A blog about Wirral Council, Wirral Council's councillors & officers
A blog about Wirral Council's public meetings, Wirral Council's councillors, Bidston & St. James ward and other public bodies on Merseyside
What did Liverpool councillors say about death and 2 cars at an incredible public meeting?
The annual budget meeting of Liverpool City Council is known for those who go for producing political fireworks (for example two years ago when a councillor passionately argued against a cut to domestic violence charities and was asked to leave the Council Chamber).
Local politics (especially party politics) can become ideological at times rather than based in reality (realpolitik).
Is the whole price/prize point about Merseyside’s Mayor actually a load of rubbish?
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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015 Part 1 of 2
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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 28th October 2015 Part 2 of 2
You can view what was said at a public meeting earlier this week on the subject of devolution for Merseyside above. It’s openly admitted however that the communications/engagement/public relations side of this has been pretty poor.
I will disagree with something that’s been said throughout this process since it doesn’t make sense (although from press reports Cllr Phil Davies has done a U-turn in favour of a Merseyside Mayor).
It’s been stated (in the video above by Ged Fitzgerald, Liverpool City Council Chief Executive and Mayor Joe Anderson before) and again and again that the price of devolution is a Merseyside Mayor. This whole process based on the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill which is wending its way through parliament.
I realise legislation does get amended, but as it’s on its 8th parliamentary stage out of ten it’s going to be eventually (especially as it’s a government bill) mainly in the form it’s now in.
Here’s the section on an elected Mayor.
It modifies the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 to state:
(1) The Secretary of State may by order provide for there to be a mayor for the area of a combined authority.
(2) An order under subsection (1) shall not be used as a condition for agreeing to the transfer of local authority or public authority functions.”
In other words what is repeatedly repeated (and perhaps why they’re so bad at communications) doesn’t make sense. The government can’t say we’ll give you this if you have an elected Mayor and the price/prize thing is a load of rubbish. The government can’t do that as the legislation that will underpin this (which has to come into force to trigger the next stage which would result in devolution) makes that unlawful.
With me so far?
The government knows this is going on and I’m sure that it doesn’t make them look favourably on Liverpool when these sorts of political shenanigans to make them look bad, are being played out amongst Merseyside’s more ambitious Labour politicians.
So why would this have got started?
My best educated guess (as trying to make sense about what’s going on with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority with its poor public relations is like wading through treacle) is a certain Labour politician wants (again) to blame something unpopular in some quarters on a Tory government (even if it isn’t entirely true).
Add to this the ambition in some quarters to actually be Merseyside’s Mayor (because once it’s a done deal all they’ll need is the Labour nomination) gives a motive.
So that’s my opinion. The whole price/prize thing is a politician’s way of deflecting the blame knowing that generally the media won’t inquire too deeply and I think readers of this blog can make a jolly good guess as to who wants to be Merseyside’s Mayor.
Once again Labour are blaming something they want (a Merseyside Mayor) on the government, stating an untruth (that it’s a condition of the devolution deal which it’s not because the legislation would make that unlawful) and hoping everyone will believe it?
Well who do you believe? I’ve outlined above the consistent line that they’re trying to spoon feed the Merseyside public and the press whilst deflecting any attempt at scrutiny by politicians by openly refusing to state how the negotiations are going?
There will be an extraordinary public meeting of all Wirral Council councillors (as well as public meetings of councillors in the other areas of Merseyside and Halton) to discuss the devolution deal. Wirral’s will be held on the 19th November starting at 6.00pm in the Council Chamber at Wallasey Town Hall.
Isn’t it about time the public were told the truth?
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What did Cllr Phil Davies’ PR adviser have to say about the LCRCA devolution campaign?
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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meeting of the 21st September 2015 Part 1 of 2 (devolution and Transport for the North)
Declaration of Interest – the author wishes to declare an interest in that Google (named in the piece below) has an existing contract with the author for advertising revenue from Youtube videos.
