Trade unions march on Wirral Council, only to hear how wonderful the 2014 Open Golf championship was

Trade unions march on Wirral Council, only to hear how wonderful the 2014 Open Golf championship was

Trade unions march on Wirral Council, only to hear how wonderful the 2014 Open Golf championship was

                                                        

Cllr Phil Davies at the start tells people how pleased he is to see so many members of the public at the Cabinet meeting of the 6th November 2014
Cllr Phil Davies tells people at the start how pleased he is to see so many members of the public at the Cabinet meeting of the 6th November 2014

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

The first part of the Cabinet meeting can be watched above (apart from a short video that has been edited out.

Prior to last night’s Cabinet meeting there was a trade union march from Seacombe Ferry to Wallasey Town Hall. Wirral Council’s Cabinet have managed to not just cause public sector union troubles, as part of the Cabinet has managed to cause trade union issues in my private sector workplace too.

The trade union strife and march is already covered in the Liverpool Echo.

Wirral Council of course knew this was coming, so with the “Green” party in the audience the first part of the meeting was about the “Royal and Ancient” (no, I’m not referring in any way to Wirral Council’s Cabinet) & the recent Open Golf Tournament.

So are Wirral Council’s Cabinet caught in the political equivalent of madly swinging at the ball in a sand bunker whilst there’s union trouble brewing back at the club house or does Cllr Phil “Golf Club Captain” Davies just take the “rough” with the smooth?

Ed – enough of the golf puns John!

Well caught in the PR nightmare of trade union issues, obviously Wirral Council had to have a “good news” story to tell.

So the meeting started by someone telling the audience about how great TV coverage and coverage about Wirral on websites was. For a moment I thought I was in a bizarre dream. Usually Cllr Phil Davies is saying how “irresponsible” the press is or how they’ve got things wrong. A politician having to sit through a meeting where somebody says nice things about the press is a rare event indeed!

Then it got even better, a guy said there was an “economic impact” of TV and online coverage about Wirral.

Oh boy, I thought. I really am just dreaming now aren’t I? They’ve actually asked somebody to assess the economic importance to Wirral of this blog about Wirral Council and associated Youtube channels (this is the main one and this one is temporarily used whilst the dispute with Sony over Lyndale School coverage of a previous Cabinet meeting is sorted).

Thankfully the guy was only talking about golf more specifically the recent Open Golf Tournament. Hmmmm!

So when I got an email from Surjit Tour telling me to remove coverage about the Open Golf tournament from my blog he was in fact attempting to harm the Wirral economy? Well blow me down with a feather and call me Nora (no offence Leonora).

My reply to him at the time obviously should have been, don’t you realise Mr. Tour the economic harm you’re trying to ravage on the Wirral economy? Obviously a completely missed opportunity on my part and should’ve been followed by don’t you realise tourism jobs on the Wirral depend on media coverage of the Open Golf? And indeed how without that blog post would we have got classic quotes such as local tailor Cllr Walter Smith saying the quotable line “I must say I enjoyed lavish hospitality” on BBC Radio Merseyside?

So next time a Wirral Council councillor stops me filming a public meeting, I will not only remind them of the law states but I will accuse them of the “economic carnage” and people that’ll be put out of work that they’re deliberately inflicting on the local economy. Probably hyperbole, but then a lot of politics often seems to be hyperbole.

If you click on any of these buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people. Thanks:

Expense claim forms for Councillor David Elderton (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Expense claim forms for Councillor David Elderton (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Expense claim forms for Councillor David Elderton (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

                                                   

Our thrilling alphabetical series on councillors’ mileage expense claims to Wirral Council’s Human Resources department continues with Councillor David Elderton. Councillor David Elderton is a Conservative councillor for West Kirby and Thurstaston ward. We were supplied with ten pages relating to him and thankfully he seems to be submitting them on a monthly basis and actually filling them in!

It contains interesting details in it such as details of a briefing about Wirral Council’s Hoylake Golf Resort with that popular person at Wirral Council [officer name redacted]. In fact there are many redactions, which is probably why HR took about a month to do this.

I’ll point out it’s not Councillor David Elderton redacting this, it’s Wirral Council officers. The issue of a briefing for councillors in that area about the Hoylake Golf Resort was discussed at a meeting of Council so it’s nice to see it happened, albeit with Wirral Council’s usual air of secrecy about the whole matter. When are Wirral Council going to be open and transparent with the public about this matter instead of shrouding it in the veil of commercial interests and secrecy?

