Auditors state Wirral Council doesn’t provide value for money for 2nd year in a row!
Auditors state Wirral Council doesn’t provide value for money for 2nd year in a row!
Cabinet 17th December 2014 voting to close Lyndale School L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan
Wirral Council’s auditors Grant Thornton will be telling councilors on Wirral Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee next Monday evening (25th September 2017) that Wirral Council doesn’t provide value for money.
The auditor’s concerns are to do with the lack of improvement following the OFSTED report last year that rated Wirral Council as inadequate. In a report to be discussed by councillors next week the auditors state:
The Council has established an Improvement Board and developed an Improvement Plan to address the Ofsted recommendations, and provided an update on progress in its Annual Governance Statement. However, a subsequent Ofsted monitoring visit in April 2017 reported that while inspectors identified areas of strength and improvement, there are still some areas where inspectors considered that progress has not yet met expectations.
This matter is evidence of weaknesses in proper arrangements for understanding and using appropriate and reliable financial and performance information to support informed decision making and performance management, and for planning, organising and developing the workforce effectively to deliver strategic priorities.”
Since the publication of the OFSTED report, the Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services Cllr Tony Smith, the Director for Children’s Services Julia Hassall and the Chair of the Improvement Board Eleanor Brazil have all resigned (for clarity Cllr Tony Smith resigned from his Cabinet position not as a councillor).
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What were the 6 A4 pages of partially redacted minutes of a Headteachers’/Teachers’ Joint Consultative Committee meeting and the name of a LGA Associate Tutor that Wirral Council disclosed voluntarily in response to a First Tier-Tribunal (General Regulatory chamber) hearing (case number EA/2016/0033) about a Freedom of Information request first made in March 2013?
What were the 6 A4 pages of partially redacted minutes of a Headteachers’/Teachers’ Joint Consultative Committee meeting and the name of a LGA Associate Tutor that Wirral Council disclosed voluntarily in response to a First Tier-Tribunal (General Regulatory chamber) hearing (case number EA/2016/0033) about a Freedom of Information request first made in March 2013?
Liverpool Civil & Family Court, Vernon Street, Liverpool, L2 2BX (the venue for First-Tier Tribunal case EA/2016/0033)
I will start by declaring an interest as I was the Appellant in case EA/2016/0033. I am also married to my McKenzie Friend in this matter Mrs Leonora Brace.
Court | Room: Tribunal Room 5, 3rd Floor, Liverpool Civil and Family Court Hearing Centre, 35 Vernon Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, L2 2BX
Oral Hearing
On: 16th June 2016
Time: 10.15am
First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber)
Case Ref: EA/2016/0033
Parties Mr | John Brace (Appellant) ICO (First Respondent) Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council (Second Respondent)
Before: Mr. David Farrer QC Tribunal Judge Mr. Michael Hake Tribunal Member Dr Malcolm Clarke Tribunal Member
8 Labour councillors on Wirral Council vote to close Lyndale School from 31st August 2016
8 Labour councillors on Wirral Council vote to close Lyndale School from 31st August 2016
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Yesterday (17th December 2014) Wirral Council’s Cabinet decided to close Lyndale School in Eastham on 31st August 2016. You can watch video of how the decision was reached in the above video, the item on Lyndale School starts at 50 seconds into the meeting. Two of the Cabinet (Cllr Stuart Whittingham and Cllr Chris Meaden) were absent at the Cabinet meeting when it was made.
The councillor who proposed closure of the Lyndale School was Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services). This was seconded by Cllr Ann McLachlan (Cabinet Member for Governance, Commissioning and Improvement).
