Tag: Councillor Phil Davies

Free School Meals and pages 87-88 of Wirral Council’s ~£12 million/year PFI contract with Wirral Schools Services Ltd

Free School Meals and pages 87-88 of Wirral Council’s ~£12 million/year PFI contract with Wirral Schools Services Ltd

Free School Meals and pages 87-88 of Wirral Council’s ~£12 million/year PFI contract with Wirral Schools Services Ltd

A delicious meal (not a school meal which we don't have any stock photos of) prepared for John by Leonora my wife who also writes for this blog and is a better at cook than I am.
A delicious meal (not a school meal which we don’t have any stock photos of) prepared for John by Leonora my wife who also writes for this blog and is a better at cook than I am.

This is a small part of the Schools PFI contract that Wirral Council has that costs the taxpayer this year ~£12 million a year. This is part of a massive contract that I estimate being between 500 and 1000 pages long.

It relates to the following schools (one primary and eight secondary) plus two City Learning Centres:

Leasowe Primary
Bebington High
University Academy of Birkenhead (formerly called Park High)
South Wirral High
Weatherhead High
Hilbre High
Prenton High
Wallasey High
Wirral Grammar Girls

Wallasey City Learning Centre
Hilbre City Learning Centre

Before I start on quoting from the contract on page 87, I need to first explain what the following terms mean.

“Authority” refers to Wirral Council.

“Schools” are the schools listed above that are part of the PFI contract.

“Category A Consumers” means “school meals supplied to those pupils at a School who pay for meals and/or refreshments taken in the Catering Area of the Schools.”

“Category B Consumers” means “those pupils who have been notified to Projet Co as being entitled to free meals, and who take these meals in the School’s Catering Area.”

Category A Consumers & Category B Consumers are treated as non-business for VAT purposes. To be honest a lot of this contract is about tax!

“Category C Consumers” means “meals supplied to members of staff of the Schools and visitors who have been notified to Project Co as being entitled to a free meal are supplied free of charge by the Authority to the consumer and output tax is not applicable.”

“Category D Consumers” are “meals supplied to persons other than pupils who take and pay for a meal and/or refreshments are treated as taxable supplies for VAT purposes. Project Co shall include the appropriate rate of VAT in the prices charged for such meals and refreshments and supply output statistics and the value of VAT output tax to the Authority within a timetable specified by the Authority which has been agreed with HM Customs & Excise”

Right now onto the bit of the contract about free school meals (pages 87-88), my comments are in italics.

20.4 Free School Meals

(1) The Authority has a duty to provide free school meals to those pupils at the Schools who fall into Category B Consumers. Members of staff and visitors of the School who are Category C Consumers are also entitled to a free meal paid for by the Authority or School.

OK, reasonable so far, restates legal requirement in sentence 1. Didn’t know about sentence 2 though… which is a tad unclear as to who pays.

(2) The Authority will issue to all individuals referred to in Clause 20.4(1) a card (the “Smart Card“) in a design to be agreed from time to time by the Authority and Project Co, but including the person’s name, photograph and the name of the School, which shall be credited with cash equivalent to the number of free school meals that person is entitled to in that Contract Month.

Wow, things have changed a lot since my day. So, just because their parents are on means tested benefits, you’re insisting children have photo ID and presumably present such photo ID every time they get a “free school meal”? Sounds like it’s “free” but with strings attached?! OK, call me a civil liberties person who rejoiced when the Coalition government scrapped the ID card plan, but forcing children from poor backgrounds to use photo ID?? Maybe I’m just old fashioned?

(3) The Authority will, using its own data and confidential information on free meals, prior to the commencement of each Contract Month issue a list to Project Co of the number of persons entitled to free school meals.

So wait a sec, Project Co is being given a list of all children that get free school meals and children also have to present photo ID to get them? What’s the point of the photo ID then??? Why not just ask them their name or am I missing something??? Surely kids know their own name? Yes, it’s “confidential information” so why is Wirral Council handing it over to a private company as part of this contract??? *sentence deleted following editorial meeting* Bristol based Wirral Schools Services Limited was called Jarvishelf 2 Limited prior to 29th December 2000.

(4) Project Co will invoice the Authority on the last day of each Contract Month for the number of free school meals supplied to Category B Consumers at the Meal of the Day Price together with VAT if applicable.

Eh, I thought page 86 said that Category A&B Consumers were “non-business” for VAT purposes? I suppose I’m not a contract lawyer being paid an extortionate amount to write this stuff though.