A lot of the rest of the pages are to do with Councillor David Elderton’s work on Wirral Council’s Planning Committee, its associated site visits and other committees that he is on. As he provides departure and arrival times it shows how long things take when a councillor lives at the other end of the Borough from Wallasey Town Hall. It’s a shame the redactions of it don’t help with understanding more about the work councillors do behind the scenes away from the gaze of the cameras and public.

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 1
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 1
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 2
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 2
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 3
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 3
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 4
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 4
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 5
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 5
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 6
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 6
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 7
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 7
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 8
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 8
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 9
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 9
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 10
Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 10

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.

In Ankh-Morpork, Lord Devices discusses the future of Lyndale, leaks, consultation and golf with his minions

In Ankh-Morpork, Lord Devices discusses the future of Lyndale, leaks, consultation and golf with his minions

In Ankh-Morpork, Lord Devices discusses the future of Lyndale, leaks, consultation and golf with a minion

                                               

Charles Dance as Lord Vetinari in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal
Charles Dance as Lord Vetinari in Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal

The following is a work of satire.

Deep in the heart of Ankh-Morpok, Lord Devices (who had become Lord a few months after the removal of Lord Fooks a few years before) was meeting with his employees.

“I’m afraid I have bad news your Lordship, the Guild of Lyndale Workers is not happy with your plans to put them out of work and there is outright rebellion among the people against you.”

Lord Devices frowned. He wasn’t used to his employees openly challenging him like this, but had been warned by his advisers in the past to be nice as it was exceedingly expensive not to, even though there were some days they would try the patience of a saint. His short reply was “but we consulted them first didn’t we?”

The minion, looking rather worried that his name would be added to the list of five hundred employees that were getting the chop thought very carefully about how to reply to such a question. “Yes we did, it was a marvellous consultation! We asked people’s opinions far and wide and received nearly a hundred replies.”

Lord Devices looked puzzled, “and we told them all we would be reading the consultation responses too before reaching a decision?”

The minion replied, “Oh yes, we did, albeit after someone gave them the impression we’d made our minds up already.”

Lord Devices frowned, “I thought it was up to me to decide!” starting to look decidedly cross and rather grumpy.

After first retreating a suitable distance the minion said, “Well, unfortunately a rather junior minion gave the public the impression you would just be rubber stamping our previous recommendations to close the school as per your previous decisions in this matter.”

Lord Devices’ voice got louder, “What? Who dared to do this? Who dared to challenge my authority to decide things?”

Careful consideration of what to say next prompted the following response, “Well as you know your Lord, nobody is ever personally accountable here and no names are ever given to the public, but if you wish we will investigate whether we should take disciplinary proceedings against this very junior employee. If anyone asks, we then have a convenient scapegoat.”

There was a pregnant pause followed by “None of your loyal minions would ever do such a thing.” said with a smile as the last sentence was said in an obvious attempt to curry favour in a decidedly difficult situation.

Lord Devices said, “Very well and is there anything else about this Lyndale matter I should know about?”

Thinking on his feet, the minion said, “Well as per ‘instructions’ we argued that the over ten thousand signatures on the petition didn’t comply with our policies and therefore that only a few hundred should be accepted. This led to us being referred to as ‘childish’ in the press by one of the parents.”

Lord Devices said, “Don’t worry about that, only half the city receives that newspaper and many of the people that do, can’t read thanks to our excellent education system. Is there anything else?”

The minion said, “Well, there have been leaks…”

Lord Devices starting to look furious replied, “Leaks! Who’s been leaking stuff?!” as his blood pressure rose to unsafe levels “Really, I thought we’d clamped down on leaks!!! Didn’t we threaten that blogger recently for printing leaks?”

The minion replied, “Well yes we did, but sadly we can’t keep a lid on the whole golf thing now.

The blogger in question seems to know some aspects of the law better than we do. He even took one of those Lib Dems politicians to court and won.”

Lord Devices started beaming at the mention of one of his enemies having to answer to a judge in a courtroom and losing, “You still haven’t mentioned what was leaked. What was it?”

Realising he shouldn’t lie or prevaricate the answer was, “Well there were hundreds and hundreds of documents. In fact so much our press department would go into meltdown and start asking for time off if the public started knowing about them all. One of them relating to Lyndale was that we were paying another school far more per a child than Lyndale which we deliberately failed to mention in our report to you. It’s a school that isn’t earmarked for closure, but is a special school. It makes our arguments about Lyndale being too expensive look a little hollow now.