The vote was as follows:
In favour of closing the Lyndale School from 31/8/16
Cllr Phil Davies (Labour, Birkenhead & Tranmere)
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School L to R Shirley Hudsepth Surjit Tour Cllr Phil Davies Graham Burgess
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour, Bidston & St James) * Note Seconder of motion
Cllr George Davies (Labour, Claughton)
Cllr Tony Smith (Labour, Upton) * Note Proposer of motion
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School closure L to R Cllr Tony Smith Cllr George Davies Cllr Ann McLachlan
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour, Seacombe)
Cllr Chris Jones (Labour, Seacombe)
Cllr Pat Hackett (Labour, New Brighton)
Cllr Bernie Mooney (Labour, Liscard)
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School closure L to R Cllr Bernie Mooney Cllr Pat Hackett Cllr Chris Jones Cllr Adrian Jones
Total 8
Voting Against closing the Lyndale School from 31/8/16
Total 0
Abstentions
Total 0
Therefore with eight votes for, none against and no abstentions, the motion was agreed.
It is possible that at some future point six (or more) councillors will request a call in of this decision. However the Coordinating Committee would decide such a call in and is now short of the two parent governor representatives required to hear a call in on such a matter, you can read this blog post about the questions I asked of Cllr Tony Smith earlier in the week about that.
The Coordinating Committee has 9 Labour councillors, 5 Conservative councillors, 1 Lib Dem, 2 parent governor representatives (although both positions are now vacant) as well as a representative of the Catholic Diocese. It should also have a representative from the Anglican Diocese of Shrewsbury, however the Anglicans have (to my knowledge) not chosen someone yet. That’s a committee of 19 people. However three positions are vacant.
Those associated with the Lyndale School will probably be asking their legal advisers to send a Letter before Claim in this format to Wirral Council’s Cabinet and Wirral Council’s legal department in the near future. Once Wirral Council has received such a letter, they usually have 14 days to respond to such a letter. If the response is not to the proposed Claimant/s’s satisfaction it is highly likely that a case will be filed promptly with the Administrative Court (part of the Royal Courts of Justice) requesting permission for judicial review of the decision to close the school.
If decision on permission for judicial review was granted by a High Court Judge, then it would proceed to a hearing. A decision on permission (if the case was filed in January 2015) would be expected within around three months. If permission is given, a decision on this matter by the court would be expected to be decided within a year (that is if the case if filed in January 2015 by around January 2016 or possibly sooner but certainly before 31st August 2016).
Two newspapers that cover the Wirral area have also written pieces about this decision which you may be interested in reading:
7 Wirral Council councillors, 1 appointment to be longlisted & an HR consultant from Penna PLC; what could possibly go wrong?
7 Wirral Council councillors, 1 appointment to be longlisted & an HR consultant from Penna PLC; what could possibly go wrong?
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Employment and Appointments Panel (Head of Specialist Services) Wirral Council 10th December 2014 Chris Hyams explains the purpose of the meeting
What I’m writing today is an insight into how Wirral Council rushes decisions, it doesn’t seem to follow proper decision-making processes, gets itself in a pickle and how it can bungle even something simple like deciding on a long list based on applications for a senior post at Wirral Council.
First you need to know a bit of background to this story. The current postholder with the title of Head of Specialist Services Emma Taylor (which is in the Families and Wellbeing Directorate) gave Wirral Council her three months notice two and half months ago and leaves at the end of this year. Due to her being one of the senior managers at Wirral Council it is politicians (not officers) that choose her replacement.
On 27th October 2014 the Employment and Appointments Committee (made up of Wirral Council councillors) met, decided on a panel to decide of 4 Labour councillors, 2 Conservative councillors and 1 Lib Dem councillor, the job description/person specification, terms of reference of the panel, to appoint Penna PLC as recruitment consultants (who get paid £15,000 for this recruitment) and also on the process and timescales.
The job was then advertised, applications were sought (which went to Penna PLC) and the closing date for applications was 5th December 2014. Below is a screenshot of the page on Penna’s website for it (currently here but as applications have closed this link may not work for long):
screenshot Lead Wirral website taken on 11th December 2014 Wirral Council Head of Specialist Services timetable
As you can see the closing date for applications for this post (which went to David Slatter of Penna PLC shown in the above video) is 5th December 2014.
