Merseytravel’s Chief Executive David Brown leaving to become Chief Executive of Transport for the North
Merseytravel’s Chief Executive David Brown leaving to become Chief Executive of Transport for the North
Merseytravel (Chief Executive) David Brown 1st October 2015
Merseytravel’s Chief Executive David Brown (pictured to the left) is leaving Merseytravel to become Chief Executive of Transport for the North. He starts in his new job on the 9th November 2015.
The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority met today and appointed Frank Rogers (pictured below and now Deputy Chief Executive of Merseytravel) as an interim Director General/Chief Executive of Merseytravel.
A future meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority will decide on who will be the permanent appointment to be Merseytravel’s Director General/Chief Executive. The report of the Monitoring Officer to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority can be read on Knowsley Council’s website.
Frank Rogers Deputy Chief Executive Merseytravel Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meeting 16th October 2015
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Work on Birkenhead North Park and Ride expansion expected to start in 2016
Work on Birkenhead North Park and Ride expansion expected to start in 2016
Birkenhead North Park and Ride (15th October 2015)
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Merseytravel’s (part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) General Purposes Sub-Committee meeting on the 15th October 2015
I’ll start by declaring an interest as I use the car park at Birkenhead North Railway Station regularly.
At a public meeting today of councillors on the Merseytravel’s General Purposes Sub-Committee officers gave an update on projects including an update on what was happening to expand the Park and Ride at Birkenhead North Railway Station.
A Merseytravel officer had the following to say about this, "Birkenhead North, that’s the extended phase for the Park and Ride. Members [councillors] will remember we had some extensive investment in there over a two-year period, around £5.5 million with what was the Park and Ride interchange and the bridge as part of that scheme.
This is the land that we agreed with Wirral that we would take forward for the expansion of the Park and Ride scheme and that scheme will straddle, will commence early next year and will run through probably for about a five or six month period depending on the contractor’s programme when we receive that back."
There are 266 car parking spaces at the Park and Ride at Birkenhead North Railway Station. The work, expected to start next year to expand the Park and Ride will increase this by a further 366 car parking spaces. An increase in car parking spaces will solve the current problem of over parking.
Merseytravel is expected to ask Wirral Council in the near future for a lease of the land for the Park and Ride expansion at Birkenhead North Railway Station to go ahead.
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Why is the government consulting on abolishing fire and rescue authorities in England?
Why is the government consulting on abolishing fire and rescue authorities in England?
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Police and Fire Collaboration Committee 1st September 2015 Left Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) Right Sir John Murphy (Chief Constable, Merseyside Police)
This article in the Guardian about the consultation on the proposals has the opening two sentences which sum things up, "What do you do if you’re part of a government that believes in decimating the fire and rescue service as a means to making "efficiency savings", only to find yourself regularly thwarted by elected councillors who sit on the local fire and rescue authority? Answer: abolish the fire and rescue authority."
It 2012 the Merseyside Police Authority (made up half of local councillors and half of independents) was scrapped and replaced with a Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner. It would seem the Conservative government wants to do something similar to what the Coalition government did to the police authorities in 2012, but this time to the fire and rescue authorities in England.
What happened to the police authorities and their replacement with police and crime commissioners plus police and crime panels was part of the Coalition agreement:
"We will introduce measures to make the police more accountable through oversight by a directly elected individual, who will be subject to strict checks and balances by locally elected representatives."
The Conservative 2015 manifesto stated "We will enable fire and police services to work more closely together and develop the role of our elected and accountable Police and Crime Commissioners." but didn’t go as far as stating the fire and rescue authorities would be abolished and their functions transferred to the police and crime commissioners.
MTUA accuse politicians of ‘U-turn’ on Mersey Tunnel tolls promises
MTUA accuse politicians of ‘U-turn’ on Mersey Tunnel tolls promises
For those not from Merseyside and reading this in far-flung lands, I had better first explain what the Mersey Tunnels are. Anyone local to Merseyside reading this can skip the next paragraph.
Liverpool is separated from the peninsula of the Wirral by the River Mersey and beneath the River Mersey are two road tunnels and a railway tunnel (the railway tunnel that opened in 1886 is not the focus of this article). One road tunnel connects Liverpool to the town of Birkenhead (called the Queensway Tunnel) and the other with the town of Wallasey (called the Kingsway Tunnel). The Birkenhead Tunnel opened in 1934 and the Wallasey Tunnel in 1971. Both road tunnels are tolled with the current cash toll for cars being £1.70 (different rates apply for those who pay by Fast Tag or different sizes of vehicles).