(5) Project Co will invoice the Authority on the last day of the each Contract Month for the number of free school meals supplied to Category C Consumers at a charge pre-agreed with the relevant School together with VAT if applicable.

Free meals for staff and visitors eh? Must be one of the few perks of the job I suppose… mind you teaching staff have to put up with a lot so I suppose a “free school meal” is the least they deserve.

(6) In addition to Clauses 20.4(4) and (5), Project Co will invoice the Authority on the last day of each Contract Month for any function, hospitality or visitors’ meals supplied together with VAT if applicable.

Functions, hospitality, oh dear are we getting into “golf” territory again eh? OK, I can envisage visiting sports teams from other schools needing something to eat, staff from other schools and places, meetings held at the school etc, but how much “hospitality” goes on in a school anyway. I get the impression Wirral Schools aren’t inviting the Mayor of Helsinki over every week to their school for a start (or maybe they are?)

(7) Project Co in its capacity as agent for the Authority (or the relevant Support Service Provider acting on behalf of Project Co) will provide:

(a) to each Category B Consumer bearing a Smart Card, a meal to the value of the Meal of the Day Price; and

(b) to each Category C Consumer bearing a Smart Card, a meal to the value of the pre-agreed charge referred to in Clause 20.4(5).

Oh dear, cash seems so old fashioned now doesn’t it? What’s “Meal of the Day” anyway? Gruel? Bread and water? Maybe I’m thinking of Oliver (the musical). I find it worrying that even at primary school age kids are forced to use photo ID cards just to get what they’re entitled to although maybe that’s just the way society has changed. It’s enough to drive people to packed lunches! What if the poor child leaves their “Smart Card” at home, do they go hungry? No “Meal of the Day” for them? After all in the days of cash (yes seems I’m old fashioned), your friends could give you (or even lend you) the money if you were short at the till. No more it seems in these contracts for cashless school meals!

(8) If the price of a meal chosen by:

(a) a Category B Consumer exceeds the Meal of the Day Price; or

(b) a Category C Consumer exceeds the value of the pre-agreed charge referred to in Clause 20.4(5)

the bearer shall be responsible for crediting its card with the excess via the dining room tills and the Authority shall have no liability in respect of the excess. If the price of a meal chosen by a Category B Consumer or a Category C Consumer is less than the value of the Meal of the Day or the pre-agreed charge (as the case may be) Project Co or the relevant Support Service Provider shall be entitled to retain the excess.

Wow, just wow. Let’s take a hypothetical Meal of the Day price at £2.30 (which this recent article about the Cabinet decision on increasing it helpfully provides). If someone choses items to eat that go over this £2.30 threshold, they have to pay more. If someone choses items that go under it, there is no refund but the “Project Co” (Wirral Schools Services Limited) or “Support Service Provider” gets to keep the difference!!! I suppose that’s what you call capitalism!

Category B Consumers are free school meals paid for by the taxpayer. However, even if the cost of providing such meals (out of taxes) is less than the “Meal of the Day” price, this company charges the taxpayer at the “Meal of the Day” price and makes profit on the difference! Yes, they’re making profit out of school children’s’ meals!!!

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And so ends the lesson for today on capitalism. It goes without saying that the Cabinet Member for this area at the time the contract was signed in 2004 was Councillor Phil Davies (currently Leader of the Council) doesn’t it?

And yes, there are even more worrying bits of this massive contract (that keeps on running in the gift that keeps on giving for the capitalists for well over another decade) than the minor section on free school meals above, but if I wrote about the but I’m thinking about it would probably lead to questions being asked (even a panic!) and I might be misconstrued due to the millions of pounds that particular bit involves being transferred from Wirral Council to this company to sort out that “mistake”. No wonder the first page is marked “private and confidential”!

However there are some positives about this new approach:

(a) other pupils can’t do the faux pas I did when I was 10 and transferred schools in year 6 (last year of primary school). The new school I transferred to was in a “working class” area, whereas where I had come from was “middle class”.

