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Councillors met to discuss 3 areas of Future Council consultation (Youth and Play, Gitrell Court and West Kirby Marine Lake)

Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee Wirral Council 3rd November 2014 L to R Legal adviser who was missing, Cllr Moira McLaughlin (Chair), Clare Fish and Graham Hodkinson

Last night showed something that we’ve been promised for some time which is pre-decision scrutiny (of a sort). Now the Future Council consultation is over, the first of three overview and scrutiny committees met yesterday evening to discuss the proposed budget cuts in their area of responsibility.

Prior to this there had been a behind closed doors set of meetings among councillors, which explained why the public meeting itself was rather short.

The rather late reports (which included a Powerpoint presentation on the consultation results) concentrated on the following proposed budget cuts:

Youth and Play Service £450,000 cut closing 4 youth centres, reducing provision at the “hubs” from five evening a week to four, Play Schemes funding ceased, grant to Wirral Play Council stopped, Civil Award Scheme stopped and Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme stopped. If chosen this would end play schemes in Beechwood, Gautby Road (in Bidston) and Leasowe Adventure Playground in Wallasey. These three playschemes cost Wirral Council £190,000 a year but benefit about 600 children.

The Wirral Play Council (a charity on the Wirral) runs play schemes including an annual event at Birkenhead Park attended by 3,000 children, which was discussed at the Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee public meeting last week. People at that meeting were shown photos of the Mayor at this event in Birkenhead Park which I can’t show you because the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services Cllr Tony Smith and Wirral Council officers decided to try to negotiate a broadcast media blackout of that public meeting and had I tried to film it, Surjit Tour would’ve advised Cllr Tony Smith to adjourn that meeting.

The detail of the effects of each proposal had been previously discussed behind closed doors by councillors who then produced a scrutiny panel report.

The other possible budget cuts involved Girtrell Court (a short break respite service for adults with disabilities of £385,000), a cut to the all age disability service of £600,000 (affecting Willow Tree (overnight short breaks for children with high-level learning and physical disabilities), Children with Disabilities Team, Transition Team and the Family Support Team) and West Kirby Marine Lake (a cut of £25,000 and the possible outsourcing to a third party although an alternative option is being looked at).

Certainly these were not popular proposals (especially considering the fuss kicked up over the play schemes proposal) cuts and in not all areas did councillors agree with officers. At one point the Chair felt that the cuts were just being fitted around the amounts that had to be saved. As the budget options cover £4 million out of £2.5 million of options, some won’t happen, however you can watch the video of the meeting below to see and hear what councillors and officers said.

I will upload clearer audio of the meeting at a later date, although I felt it was important to point out the above at this point. When the overview and scrutiny committees finish (the last one is scheduled for tomorrow night), their proposals will feed into a Cabinet meeting which will make a recommendation on the budget to Council. All councillors will then meet, debate, discuss and vote on the budget, which according to the new legislation now has to be done by each councillor individually voting on each budget proposal (due to a change in legislation earlier this year). This way when it comes to election time in May, the Wirral public can look up how certain councillors standing in the election voted on the issues that matter to them if they so wish.

There are however going to be sections of society lobbying hard to make sure the Labour administration (who decide where the cuts are) spares them from the effects of the cuts. It remains to be seen how easy it will be both for councillors and political parties to deal with the public relations effects of what is proposed. As was mentioned at the meeting yesterday evening, there are large petitions opposing some of the cuts proposed. Some petitions are large enough that the petition organisers will get the right to speak at the Council meeting at which these decisions are made. The papers for this public meeting can be read on Wirral Council’s website

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Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee Wirral Council 3rd November 2014 Part 1

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Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee Wirral Council 3rd November 2014 Part 2

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The day democracy and freedom of the press died at Wirral Council: 28th October 2014 (part 2)

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at a public meeting earlier this year L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith, Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts — Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at a public meeting earlier this year L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services), Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts

There’s been a lot of readers of yesterday’s blog post titled The day democracy and freedom of the press died at Wirral Council: 28th October 2014.

There was one A4 page handed out to those present at the meeting which was about the Youth Voice Conference 2014. Obviously it would have been interesting to have on video politicians, officers and a young person’s response to these issues raised at the Youth Voice Conference, but considering the politically sensitive nature of some of these issues one can fully understand why there was an effort before the meeting began not to have it filmed, audio taped or photographed.

