without the press and public present see here, although the public interest report was discussed in public, it seems the Audit Commission report on Wirral Council’s website was replaced with a different version a week after the meeting was held.