I reminded a friend of mine (I still remember this embarrassing conversation twenty-four years later although I hope the other guy has forgotten it by now) he’d forgotten to pay at the till for his school meal for him to look extremely embarrassed and have to explain that he hadn’t forgotten to pay and that he was on free school meals. I then committed a second faux pas as I had to ask what “free school meals” actually meant as at age ten I didn’t know why (strangely but perhaps understandably my education (paid for by Wirral Council) had been somewhat lacking to this point on the intricacies of the UK welfare benefits system in 1991, free school meals and other such matters). Such matters were communicated by schools in mind numbing detail to parents in long detailed communications, but concepts not really understood by ten year old children such as myself (the guy I was talking to understood but not me). Maybe these days children have a better understanding of such things than I did then or maybe they don’t.

In the approach above (as outlined in the contract) all kids are issued with a photo ID card and presumably the children on free school meals don’t have “FREE SCHOOL MEALS” emblazoned in large capital letters written on the card.

(b) it reduces the risk of bullying of kids for their lunch money as the card has a photo on it. Unlike money the photo ID cards (unless you happen to be identical twins and I remember the identical twins when I was at school playing all kids of jokes on the adults as their fellow children could tell them apart but the adults couldn’t) can’t be transferred between people easily if the photo is compared to the person using it.

(c) all this bureaucracy is why some parents then and now probably just opt for the simpler option of packed lunches (although if your family is entitled to free school meals this might be ruled out on terms of cost). The upside is no queuing, parents know what their children are eating and fewer profits going to companies making money out of the taxpayer and others.

(d) free school meals have been introduced for all primary school children this month by the Coalition government for under 7 year olds (1.5 million children). The fact all children on this age group (and not just those on means tested benefits) get an entitlement to free school meals should cut down on a lot of bureaucracy.

To put it simply, it is far easier from an administrative perspective giving everyone an entitlement to a free school meal from school age to age seven, then having to process each form detailing the benefits that qualify a family (who may have one or more children at one or more schools) for free school meals, checking that said benefit is now claimed and if so over which dates, tracking said child through the school system if they move schools and sorting out the paperwork, et cetera, et cetera. The current system is a minefield of bureaucracy and takes a lot of staff time who could be using their time to do things that are more use to society than shuffling paperwork around (not to say that isn’t important).

It’s also been a lot of work for schools, a lot of work for the LEA too, which has reduced somewhat now, although a lot of questions have been asked before and after this change about the knock on effect of how the “pupil premium” is calculated as this is a measure whereby schools get extra money based on how many children there get free school meals.

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Expense claim forms for Councillor Phil Davies (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Expense claim forms for Councillor Phil Davies (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Expense claim forms for Councillor Phil Davies (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

                                                                 

Updated 22nd October 2014: A further page was provided for Councillor Phil Davies on the 17th October which is detailed here.

The next in this series of expenses claims is that for Councillor Phil Davies (a Labour councillor for Birkenhead and Tranmere ward). As part of the 2013-14 audit I requested the underlying claim forms for these claims from councillors and other underlying financial information. Personally I think in the interests of openness and transparency these should be published on a monthly basis, although there is now no legal requirement on Wirral Council to publish anything other than annual totals once a year.

Councillors are paid these amounts through the payroll system at Wirral Council and certain details were redacted from each form before I was given copies. These are matters such as councillor’s signatures, car registration numbers and officer names/signatures.

I haven’t been given a list of what’s been redacted from each form, but I was told this information. The forms were given to me this morning alphabetically by councillor surname, so the second in this series (which started with another councillor called Davies, but not Phil but George) is Councillor Phil Davies.

These are for expenses claimed during the 2013-14 financial year (so should cover the period from the 1st April 2013 to the 31st March 2014). If anything it shows the public how busy Councillor Phil Davies has been in that year, however as Leader of the Council that’s to be expected.

I did also ask for the underlying financial information to support these claims forms such as receipts, but the person I originally made the request to is now on holiday and such paperwork has not been provided to me (yet). Who knows what will happen in the near future as the 30th September 2014 deadline fast approaches?

Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 1
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 1
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 2
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 2
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 3
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 3
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 4
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 4
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 5
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 5
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 6
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 6
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 7
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 7
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 8
Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 8

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Biffa asks Wirral’s Cabinet for a 10 year extension to bins & street cleaning contract worth at least £120 million

Biffa asks Wirral’s Cabinet for a 10 year extension to bins & street cleaning contract worth at least £120 million

Biffa asks Wirral’s Cabinet for a 10 year extension to bins & street cleaning contract worth at least £120 million

                                                      

Biffa Waste Service Limited November 2013 Invoice Wirral Council £1036840.28
Biffa Waste Service Limited November 2013 Invoice Wirral Council £1036840.28
Biffa Waste Service Limited December 2013 Invoice Wirral Council £1032201.28
Biffa Waste Service Limited December 2013 Invoice Wirral Council £1032201.28
Biffa Waste Service Limited January 2014 Invoice Wirral Council £1032201.28
Biffa Waste Service Limited January 2014 Invoice Wirral Council £1032201.28

Above are three of the recent monthly invoices to Wirral Council from Biffa Waste Services Limited for November 2013 (£1,036,840.28), December 2013 (£1,032,201.28) and January 2014 (£1,032,201.28).