As one section of it mentions the media, I had better declare an interest in this as a member of the media. As well as politics I also write about video games, so I’d better declare that too. Below is the text of the 1 A4 page handout circulated to the committee, councillors, officers and others present at the public meeting.

Copies of what is below were handed out during the meeting itself by Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children’s Services), as the Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee, unlike many other public meetings of politicians at Wirral Council doesn’t have Wirral Council officers from Legal and Member Services assigned to it to deal with such matters. It’s “served” by officers from Wirral Council’s Children and Young People’s Department (or whatever it’s called these days) instead who take a different view on some matters to that of Legal and Member Services.

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Youth Voice Conference 2014

HOT SEAT PANEL QUESTIONS & ISSUES RAISED BY YOUNG PEOPLE

Understanding Autism

If you cut resources how will young people on the autistic spectrum be supported in education and employment as currently only 1 in 6 people with autism end up in full-time employment?
How can we all work together on the Wirral to have a better understanding of Autism, allowing us to help and support our peers who are on the autistic spectrum?

Dealing with homophobia

More help and support is needed on understanding homophobia.
More adverts in schools about organisations that can help LGBT young people are needed.
A young peoples training group needs to be established to deliver training is schools and other organisations.
Accessible and gender neutral toilets are needed in schools and youth units.
How do we deal with hate crimes committed by young people?
More LGBT safe spaces are needed.

Media literacy

Proposal

Wirral Borough Council only uses real people or images in any of their adverts or publications and should promote natural beauty.

Cabinet to decide on 6-week consultation on closure of children’s centres

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith, Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts

Now for what I promised earlier with a story about children’s centres. Basically Cabinet is going to have to decide tonight whether or not to proceed to a six-week consultation on recommendations for the early years service and children’s centres.

The proposals which may/may not go out to consultation is to try to save £2 million. Staff at risk of losing their jobs (if a decision to go to consultation tonight) will also be consulted.

Admittedly the report has the odd type, for example at 6.1 it refers to the 2104 budget which should read the 2014 budget as Wirral Council officers don’t tend to consider the budgetary implications in ninety years time of their decisions! 😀

The proposals that may/may not go out to consultation would involve the closure of at least eight children’s centres with four being downgraded to satellite/outreach. The outright closure of some could result in a grant clawback of the money Wirral Council got to build them.

Of course if the Labour Cabinet does decide to go down this path of consultation on closure, eventually a decision will have to be made.

I’m sure at that stage or even before (if consultation is agreed tonight) the Conservatives will be reminding Labour of the election leaflets they’ve put out in recent years that told the people of Wirral that the children’s centres are not safe in Tory hands so please vote Labour. 😀

Oh dear, and what will the local newspapers make of it all?

The report on that item and revised appendix can be found by following these links.

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Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Parliamentary ping-pong, “democracy dodgers” and the £556,789 in “forgotten cuts” at Wirral Council

Shortly before Christmas Wirral Council had a “budget options” meeting after the What Really Matters consultation. At this meeting cuts, based on the public response to the consultation for 2014/15 were in principle agreed to. Strictly speaking it was a new budget and policy framework that was agreed to. The budget for 2014/15 is to be decided in March 2014, based on the assumption that Council Tax on Wirral would rise by 2% in 2014/15.

So just to recap, the Labour administration have ruled out a Council Tax referendum. The reason they give is that the large cost of the referendum that would fall on Wirral Council (if you can remember the amount they quoted please leave a comment about what it was and who said it). This is despite the law (The Local Authority (Referendums Relating to Council Tax Increases) (Date of Referendum) (England) Order 2013) that states a Council Tax increase referendum would have to be held on the 22nd May 2014 (the same day as the joint European & local Council elections). I’m not sure if the estimated figure a councillor quoted last year for a Council tax increase referendum took into account the reduced cost of the referendum due to holding other elections on the same day (or whether the cost quoted assumed the referendum would be held separately to other elections in which case the estimate is too high).

Labour’s budget assumption therefore assumes that Council Tax will rise by 2% (without the need for a referendum) to lessen the need for further cuts they’d have to make if the rise was any lower or Council Tax was kept the same. The Labour administration have also ruled out accepting a Council Tax Freeze grant equivalent to a 1% rise if they agreed to keep Council Tax the same as last year.

However Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP has different plans and according to an article last week in the Guardian based on leaked Cabinet letters wants to reduce the threshold to 1.5% and refers to councils that rise Council Tax by only two percent as “democracy dodgers” and “believes they need to be punished to show the government is trying to control the cost of living”. Furthermore Pickles states “he wants to stop councils or police bodies being able to exempt some spending from the cap.”