“3. Exempt Information – Exclusion of Members of the Public
The public may be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information.
RECOMMENDATION – That in accordance with section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business, on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined by the relevant paragraphs of Part 1 of Schedule 12A (as amended) to that Act. The public interest test has been applied and favours exclusion.
4. Appointment of Head of Specialist Services, Families and Wellbeing Department
To consider the applications for this post. ”
Interestingly between the agenda for this meeting being published and the version of the agenda we got handed out just before the public meeting started (late), agenda item 4 had been changed to add (Applications enclosed) (see below).
Employment and Appointments Panel (Head of Specialist Services) 10th December 2014 agenda
Now this is the weird aspect of this, the agenda published on 2nd December stated the public interest test had been applied (by a Wirral Council officer) stating no reason why the public were to be excluded, based on applications that were yet to be supplied by Penna until after the closing date of the 5th December.
Applications were circulated to those on the panel, I saw this with my own eyes being done in person on the evening before shortly before the Cabinet meeting on the 9th December 2014.
However a different bit of the Local Government Act 1972, s.100B (4) and (5) required the applications for item 4 to be circulated five clear days before the meeting (which obviously didn’t happen).
The law is quite clear that even for items where they are planning to exclude the press and public that this has to happen otherwise the item can’t be taken unless “by reason of special circumstances, which shall be specified in the minutes, the chairman of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency.” and I didn’t see that happen during the first three items.
The meeting itself started five minutes late as Cllr Tony Smith was late and was over by about half an hour later.
The other point I would like to raise is this? If the public and press were excluded, why was David Slatter of Penna PLC (who is neither a Wirral Council employee nor councillor) allowed to stay in the room? Shouldn’t he have left and why didn’t the Chair ask him to when we left?
However it often happens at Wirral Council meetings that the Chair assumes anyone sitting round the table the committee is sitting on is an employee or councillor. For example recently the Pensions Committee excluded the press and public from part of a meeting. We left, but their auditor from Grant Thornton stayed despite falling into the category of press/public just because they were sitting around the table, therefore it was assumed they could be there.
I’ve seen the same happen at many other Wirral Council public meetings too that go into private session. There are members of the public present but they stay and the meeting carries on despite them being excluded from the meeting. Maybe chairs don’t understand what exclusion of the public means?
Politicians (especially those chairing meetings) can’t have it both ways. If the committee agrees to exclude the public then public and press (not councillors and officers) have to all leave. Otherwise it makes a complete mockery of the law and brings Wirral Council’s decision-making into further disrepute!
Do chairs of public meetings at Wirral Council actually understand what they’re deciding? Are the legal advisers advising the committees aware of the laws about public meetings or do they (mainly) just only offer an opinion if asked for the sake of their careers and not “rocking the boat” with politicians who could get them suspended?
Or is the real answer that Wirral Council has outsourced even part of its HR function to the private sector so much that it couldn’t actually function without having the private sector present during private parts of public meetings when the private sector seemingly have no actual legal right to be there? Am I wrong to expect fairness in Wirral Council’s decision-making?
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this and will be interested to read the minutes of yesterday’s meeting when they are published too.
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Wirral Schools Forum member expresses concern at proposed £600,000 cut for children with special educational needs
Wirral Schools Forum member expresses concern at proposed £600,000 cut for children with special educational needs
Wirral Schools Forum 3rd December 2014 Agenda item 4 Consultation on the local schools funding formula L to R Andrew Roberts, Julia Hassall, Richard Longster (Chair)
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Above is video of the Wirral Schools Forum meeting of the 3rd of December 2014 which discussed the local school funding formula and PFI and Central Budget Review
The first main agenda item was consultation on the Local School Funding Formula – Verbal Update (Consultation letter to schools attached). There had only been three or four responses to the consultation so it was extended to the end of term. There would be a further report back to the Wirral Schools Forum meeting in January 2015. The officer Andrew Roberts was not sure whether this was being the proposals were not contentious or whether schools needed more time to answer the questions asked (the questions asked as part of the consultation are below):
1. Looked After Children Question 1 – Do you agree that deprivation funding should be top sliced to help equalise
funding per pupil for deprived and looked after children?