I did not request the invoices for other months during that financial year (2013/14), but I would assume that the other nine are for similar amounts of around a million pounds. So why am I writing about this and what does Biffa Waste Services Limited actually do for it’s ~£12 million it receives each year from the taxpayer?

Well as shown on the invoices it’s for collecting the bins, cleaning the streets and extra amounts for working on a Bank Holiday. I’ll be looking more closely at the current contract with Biffa Waste Services Limited (which runs to 2017) tomorrow morning (if all goes well).

However there is some political news on the Biffa front, in fact Wirral Council seems to be bolstering itself for a bit of bad press coverage judging by the Cabinet papers for tonight’s Cabinet meeting (only tonight if you happen to reading this on the 11th September 2014).

If you’re interested in reading the papers yourself on Wirral Council’s website, it’s the Streetscene Environment Services Contract Extension item which is item 4 on Cabinet’s agenda.

I remember Mark Smith (a Wirral Council officer who is Head of Environment and Regulation) getting a grilling by the Chair (Rt Hon Frank Field MP) at a recent Birkenhead Constituency Committee meeting about what the Rt Hon Frank Field MP seemed to see as a lack of openness and transparency in the area of how Wirral Council manages the Biffa contract.

In the Rt Hon Frank Field MP’s view (from my memory of the meeting) he wanted (rather reasonably some might say) to know exactly what the public were getting for the ~£12 million a year that the taxpayer pays Biffa Waste Services Limited through Wirral Council. Sadly there was no one present at the meeting to answer for Biffa Waste Services Limited and Mark Smith seemed to struggle a little to give the kind of answers that Rt Hon Frank Field MP seemed to want to hear. However moving on from the frustrations of Birkenhead’s MP/Chair of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee to more local politics (although isn’t all politics local)?

Rather helpfully Appendix 5 to the Streetscene Environment Services Contract Extension item contains the following two entries on the risk register (copied below):

Risk No Description of risk Risk category Risk Owner Gross likelihood Score Gross impact score Total Gross Score Net Likelihood Score Net Impact Score Total Net Score Proposed Controls Responsibility Target date RAG Status
1 District Audit scrutiny on decision process likely Legal / Regulatory Tara Dumas 3 4 12 3 2 6 Member decision based on thorough analysis of risks. Best value comparison work to be undertaken – Local benchmarking plus APSE/Audit commission comparison Update on market position sought from previous consultants contracted to review Biffa contract. Process to be reviewed by internal audit TD
TD
TD
MGa		 07/07/14
completed
07/07/14
07/07/14		 G
C
G
G
2 Negative political and
media attention		 Political/societal PR team – Kathryn Green 5 3 15 3 2 6 Proactive approach by PR with press releases Confirm offer not linked to service/workforce changes LF Post decision 31/5/2014 G
C

In other words, Wirral Council know (before any decision is formally made tonight to enter into negotiations) that it will cause all kinds of trouble. They’ve already decided (it seems) on a public relations line of telling the press it won’t lead to job losses/workforce changes and giving them the “gift” of a press release in the hope that most of the media will just print the press release more or less verbatim and not ask too many awkward questions about the matter.

They even know their external auditor (Grant Thornton) will be asking them a whole bunch of questions to do with it too but surprisingly there are even bigger risks than the media and Wirral Council’s auditors to tackle, although read the risk register at appendix 5 and hopefully you’ll see what I mean.

So how can I sum up what is proposed to be decided tonight quickly? The current contract will Biffa Waste Services Limited will end on March 2017.

The impression I get from reading between the lines of the Cabinet papers, (a lot of the detail has been kept deliberately secret by officers who are recommending to politicians to keep it secret too on grounds of commercial confidentiality) is that Biffa Waste Services Limited seemed to be somewhat concerned that if their multi-million pound 11 year contract ends on March 2017, that they would have to bid in a competitive tender against other companies and organisations for the new contract.