This article in the Bristol Post before Christmas also quotes the Rt Hon Eric Pickles from a statement in relation to council tax increases “as being particularly open to representations suggesting that some lower threshold be applied to councils, given the strong need to protect taxpayers wherever possible from unreasonable increases”.

So what has this got to do with Parliamentary ping-pong? Well the Local Audit and Accountability Bill is heading to its next to the last stage (starting on 21st January) called “parliamentary ping-pong” before the last stage “Royal Assent” and it becomes law. Crucially the section on Council Tax referendum calculations (s.41) comes into force (see s.49) when the act receives Royal Assent and changes the formula of how a yearly Council Tax increase is arrived at.

In future once the Local Audit and Accountability Bill becomes an Act, the calculation of Council Tax rise includes not just Wirral Council’s share of the Council Tax bill, but also (if I’ve read the bill correctly and please leave if a comment if I’m wrong) the other levying bodies that form part of Council Tax bills too. This means the yearly increase in Council Tax requirements in the budgets of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside would affect what the percentage increase would be.

It looks from the wording of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill (and a lot of recent regulations) that this will come into effect for the 2014/15 financial year. As the basis by which a Council Tax rise is calculated will change, £556,789 is my rough estimate of what changing the threshold from 2% to 1.5% will be as the true amount of extra cuts will depend on what the Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner’s and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority’s Council Tax requirements for 2014/15 are.

At Wirral Council’s Coordinating Committee meeting (held yesterday at the time of writing), in item 8 (policy update), councillors on the committee will have read in their papers on page 2, under Implications for the Local Audit and Accountability Bill “Budget Strategy considerations may also be impacted by the changes to the Council Tax threshold for triggering a referendum.”

Yet curiously not one of the councillors of the fifteen on the Coordinating Committee asked how much changing the Council Tax threshold for triggering a referendum would affect the budget strategy considerations or to my recollection anything at all about how a change to the Council Tax threshold would affect the 2014/15 Budget.

So is this £½ million of cuts at Wirral Council that councillors seem to be unaware of going to result in a further twelve-week consultation (or will the responses to the What Really Matters consultation be reused)? If any of these further cuts require ninety days consultation with the trade unions will this mean that they will only be realised as part-year savings in 2014/15?

There does seem to be one concession the Liberal Democrats have received though. Any regulations the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP decides to do with council tax increase referendums has to by law be also agreed with Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP first.

So what do you dear reader think? Will Cllr Phil Davies be saying of the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP something similar to the famous Laurel and Hardy quote “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”. With exquisite timing, Wirral Council’s Labour administration will have to agree the budget for 2014/15 around the end of February 2014 meaning these extra cuts will probably feature in the local election period in the lead up to polling day on the 22nd May.

Certainly this apparent lack of a plan B will have to be explained when the Improvement Board returns in March. As the Rt Hon Ed Balls MP (Labour’s Shadow Chancellor) said last October about Labour’s economic competence, “we are going to win based upon our experience, our track record, our credibility”.

Oh and if you think the projected underspend of £884,000 will mean a further £½ million of cuts won’t have to be made in 2014/15 you’d be wrong.

£250,000 of the underspend will probably be agreed tonight to go towards the clean up and repairs to infrastructure in New Brighton following the bad weather. A further £519,000 of the underspend has been earmarked for future restructuring costs leaving (at current estimates) only a projected underspend of £115,000 that can count towards an estimated a £½ million of cuts required if the Coalition government reduce the Council Tax increase referendum threshold to 1.5%.

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What’s happening on Wirral Council? Views from Labour and the Tories

The national print media have finally picked up on the dilemma facing the Liberal Democrat councillors on Wirral Council ahead of next Monday evenings’ adjourned Council meeting to decide.

So far all we know from part 1 on Monday evening is that the Mayor is Cllr Moira McLaughlin, the Deputy Mayor is Cllr Gerry Ellis and that Cllrs Harney, Green and Foulkes will be Wirral Council’s representatives on the Merseyside Police Authority Appointments Committee. However this was all thoroughly predictable.

Certainly the defection of Cllr Niblock from Lib Dem to Labour will upset the careful calculations by officers as to committee allocations and outside body allocations for the Labour Group and the Lib Dem Group, which will have to be revised by Monday evening.