The issue of the tunnel tolls has been a long running political issue locally and each year the tunnel tolls are set by local politicians. For years the local transport body called Merseytravel (which was then eighteen councillors from the various parts of Merseyside) decided on the Mersey Tunnel tolls. As the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) was created in April 2014, it meant that this year the tolls decision was made by the LCRCA (on a recommendation from the Merseytravel Committee).
The LCRCA comprises the elected leaders of each Council on Merseyside, the elected Mayor of Liverpool, the Chair of the Local Enterprise Partnership and the Leader of Halton. The Chair of the Local Enterprise Partnership (as detailed in the LCRCA’s constitution) doesn’t have a vote when the Mersey Tunnel tolls are set and the Leader of Halton abstained in the vote this year because Halton’s not part of Merseyside.
Earlier this year, in the lead up to the 2015 General Election (to elect MPs) and 2015 local elections (to elect local councillors) politicians from both the Labour and Conservative parties made soothing noises to the public about the issue of tunnel tolls.
Once the running costs of the tunnels and debt repayments are paid out of the money received through tolls, there is now a surplus of around £16 million. The generally accepted position is that legislation, in this case the Mersey Tunnels Act 2004 means that any surplus tolls are only spent on transport projects that are in the Local Transport Plan.
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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meeting of the 13th February 2015 which should start at agenda item 7 (2015/16 Mersey Tunnel Tolls which starts at 1h 3m 4s)
However returning to February 2015 (see video of that meeting above which should start at the right point) politicians on the LCRCA agreed to a freeze in toll charges.
Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson speaking on a motion on the Mersey Tunnels at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 13th February 2015
The Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson, seconded by the Chair of the LCRCA Cllr Phil Davies moved the following motion (agreed at February’s meeting of the LCRCA as you can read in the minutes):
The Combined Authority (CA) calls on:
The Chair of the CA to set up a task group to consider options open to the CA to reduce costs of tunnel tolls and its impact on infrastructure and transportation;
The Head of Paid Service of the CA to produce a report for discussion to inform the setting of tunnel tolls for 2016/17;
The CA to press for a review of the Mersey Tunnel Act in any on-going devolution negotiations.
John McGoldrick, secretary for the Mersey Tunnel Users Association (MTUA) stated,
"Assuming that the politicians meant what they said earlier this year, then it looks as if they have done a u-turn and the users of the Tunnels are to be sold down the river. Instead of stopping the profit taking and reducing tolls, it seems that the City Region’s aim is to use the tolls profits on economic development or infrastructure "across the city region". The people who voted in the May elections have been duped over what Labour’s tolls policy was.
The Conservative party also made promises about reducing or abolishing tolls. It is not yet clear what the Government is going to do and whether they will honour what the Chancellor and others said before the May elections. We urge all drivers and businesses to raise this issue with their MP and local councillors."
Each of the constituent councils in the LCRCA are Labour controlled and those that make these decisions on this matter on the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority are all Labour politicians.
It remains to be seen what the Conservative government’s response will be to the request for greater flexibility on what surplus tunnel tolls can be spent on.
However the MTUA is also against the spending of tunnel tolls on transport projects. John McGoldrick of the MTUA added "Obviously the MTUA aim is no tolls, but as a minimum we want a stop to the use of tolls for non Tunnels purposes."
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What did Cllr Phil Davies’ PR adviser have to say about the LCRCA devolution campaign?
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)
Ben O’Brien of Kenyon Fraser Ltd (a PR company) speaking at the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meeting on the 21st September 2015
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") .
Merseytravel Kenyon Fraser Limited contract Agreement for Consultancy Services relating to High Speed Rail for Liverpool Campaign development and delivery schedule of rates thumbnail
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:
Campaign Strategy and planning, political engagement up to launch
Design and build website inc one year hosting
PR & Media Relations inc pre launch activity, copy, video, photography, staff attendance
Branding and core materials – design and production
Public launch, engagement activity to 12th August
Ongoing PR and media relations activity including Liverpool Echo partnership, copy, photography, social media
Political engagement activity including copy, packs, events, liaison
Events programme – business, opinion former and stakeholder engagement, all supporting activity
Public engagement activity across all Local Authority areas post launch period, petition support, public events
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:
To provide media support as and when required pending recruitment to the vacant posts within the Corporate Communications Team
To roll out support for the Stakeholder Engagement Plan
To provide specialist development and training support
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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