There’s then uncertainty (from Biffa’s perspective) over whether they would end up being the successful bidder or not. It’s called “competition” and is generally required for such large multi-million pound contracts because of all kinds of laws I won’t go into at this point and competition is therefore required for a whole bunch of good reasons.

So someone as Biffa Waste Services Limited has read through the contract they have with Wirral Council and found a caveat. There was a part in the contract that could extend it a further ten years (current prices of ~£12 million a year but yearly increases and variation are usually built-in). This contract covers “all household waste and recycling collections, street cleansing and fly tip removal, waste collection from schools and council offices and wheeled bin deliveries.”

All Biffa had to do to get a further ten years (at ~£12 million a year) was make a formal offer to Wirral Council (which they did) and have this agreed to by Wirral Council (which hasn’t happened yet with the earliest date expected being October 2014).

Due to the size of the amounts involved it has to be a decision made by politicians, specifically Wirral Council’s Cabinet and the councillor with responsibility for this area is the new(ish) Cabinet Member for Environment and Sustainability Councillor Bernie Mooney (who replaced Brian Kenny earlier this year when he lost an election in May to the Green Party councillor Pat Cleary).

However what’s in the currently exempt appendices?

Well appendix 1 covers the “value and suggested terms of the formal offer from Biffa in return for the Council extending the contract to 2027. In summary the proposal offers the Council a one-off saving split between 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17 followed by a continued annual reduction in the core contract price throughout the remainder of the extended contract period to the equivalent value. Officers asked Biffa to clarify the benefits to Biffa if the contract extension was agreed.”

I’m not allowed to link to appendix 1 (as it’s currently a big secret and you’d get an “access denied” type message from Wirral Council’s website if I did), but as the language used by a Wirral Council officer is rather opaque, it has to boil down to how I imagine a summary of what Biffa offered Wirral Council … “give us a further ten years and we will give you very good price if you pick us. Our price is very reasonable, many savings to be had, very good price, you buy from us again we treat you well. We are very good supplier and will take your bins to tip and keep streets clean for another 10 years for a very reasonable price.”

Wirral Council officers asked Biffa to clarify what Biffa would get out of extending the contract a further ten years.

Biffa responded to this on the 10th February 2014. Again I’m not allowed to show you Biffa’s response either on the instructions of Wirral Council officers!

The summary of this response is again in rather opaque language “Biffa indicated that the savings they could offer arose from avoiding future procurement and mobilisation costs, the ability to re-finance their operations and a reduction in overheads due to the stable nature of the contract. The discount is not linked to any service changes.”

In other words Biffa are saying “grant us a monopoly, save us the cost of having to retender for the contract in 2017, Wirral Council will save money from having to retender the contract” (which is a bit of a debatable point really anyway considering the extra costs this will cause doing it this way) “and Biffa will be able to borrow money cheaper because we’ll have a longer contract.” To be honest I don’t agree entirely with Biffa’s point about overheads being significantly lower to justify this.

Another letter from Biffa (exempt appendix 3) is also currently being kept secret by Wirral Council officers (pending a decision by politicians). This letter is about an offer to redesign the fleet of bin lorries from 2017 to collect things such as food waste (to meet Wirral Council’s recycling targets).

However Biffa make it clear that this is absolutely Biffa’s final offer (well unless Wirral Council’s Cabinet say no to negotiations or no to the offer in October 2014 and Biffa have to bid for the new contract starting in 2017)!

Wirral Council officers seem very keen to have the Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet agree to Biffa’s plan. “80p cheaper per a Wirral person than Liverpool” they state in the report, but strangely 15p more per a person than in Sefton!

Of course Wirral Council’s Cabinet could just choose to reject Biffa’s proposal and decide to bring the service in-house from 2017.

The recent street cleansing cuts to the contract, have been the source of both political and media attention in the recent past. However, what’s the officer’s recommendation?

Oh and before I get to that, Wirral Council asked Eunomia (are they consultants?) in 2012 to look at the Biffa contract, the consultants in fact suggested the contract should be retendered! Eunomia also suggested that if Wirral Council did agree to extend the contract by a further ten years than there should be changes to “contract clauses relating to indexation, labour cost inflation and future efficiency gains” which would be extremely sensible to do considering the current contract is linked to RPI (and let’s face it inflation is quite high)! However the Eunomia assessment is now two years out of date and things have changed somewhat since then.