2. Deprivation Question 2 – Do you agree a cap on the amount allocated per FSM per pupil should be
implemented? Do you have any additional comments?
3. Low cost High Incidence SEN and KS3/4 AWPU Question 3 – Do you have any comments on these areas?
4. High Needs Place Funding for Alternative Provision (AP) Question 4 Do you have any comments on this proposal?
Brian Jordan, headteacher at Bebington High Sports College said that the proposed changes had a bigger effect on schools such as Bebington High Sports College as it had higher proportions of pupils attracted the pupil premium.
Other members of the Wirral Schools Forum commented on the proposed changes, Andrew Roberts replied, Brian Jordan made a further point and the Chair thanked people for their “points well made” and moved to item 3 (PFI and Central Budget Review).
Andrew Roberts gave a long introduction to this report and appendix which was about making permanent savings to the central budget of £2.3 million to pay for the costs of PFI to the Council’s contractor. He referred to the Schools Forum Working Party and comments that were made on the various proposals. He was asking for the School’s Forum’s views on the proposals which would make up the budget which would be brought back to the Wirral Schools Forum in January 2015.
The Chair stated he would run through the proposed savings individually to see if there was any opposition.
3.1 £23,600 saving in admissions – no opposition
3.2 £200,000 saving from school closure/retirement costs – no opposition
3.3 £25,000 saving from School Sports Coordinator – there was opposition and some explanation from officers explaining what this saving was not about, it was suggested by officers that even if it was deleted from the budget that in the future schools might be able to buy it back as a traded service
3.4 £180,000 saving in school intervention – there was opposition to this
3.5 £120,000 saving from City Learning Centres – there was opposition to this
3.6 £45,000 saving from LACES – no opposition
3.7 £11,600 saving from clinical waste disposal – no opposition
3.8 £19,800 saving from use of swimming baths – no opposition
3.9 £200,000 saving from PPM (planned preventative maintenance) – no opposition
3.10 £25,000 saving from insurances – no opposition
3.11 £600,000 saving from SEN (special educational needs) top ups – opposition
3.12 £200,000 saving from statements – no opposition
3.13 £200,000 saving from support for SEN – no opposition
Here is what one Schools Forum member had to say on making a £600,000 saving from SEN top ups which is at this point in the video, “I think the special schools have written to Andrew [Roberts] further to that answer about £600,000 coming out of SEN contingency. The SEN contingency is around £900,000 but the question was asked as to why it hadn’t been distributed to those children with the statements by the top up banding system?
The top up banding, the top up errm allocations that were decided in 2012 for 2013/14, based on the staff budgets with an understanding that we’d look at the needs of the children in those schools and look at comparative neighbouring authorities. We’ve since looked at comparative neighbouring authorities and Wirral is by far the lowest, for an SLD school on Wirral we pay £7,000 above, Knowsley and Sefton paid ten and a half, Cheshire paid fourteen and Halton paid twenty-five. The … seems a similar picture, Wirral pay eight, Halton pay between seven and twenty-five, Cheshire paid thirteen and that goes with children not just within the special schools sector but children with base provision within primary and secondary as well.
And we’ve got to remove £600,000 suddenly gives the local authority no way to adjust that top up either today or in the future. Once it’s gone it’s gone! The special schools are also facing increased costs of the TA [teaching assistant] regrading. The TA … that are now in effect for £2,500 for each member of staff and considering the amount of staff we have within the special schools sector and within the primary base and secondary base provision. It’s going to have a huge impact upon budgets and it was felt it was a huge amount to come out of one sector.”
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