Unusually a Chief Executive of a local PR company called Kenyon Fraser Limited spoke at the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meeting on its agenda item on devolution. Below is the exchange between Cllr Phil Davies and Ben O’Brien of Kenyon Fraser, then I go into more detail about the existing contracts that this PR company Kenyon Fraser has with Merseytravel/Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.
The Chair Cllr Phil Davies said at the end of a presentation by Ged Fitzgerald (Chief Executive, Liverpool City Council) on devolution, "With the Combined Authority being advised by Kenyon Fraser [Ltd] on this. Ben O’Brien from Kenyon Fraser has come here today, so just with your permission, I’d just like to give Ben a couple of minutes to talk about plans around public engagement, stakeholder involvement etc so Ben, do you want to just say a few words about that please? Thank you."
Ben O’Brien from PR company Kenyon Fraser said, "Chair, very briefly, as has been outlined in the presentation I think things are developing quickly and our role is to take that forward Chair.
I’m Chief Executive of Kenyon Fraser, my name’s Ben O’Brien, we’re a Liverpool based communications consultancy.
We’re very pleased to have been appointed to support taking the work forward and we’re linking in with colleagues in Knowsley in the Secretariat role in order to facilitate that.
And really given the timescales and the tasks in hand to provide additional resources to be able to do that work to a high standard in the timescales that are required of us.
So in short our role is to produce communications resources to support that better engagement with the public, with key stakeholder groups including the business community and other stakeholder groups relevant to the key policy proposal areas that are being taken forward at this time and in advance of the CSR [Comprehensive Spending Review] in the first instance.
So we’re here to provide additional resources, we’re pulling together our plans to support doing that at a city region level and at a borough level, as we’ll be required by the work that officers are undertaking at this stage and we want to take that work forward from here on in as it takes shape.
So thank you for inviting us along to introduce ourselves in the first instance."
Kenyon Fraser have a number of contracts with Merseytravel.
The first called the "Agreement for Consultancy Services relating to High Speed Rail for Liverpool Campaign development and delivery" is a contract dated 16th September 2014 for £99,500 for the work detailed below (prices have been blacked out by Merseytravel as apparently they are "commercially sensitive") .
For those wondering what the taxpayer got for £99,500 (or find it hard to read the image above) that was the work of the Chief Executive, a named Account Director (name was removed by Merseytravel), Account Managers/Designers/Web Designers/PRs and similar & engagement staff. The services of these people are charged on an undisclosed daily rate.
The Cost Summary Schedule detailed work in the following areas:
Total £99,500 of public money spent on a campaign, which hasn’t resulted in persuading the government to extend HS2 to Liverpool.
There is also an “Agreement for Communication Support” that Kenyon Fraser Limited have (or had) with the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive dated 12th December 2013. The brief for that one is simple and is:
Oh but there’s more than that! This company also has the "Framework Agreement for Consultancy Services for the Design of Travel Marketing Literature Commencing 1 January 2014 until 31 December 2015". This one is for bus posters, Google PPC advertising, Facebook advertising, other online activities, as well as quarter pages ads in the Liverpool Daily Post (although as this paper ceased publication in December 2013 I’m curious about why it’s in the contract), Southport & Formby Champion, Bootle, Crosby & Maghull Champion and Wirral Globe, advertising on the back of buses, bus stop advertising, employee engagement and PR activity such as "Mersey Summer Time", web page work, leaflets, in-car air fresheners, Meal for 2 incentives, engagement and PR activity.
It looks like this contract was extended in 2014 to 2017 and renamed "Consultancy Services Agreement for the Provision of Design Services for Travel Marketing Literature October 2013 to September 2017".
However there’s more, Kenyon Fraser Limited have a 35 page contract dated 20th May this year called the "Merseytravel Consultancy Services Framework Agreement 2015-2019 For Consultancy Services (Various Lots)" which is for PR, campaign & engagement.
I could start publishing Kenyon Fraser invoices to Merseytravel, but this is already starting to sound more like an advert for them than a serious piece of journalism. You can find one of the Kenyon Fraser invoices for £29,160 in this earlier story headlined Why did Merseytravel spend £2,775 on a “Parliamentary Reception”?
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