As Wirral Council officers freely admit in 5.3.4 of this report, they don’t really know if this will save any money at all versus retendering the contract, it all just seems to be educated guesswork and unknown quantities.

The estimated savings have been listed, but surprisingly (and isn’t this usually the case?) not the increased costs (such as an increased audit bill from Grant Thornton for extra work).

It’s the report gets to “legal implications” that things start to get interesting!

Here’s a quote from 10.2 “The Legal colleagues have highlighted that it is necessary to limit the amount of material changes to the contract in order to minimise the risk of the Council being challenged on the legalities of the extension.”

In other words, do it right otherwise one of Biffa’s competitors, or in fact anyone could sue Wirral Council over how it was done.

Then entering into catch 22 territory the legal advice continues:

“Due consideration has been given to establishing whether the Biffa proposal offers Value for Money (Sections 4 and 5 refers) as required under the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules. However, it is important to note that the only decisive way to determine whether a more advantageous contract could be secured by the Council would be through retendering the contract.”

In other words, Wirral Council don’t know whether this saves them money without retendering the contract in 2017, but if they agree to Biffa’s proposal they won’t be retendering the contract in 2017 so they’ll never really know or be able to prove “value for money” to their external auditors Grant Thornton.

However let’s see, what do officers want? They want politicians to agree to them to enter into negotiations with Biffa, more specifically the Strategic Director of Regeneration and Environment (currently Kevin Adderley) and then report back to Cabinet no later than October 2014.

Personally (and this is just an opinion) I think politicians on the Cabinet will probably agree to enter into negotiations with Biffa tonight (even though Labour’s tendency in the past has been to bring back services in-house), if only just to keep their options open in October 2014. Quite what the Rt Hon Frank Field MP’s views on this latest development in the Biffa saga are at the time of writing unknown.

Coming up next today: What Wirral Council’s Cabinet is planning to do about Children’s Centres.

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The incredible £754,783.18 that Wirral Council councillors cost (plus amounts for the Mayor & Deputy Mayor)

The incredible £754,783.18 that Wirral Council councillors cost (plus amounts for the Mayor & Deputy Mayor)

The incredible £754,783.18 that Wirral Council councillors cost (plus amounts for the Mayor & Deputy Mayor)

                      

To very little fanfare (compared to the local newspaper coverage that used to go with the annual publication of MP’s expenses), Wirral Council has published on its website what it paid each of its councillors for 2013-14 with a breakdown by basic allowance, responsibility allowance, telephone rental (although this is a £NIL amount for everyone on that list), expenses, subsistence, travel expenses and car mileage. Despite replying to a FOI request and stating this was part of Wirral Council’s “openness and transparency” it is in fact a legal requirement that they publish this information annually (if you’d like to leave a comment referring to the specific Act of Parliament or regulations that require them to do this feel free).

This list includes three people who aren’t councillors but are “independent persons” and are appointed by Wirral Council councillors. These three have a role set down in law in dealing with complaints about councillors. They are also co-opted on Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee (whose next scheduled meeting has been cancelled).

Unlike the councillors none of these three get a basic amount, but receive £25 for each meeting they attend of the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee. In addition to this they are able to claim car mileage for meetings associated with their role. The annual amounts for these three are the smallest on the list being £90.80 (Dr. Burgess-Joyce), £122.40 (Brian Cummings) and £208.10 (RS Jones).

For the politicians, the lowest annual amount paid was to Cllr Matthew Patrick of £3,794.14. This is because he was only elected part way through that year in October 2013 in the Upton by-election. The by-election in Upton happened because of the death of Cllr Sylvia Hodrien, who also appears in the list receiving a part year amount of £4,373.84. Former Councillor Darren Dodd is the only other name to receive a part year amount of £6,019.11 as he resigned part way through the year and moved to Leeds.

The rest received the basic allowance of £8,712.48. In addition to this amount roughly half receive an extra responsibility allowance which for this financial year applied to thirty-three out of the sixty-seven councillors. An extra responsibility allowance is paid to the ten members of the Cabinet (generally an extra £9,171 although the Leader receives £22,927), chair of a committee, leader or deputy leader of a political group etc. The largest responsibility allowance paid was to Cllr Phil Davies of £22,926.96 (this is in addition to the basic allowance of £8,712.48). The smallest amount (that wasn’t £NIL) paid as a responsibility allowance was to Cllr Lesley Rennie of £203.38.