The blogger also has a year’s worth of legal invoices containing many, many secrets we’d prefer to keep hidden and some very embarrassing invoices relating to an IT contractor.”

Lord Devices frowned and his voice grew a little louder, “and why did nobody try to stop him?”

The minion replied, “We did, we redacted and redacted and redacted! In fact we even we did it so much we had to order more black marker pens (our supplier is now offering us a bulk discount)! The trouble is he’s clever and figures out what has been blacked out. We assume he must be getting some sort of outside help but so far our spies have yet to report back on this.”

Lord Devices said, “So what you’re saying is if the public knew about these things, if the public knew how much we were spending on things we wish to keep a lid on, it would be harder to justify shutting Lyndale?”

The answer given was “Yes, but there is another matter too.”

Lord Devices said, “I hope this is good news.”

The minion said, “Well, we tried to distract the blogger with a report about Fernbank Farm.”

Lord Devices said, “Did this cunning ploy work?”

The reply was “Well he did start writing about Fernbank Farm instead but he’s branched out into satire and wrote about it as a Wild West tale and now people are laughing at us.”

Lord Devices was not amused. “So what you’re basically saying is this. The press have received a large amount of highly sensitive and embarrassing information (including the consultation responses).

Not only are people starting to laugh at us, but employees have started to act like politicians in outright insubordination at my elected authority!

You do realise that now I’m going to get the blame for what’s gone on now? There’s no way my merry band of politicians are going to agree to take the blame for all of this!! It isn’t our fault our instructions were carried out incompetently! We have to face the public in elections next year, you don’t! The Greens won in my ward this year, even my seat isn’t safe any more!”

The minion replied, “Well as usual we have a plan B which we’ve already started on. For the sake of our careers, we’re leaving this now up to you. Politicians come and go, but officers don’t.”

If you click on any of these buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people. Thanks:

Councillor Walter Smith “I must say I enjoyed lavish hospitality”

Councillor Walter Smith “I must say I enjoyed lavish hospitality”

Councillor Walter Smith “I must say I enjoyed lavish hospitality”

                         

I’ve had a chance to listen to what is probably the first mention of this blog on BBC Radio Merseyside on Friday and include a transcript below of what was said (as Roger Phillip’s show is only available to listen online for a week after the show) along with Cllr Walter Smith’s reply later in the show. It’s referring to this blog post Graham Burgess invites Wirral Council councillors to 5 days of the Open Golf Championship.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Now Paul from New Brighton is on the line, hello Paul.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Hello Roger, thanks for taking the call.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Pleasure.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Errm, I’m a golfer and I’m really chuffed that Merseyside and particularly the Wirral have got the Open err next week and you know the world’s eyes are going to be on us.

Errm, well one of the things that does concern me as a Wirral taxpayer is that my Labour run Council’s Chief Exec Mr Graham Burgess has sent a letter out, which is in the public domain now, thanks to a leak errm to all councillors inviting them to a five day jamboree basically, corporate hospitality, err at the Wirral Council’s errm event, event tent that is at the Open.

There’s only one councillor who’s publically come out and said this is not acceptable in this time of cuts and people you know sort of fighting a Council here that challenges them on bedroom tax. They actually go to appeal against them and I think the public on Wirral and on Merseyside should know this is what some politicians are getting up to. You know it’s pretty disgraceful really.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Well they tell us that it’s one trial session on Wednesday or something when there’s no competition going on. I’m not quite sure exactly more than that, they are sending us a statement but that’s what they’re saying it is.

Also as regards to the bedroom tax they say that they have to do that, the government makes them challenge these appeals, these things.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Well on those two points, if you actually go to the Council and ask to see Mr Graham Burgess’ letter to councillors, there’s a five day programme there which is inviting people, sorry which is inviting councillors.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Well that’s not what he’s telling us.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Well I’m afraid then, he’s not being honest with you.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Well it’s the press office really to be fair, but I mean they’re very clear it’s a two hour session on Wednesday, he might have given them the whole programme because they may want to go and see other things but in terms of what he’s inviting them to it’s a two hour session non competitive time on the Wednesday.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Well we’re in obviously in dispute on that, but I would say it’s there in the public domain and you should see it and maybe make a news comment on it later. In respect of the bedroom tax, he is legally within the right framework to say he’s not going to oppose it, but you know in Liverpool and Sefton the Council does not waste council payer’s money going up against appeals that these poor people who are struggling to find money to pay for Council Tax for bedrooms that are less than fifty square metres, you know it’s abhorrent that you’ve got a Labour Council that’s doing this!

