I went to Merseytravel’s headquarters to inspect various invoices and contracts. A Superlambanana costs £500 to repaint, but a penguin only costs £400 as you can see from the invoice below.
Below are invoices that I requested from the first month of expenditure in 2014/15 that had something blacked out on them.
First there’s a larger invoice for £1,241.08 from Bircham Dyson Bell. This is for a “claim by Charles Denton as owner of Olympia Public House” and more specifically “To professional charges acting for you in the above claim for compensation in connection with advising you by Mr Charles Denton for the period from 21 December 2013 to 26 March 2014 for the Olympia Public House as set out in the attached breakdown. Actual fees £1,721.90 less £771.00 as per email dated 19th March 2014.”
Blacked out are the hourly rates charged. These are:
(Partner) 0.10 hours @ 141.92 per hour = £14.19
(Partner) 1.00 hours @ 141.92 per hour = £141.92
(Partner) 5.60 hours @ 141.92 per hour = £794.79
Next is a two page invoice from Hays for agency staff. Whereas Merseytravel have blacked out the name of the person whose services this invoice relates to on the front of the invoice, the name is clearly visible on the timesheet on the second page of this invoice (Melissa Waring). The timesheet also shows this is for 35 hours of work (a detail again blacked out on the front of the invoice) at a rate of £30.35 an hour + VAT.
There are three further invoices from Hays from that month which are each for the services of Melissa Waring. However the timesheets on the back of those invoices aren’t included. Those invoices (including the second page where you’d expect the timesheets) are below.
Finally there is an invoice for £3,800 from DWF for the services of Martin Stafford seconded to Merseytravel at £200 a day. It was pretty pointless blacking out the daily rate of £200 a day on this invoice and leaving in “for 19 days work carried out from 3rd March 2014 to 31st March 2014” along with the amount of £3,800.
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Why did Merseytravel spend £33,781.20 last year with Veale Wasbrough Vizards about its move to Mann Island?
Why did Merseytravel spend £33,781.20 last year with Veale Wasbrough Vizards about its move to Mann Island?
I went to a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s Audit Committee yesterday and if you wish you can view the video of that meeting below. The agenda and reports for that meeting is on Merseytravel’s website.
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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Audit Committee meeting 12th May 2015
What did occur to me after the meeting finished was that since the Local Government Transparency Code applies to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, that Merseytravel (which is now part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) would be required to publish a list of payments made over £500 each month on its website.
Unlike Wirral Council and the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, who also publish comma separated values files of the same information (which can then be sorted in a spreadsheet) Merseytravel just publish this information as PDF files.
Links to each of these files which cover the last financial year are below.
If you’re observant, you’ll have noticed a gap for the month from the 26th May 2014 to the 25th June 2014. I’ve emailed Merseytravel to ask for the missing month of payments.Ed – 22/5/2015 – Merseytravel got back in touch with me on the 21st May informing me the missing month had now been put on their website, so it is now linked to above. The missing month includes another payment of £680 made to Veale Wasbrough Vizards for legal costs to do with the HQ relocation that was not available to me when originally writing this article.
However the other 11 months make for interesting reading.
There are a number of payments to a Veale Wasbrough Vizards (which is a Bristol based firm of solicitors) relating to Merseytravel’s controversial headquarters move from Hatton Gardens to Mann Island.
Here’s a list of the payments made to Veale Wasbrough Vizards:
Merseytravel also paid £977.50 to Sara Bradbury in October 2014 for “Counsels Fees”.
A number of insurance payments were made by Merseytravel with compensation given as the reason.
ROYAL & SUN ALLIANCE
16/5/2014
Compensation – Public Liability
S-2101
Ins – General
£7,008
ROYAL & SUN ALLIANCE
18/7/2014
Compensation – Public Liability
S-2101
Ins – General
£2,717.00
ROYAL & SUN ALLIANCE
14/8/2014
Compensation Public Liability
S-2101
Ins – General
£8,500.00
ROYAL & SUN ALLIANCE
25/7/2014
Compensation Misc
S-2101
Ins – General
£11,575.00
THOMAS COOPER
8/8/2014
Compensation Misc
S-2101
Ins – General
£7,300.00
MERCURY LEGAL LLP
18/12/2014
Compensation Employers Liability
S-2101
Ins – General
£7,182.17
ROYAL & SUN ALLIANCE
18/12/2014
Compensation Public Liability
S-2101
Ins – General
£16,790.00
Total
£61,072.17
There was a payment for £507 to Weightmans LLP for an invoice dated 31st March 2014 for “specialist services”. Merseytravel also paid five amounts (£3,800, £2,600, £4,400, £750 and £2,145) to a firm of solicitors called Davies Wallis Foyster LLP for invoices in 2014 for the services of a solicitor.
Two payments of £15,115 and £15,590 were made to Royal & Sun Alliance for invoices dated 27th August 2014 and the 3rd December 2014 for the costs of external 3rd party solicitors.
Robert Jackson Solicitors charged £2,000 in an invoice dated 13th February 2015 for legal costs associated with an insurance claim, in the same month Merseytravel paid £4,812 to CS Cooper C/O Collins Long Solicitors which was again for legal costs to do with an insurance claim.
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Wirral Council spent £465,497.06 with six different firms of solicitors in the last financial year
Wirral Council spent £465,497.06 with six different firms of solicitors in the last financial year
Below is a list of what Wirral Council spent on solicitors in the last financial year (2013-14) which comes at just under half a million pounds. Wirral Council also employ fourteen in-house solicitors. Each amount is a total for the 2013-14 by firm of solicitors and is derived from the lists of invoices over £500 that Wirral Council publish. It is possible the amounts are higher if there are invoices paid that were less than £500. I’ve done a similar list for barristers in another blog post.
Anthony Collins Solicitors £17,570 DLA Piper UK £700 DWF LLP £11,584.38 Eversheds £236,990.13 Forshaws Davies Ridgway LLP £609 Weightmans LLP £198,043.55
Total £465,497.06
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