In total (the councillors and independent persons) claimed a total of £5,171.75 in car mileage payments, £490.99 in subsistence payments (this a meals allowance when they’re away from home for over four hours) and £1,684.64 in “expenses”.

The total cost (from this list) to the taxpayer for 2013-14 for the councillors and three independent persons was £754,783.18.

For some obscure reason I’m not really sure of, in earlier years the amount that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are paid is published separately. This doesn’t seem to have been done yet this year (at the time of writing), but in 2012-13 came to a total of an extra £12,228.80. I would guess that the amount for the mayoralty in 2013-14 would be a similar amount to this.

A number of councillors also represent Wirral Council on outside bodies. There are two councillors who represent Wirral Council on the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority are paid an extra £1,834 each. These amounts are paid directly by Wirral Council to these councillors.

There are other outside bodies such as Merseytravel (four councillors from Wirral Council) and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority (four councillors from Wirral Council). These two pay these councillors directly extra amounts for these extra responsibilities. A list similar to the one Wirral Council produces is published on their organisation’s website annually. These amounts are not included in this list from Wirral Council as such payments are made directly to councillors by those bodies rather than through Wirral Council.

A resolution to Council in previous years required Wirral Council to publish these extra amounts received too from bodies funded through the council tax such as Merseytravel, the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority and until it was abolished and replaced with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside & Police and Crime Panel, the Merseyside Police Authority.

As with the complicated scheme in place at Wirral Council, these amounts can vary quite considerably from a basic allowance that all receive to large amounts for the Chair.

Taking one public body, the figures for Merseytravel (which is now part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) haven’t been published on Wirral Council’s website for 2013-14, but the 2012-13 figures show that Wirral Council councillors received a basic allowance each of £5,202.13 (with part year payments to Cllr Blakeley and Cllr Foulkes), an extra special responsibility allowance for three councillors ranging from £1,095.38 to £4,063.29 as well as travel & subsistence payments ranging from nothing claimed to £997.99.

So, although the “cost of democracy” at Wirral Council is at least £754,783.18, in addition to this amount is the cost of the Mayor & Deputy Mayor and the currently difficult to find amounts councillors receive for representing Wirral Council on outside bodies (which Wirral Council should following a resolution agreed by Wirral Council publish on its website but in recent years hasn’t).

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Strange: Labour refuse to take decision on Lyndale School tonight based on abolished predetermination rule

Strange: Labour refuse to take decision on Lyndale School tonight based on abolished predetermination rule

Strange: Labour refuse to take decision on Lyndale School tonight based on abolished predetermination rule

                      

Labour’s Councillor Tony Smith and Councillor Phil Davies have submitted an amendment to the Conservative’s notice of motion on Lyndale School. Although it’s an amendment it retains only a sentence and a half from the original motion. If Labour’s amendment is agreed the text below shows how it’ll change the original motion. Text in the original motion that is deleted by Labour’s amendment has a line through it and extra text added by Labour’s amendment is in bold.

THE LYNDALE SCHOOL

Council, having regard to the support given to the campaign to keep the Lyndale School open by the public of Wirral, resolves that:

1. It is the firm belief of Council that the Lyndale School should remain open, and in order to bring to an end the anguish and uncertainty suffered by pupils and their parents and carers, calls upon Cabinet to confirm that the school will remain open when Cabinet next meets.

2. Council recognises the unique and caring environment provided by the Lyndale School to children with profound and multiple learning difficulties. Council acknowledges the value of this provision and affirms its belief that such provision should remain at the Lyndale School.

3. Council instructs officers to work with the Wirral School’s Forum in order to investigate how the funding of Wirral’s Special Schools can more closely reflect the will of Wirral’s residents, as expressed by the huge support given to the Lyndale School: that the quality and scale of provision for children requiring the services of special schools in Wirral should continually strive to improve and be in no way diminished.

Council believes that it would be premature to take a view on the future of Lyndale School without taking into account the outcome of the comprehensive consultation process which took place recently. Any statements in favour of a particular outcome run the risk of predetermination.

Council therefore notes the views contained in this motion and agrees to refer it to the special meeting of Cabinet on the 4th September. Cabinet will consider all options relating to Lyndale School together with the outcome of the consultation exercise at that special meeting.

However the predetermination rule was abolished on 15th January 2012 when section 25 (prior indications of view of matter not to amount to predetermination) of the Localism Act 2011 became law.

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