ROGER PHILLIPS
I’ve now got the statement, it’s not quite what I said. This is the statement. It is not true that all sixty-six councillors have been invited to attend the whole of the Open competition. All councillors have been invited onto the course for a short time, where there will be no bar on one practice day, not a competition day.

The email your caller’s referred to was in fact sent to two people to attend key business days, which are aiming to attract significant inward investment into the area. It is only those people who were extended that invitation, one of which has declined. In addition, the Leader of the Council will be in attendance hosting these important inward investment sessions.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Well that’s what you have spin doctors for isn’t it?

ROGER PHILLIPS
Why couldn’t it be the truth?

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Well it isn’t the truth Roger, because there is a website hosted by John Brace on the Wirral and he’s published that letter, I suggest you go and look at it.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Well there is a letter, but it only went to two people, one of which has declined.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Well OK, well you know I can’t prove that and neither can probably..

ROGER PHILLIPS
Well I can’t, but I mean I think it unlikely that the Council’s going to send us a direct open lie.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Well when we get photographs of the councillors attending over those five days and put them on the internet you know which I will do because you know I’m a taxpayer and I’m quite disgusted by the actions of this Council. Then we will see who attended and who didn’t and they’re answerable to the electorate.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Well there’s nothing to stop them attending, as long as they pay.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
No, if they pay for their own ticket.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Well absolutely so a picture of a councillor attending means nothing.

PAUL FROM NEW BRIGHTON
Well we’ll see, ok thank you for your time Roger.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Alright cheers.

……….

ROGER PHILLIPS
But now then, Councillor Walter Smith is on the line from Liverpool City centre, he’s a councillor in Wirral. Hello Walter.

COUNCILLOR WALTER SMITH
I just wanted to put the err gentleman right who was talking about the lavish hospitality we councillors will be receiving from Wirral Borough Council during the Open Golf at err Hoylake. Errm, can I just say though there will definitely be no lavish hospitality. I don’t know whether they may give us a cup of coffee, I don’t know about that but speaking from my experience in 2010, errm I visited the course with the Council on that day and we had err a hospitality tent which I think we had a cup of coffee, there was certainly no lavish hospitality but what people need to understand is when we have an important event, such as the Open Golf Championship that it’s important that we councillors see what sort of facilities we’re providing, what are the arrangements because the world descends on Hoylake and errm we often have to make decisions based on we’re holding such an event and err so we need to experience it. It’s not very often that we get the opportunity to do that.

Now I must say in 2010 I was extremely lucky. I have a customer who is a capable manager of a hotel group and they had a hospitality suite and he invited me on the Thursday, the first day of the competition and I must say I enjoyed lavish hospitality, I mean I thought I was the luckiest man. I couldn’t have done better if I’d been a millionaire but I didn’t get that because I was a councillor. I got it because I’ve been dealing, tailoring suits for him for years and he invited me to that but that was a completely different type of hospitality to the one we councillors will enjoy at Wirral Borough Council and we’re certainly not invited on any of the competition days, I wish we were but we don’t get such a thing, you know.

ROGER PHILLIPS
OK.

COUNCILLOR WALTER SMITH
So that is the reason is we’re there have a look at, we’ve organised the event and if I mean hopefully we’ll do this again and we’ll have some experience of if there were any shortfalls in the organisation. So that is the reason and I think we should squash immediately any such thought that councillors are living it up at the taxpayer’s expense. That is clearly not the case and it hasn’t been for some years.

We don’t even have a drink with the Mayor every sort of four or five months like we used to because we’ve cut out all the frills because we’re in an extremely difficult period for local government funding. Wirral Borough Council will have lost 57% of its income err over the next few years, over the last three or four years.

So clearly we are in a difficult position. We certainly don’t want to spend any funds on a beanie except providing services for the people that pay their council tax.

ROGER PHILLIPS
You’re gilding the lily.

COUNCILLOR WALTER SMITH
Can I just finish off while I’m on? I haven’t been on for ages with you. I keep meaning to ring just to mention these constant attacks in the press and the media in general on Ed Miliband as though he’s ineffective. Now I must say for myself as a Labour Party member I did not vote for Ed Miliband to be Leader of the Labour Party. I voted for his brother David because I know David Miliband, I’ve met him some eight or nine times and I picked him out as a Leader of the Labour Party in 2004. I met him at a conference and I thought how able he was but I must say for myself as someone that didn’t vote for Ed, I think he’s doing a splendid job, I think he’s put his finger on the pulse on many of the things that concern most of us in Britain today, the cost of our energy, electricity, gas, err rail fares, errm and all that type of thing.