Cllr Niblock was only the Liberal Democrat councillor from Wirral on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority last year. I have been in touch with him in the past about solutions to the problems of deliberate grass fires on Bidston Hill. Since then the Community Patrol have been issued with packs to put out small grass fires. Cllr Niblock used to live in Bidston & St. James until the house he lived in was demolished (as many have been in the last few years). For many years until he moved he was the only Lib Dem councillor living in Bidston & St. James ward (representing Bromborough) and as we lived a few blocks away we used to sometime bump into each other at the bus stop outside the bus depot from time to time.

His mother was a critic of Cllr Foulkes (Labour’s leader) on both the local Area Forum for Bidston & St. James/Claughton ward (she served as the Older People’s Parliament representative) and if I recall correctly also the Local Strategic Partnership Assembly. When she retired I remember her saying to Cllr Foulkes that she thought he would be glad, due to her robust criticism of him during meetings and that she’d been “a thorn in his side”. She was well liked and many councillors attended her funeral.

I wish Cllr Niblock all the best in his new political group and I’m sure he will follow in her footsteps as he tends to be someone that like his mother speaks from experience and enthusiasm. This is in contrast to some councillors on Wirral Council who give long, hard to follow, dreary speeches which lead to the listeners and the speakers being more confused about the issue than when they’ve started.

In 2009/2010 he received an extra £14,660 for being on Merseyside Fire & Rescue Authority (and probably a similar amount in 2010/2011 in addition to the £9,094.58 he gets as a local councillor). However with the reduction in Liberal Democrat councillors, the four places representing Wirral Council on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority will go to two Tories and two Labour councillors, instead of two Tory, one Labour and one Lib Dem.

Clearly if Labour put Steve Niblock forward as one of their two representatives on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority he will face the same accusation that former Cllr. Denis Knowles did; that he is switching parties merely to do with a position on an outside body (which comes with a generous allowance). However in this case it would be Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority instead of Merseytravel.

If this is the case and he becomes one of Labour’s two representatives for Wirral Council on Merseyside Fire & Rescue Authority, had he stuck with the Lib Dems he would’ve seen a drop in his income as their allocation for Merseyside Fire & Rescue Authority was reduced from one to zero. We will see what happens on Monday.

More about Labour’s position including a quote from Cllr. Niblock is in this article in the Independent where it discusses the situation on Wirral.

Cllr. Jeff Green’s view (Leader of the Conservative Group) can be read in a blog post entitled “Random thoughts from the Twilight Zone”.

What happens next is anybody’s guess at this stage. Clearly after 103,162 people voted this year it comes down to nine Lib Dem councillors to decide. However with one in seven voting Lib Dem this year, over 14,000 Wirral residents, it is clear that with no party gaining a majority that the Wirral public wants parties to work together to solve Wirral’s problems over the coming year. The Lib Dems just have till next Monday evening to decide if that is Labour or the Conservatives.

What is known is that whatever party (or parties) are in control and in charge of drawing up a Budget for 2012/2013, more cuts are coming. The Budget projection given by the Council’s Director of Finance Ian Coleman on the 13th January shows that £26.5 million worth of savings need to be found by March 2012 based on the assumption that Council Tax next year will be frozen again. Around half this amount (£14.1 million) is due to a reduction in grant funding to Wirral Council by the Coalition government. The rest is due to increased requirements, such as a predicted rise in people claiming benefit (eg Housing Benefit), pay inflation, the amount to Merseytravel going up and similar items.

If Council Tax was increased next year by 5%, it would only help the Budget by £3 million due to the loss of a Council Tax Freeze Grant equivalent to a 2.5% Council Tax rise.

With a Lib Dem/Tory government and Lib Dem/Tory council for this last year the influence that Bidston & St. James Labour councillors can bring to bear on the decision makers and holders of the purse strings is less than it was under a Labour government or Labour/Lib Dem council. However at the local level some amounts of money are being delegated to the Area Forum (which locally covers Bidston & St. James/Claughton), such as the Empty Shops funding and small amounts of other money too. As Labour councillors make the decisions at the Area Forum level and appoint their own party members to other positions on the Area Forum panel, they can decide on where some money is spent.

Councillors met to discuss 3 areas of Future Council consultation (Youth and Play, Gitrell Court and West Kirby Marine Lake)

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The day democracy and freedom of the press died at Wirral Council: 28th October 2014 (part 2)

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Cabinet to decide on 6-week consultation on closure of children’s centres

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Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Parliamentary ping-pong, “democracy dodgers” and the £556,789 in “forgotten cuts” at Wirral Council

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