ROGER PHILLIPS
but he’s not getting the ratings

COUNCILLOR WALTER SMITH
and he’s certainly doing a great job.

ROGER PHILLIPS
but he’s not getting the ratings Walter whatever you say, people you know give Cameron better ratings.

COUNCILLOR WALTER SMITH
Well Roger whenever was errm the Leader of the Opposition ever getting the rating? I remember Jim Callaghan was streets ahead of Mrs. Thatcher in 1979. Did we get elected?

ROGER PHILLIPS
Alright Walter, I need to leave it there but thank you very much.

COUNCILLOR WALTER SMITH
Well listen Roger, you are the media, you know, I know you’re well read, you keep up to date with everything and I tell you I, it’s interesting the Leader of the Opposition never err

ROGER PHILLIPS
gets the ratings

COUNCILLOR WALTER SMITH
gets the sort of vote that you think

ROGER PHILLIPS
Alright,

COUNCILLOR WALTER SMITH
that he should.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Alright, thanks a lot for that. Cheers Walter.

COUNCILLOR WALTER SMITH
Nice to speak to you anyway, all the best Roger. Good bye.

ROGER PHILLIPS
Well that was Councillor Walter Smith.

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.

Consultants, golf, politicians and Wirral Council: What could possibly go wrong?

Consultants, golf, politicians and Wirral Council: What could possibly go wrong?

Consultants, golf, politicians and Wirral Council: What could possibly go wrong?

                         

Last Friday Wirral Council published a General Exception Notice about reporting to Cabinet the results of a soft market test exercise about Wirral’s golf courses. Interestingly it says the reason for the exception notice is that there is no Cabinet meeting in August (something that is hardly unsurprising as the draft calendar of meetings for this municipal year was agreed last December). The other reason given in the notice is that the earlier a decision happens, the greater the potential savings.

The Cabinet meets on the 7th July and Claire Fish’s report at the agenda item Soft Market Testing Exercise – Golf Courses and it can be read on Wirral Council’s website. It’s not what’s in the report itself, but what’s not in the report that is surprising.

As you can read in this tender notice published back in March, Wirral Council & Chester West and Chester Council jointly issued a “prior information notice” in the supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union. This referred to a prospectus and questionnaire (which were given to those responding to the notice) to decide whether there would be interest from golf operators in running eight golf courses (seven of which are in Wirral). Wirral Council was down as the contracting authority for this exercise, however the telephone number and email contact details given are that of a business consultancy called V4 Services Limited based in Stafford.

Wirral Council’s list of invoices over £500 paid for the month of April, which you can find on this page shows a payment made to V4 Services Limited for £18,757.68 from the technical services department with the description being “consultants”. This amount of £18,757.68 isn’t mentioned in the report, nor is any reference made to V4 Services Limited. As a slight aside I suppose no-one except me has yet spotted that the link to the pdf file for the May payments on that page, is in fact an identical file to the pdf for April payments?

There is a curious grammatical error made five times in the report that you wouldn’t expect the author of the report (Claire Fish (Strategic Director – Families and Wellbeing) on a salary of £121,807) to make. Here are the examples if it from the report (highlighted in bold):

  • 1.3 “Other Council’s have found that similar arrangements can eliminate subsidy entirely”
  • 3.2 “The terms of any agreement or leasehold interest would be determined if the Council’s proceed, and with dialogue the Council’s will seek to secure best consideration.”
  • 3.3 “Both Council’s made it very clear in the documentation released they are open to exploring innovative ways of structuring any prospective arrangement that delivers best consideration and secures arrangements that deliver mutual benefits. At present Wirral Council maintains its own courses, and carries out the green-keeping.”
  • 3.4 “Seven (7) suppliers completed and returned the market questionnaire with varying levels of interest across both Council’s, between full 18 hole golf courses and smaller, pitch and putt courses.”

There’s also a bit of the report that makes no sense at all, under the “legal implications” section is the rather cryptic “This report is based on the structure of delegation”. In my opinion vast sections of the report sound not like they’ve been written by Claire Fish at all, but by consultants. If V4 Services Ltd have been paid £18,757.68 for the soft market testing exercise (that could’ve been done by Wirral Council using in-house resources) they have a vested financial interest in persuading Cabinet to agree to proceed to the next stage of a full procurement exercise (that V4 Services will probably argue they are in a better position to run than anyone else as they ran the soft market testing exercise). So what do you think?

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.