LGA Peer Review calls for “a more productive relationship with the media” and for exemplary behaviour by councillors on Liverpool City Council

LGA Peer Review calls for “a more productive relationship with the media” and for exemplary behaviour by councillors on Liverpool City Council

LGA Peer Review calls for “a more productive relationship with the media” and for exemplary behaviour by councillors on Liverpool City Council

                             

Right: Mayor Joe Anderson (Elected Mayor of Liverpool City Council) Left: Former Chief Executive of Liverpool City Council Ged Fitzgerald 21st April 2017
Right: Mayor Joe Anderson (Elected Mayor of Liverpool City Council) Left: Former Chief Executive of Liverpool City Council Ged Fitzgerald 21st April 2017

This evening councillors on Liverpool City Council’s Audit and Governance Select Committee at a public meeting will discuss a recent Local Government Association Peer Review of Liverpool City Council.

The report contains this about Liverpool City Council’s relationship with the media and the behaviour of its councillors,
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Why did 2 Wirral Council councillors take taxi journeys costing £83.60 each time?

Why did 2 Wirral Council councillors take taxi journeys costing £83.60 each time?

Why did 2 Wirral Council councillors take taxi journeys costing £83.60 each time?

                                              

Wirral Council Cabinet meeting at Birkenhead Town Hall Thursday 12th March 2015 Left to right Surjit Tour, Cllr Phil Davies and Joe Blott
Wirral Council Cabinet meeting at Birkenhead Town Hall Thursday 12th March 2015 Left to right Surjit Tour, Cllr Phil Davies and Joe Blott

This year, during the 30 day inspection period I requested the Eye Cab Limited invoices for the contract for taxis for councillors.

An option in the Eye Cab Limited Passenger Transport Contract to extend it for a further year was taken up by the Council which meant it ran to the 31st August 2017.

Wirral Satellite Cars (who have recently merged with Argyle Taxis to become Argyle Satellite) won the the contract to supply taxi journeys to councillors which started on the 1st September 2017. Major parts of the new contract have also been redacted on grounds of commercial confidentiality.

The Eye Cab Limited invoices supplied cover March 2016, April 2016, May 2016, June 2016, July 2016 and August 2016. Apologies if the text can be a little hard to read, but these were how they were supplied by Wirral Council.

These are for taxi journeys by Cllr Moira McLaughlin, former Cllr Steve Niblock, Cllr Tony Norbury, Cllr Irene Williams, Cllr Warren Ward, Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Phil Davies and Cllr George Davies.

Wirral Council has decided to redact from these invoices, the name of the Wirral Council employee that these invoices went to and the mobile telephone number for Eye Cab limited. Some of the start points and end points of these taxi journeys have also been redacted by Wirral Council who deem it to be unfair processing of personal data for the public to know the home addresses of councillors!

One matter that does stand out are two taxi journeys made on the 5th July 2016 and the 7th July 2016 costing £83.60 each (as Wirral Council received an invoice each time for a 70 mile round trip rather than just the mileage between points A and B). Both journeys are shown on the invoice as being related to Cllr Phil Davies and both relate to taxi journeys to Manchester Airport.

Wirral Council have pointed out that Cllr Phil Davies shared the taxi journey with the Deputy Leader of the Council Cllr George Davies and the purpose of it was travel to and from the LGA Conference held in Bournemouth between the 5th and 7th of July 2016.

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What did Liverpool councillors say about death and 2 cars at an incredible public meeting?

What did Liverpool councillors say about death and 2 cars at an incredible public meeting?

What did Liverpool councillors say about death and 2 cars at an incredible public meeting?

                                       

Cllr Frank Prendergast MBE calls another Liverpool City Council councillor a “slimeball”
Cllr Frank Prendergast MBE calls another Liverpool City Council councillor a “slimeball”

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).

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What does the LGA Peer Review of Wirral Council state on overspending, agency staff, morale, consultation and leadership?

What does the LGA Peer Review of Wirral Council state on overspending, agency staff, morale, consultation and leadership?

What does the LGA Peer Review of Wirral Council state on overspending, agency staff, morale, consultation and leadership?

                                                   

Cllr Ann McLachlan Cabinet Member for Transformation and Improvement at a Cabinet meeting on the 7th March 2016
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Cabinet Member for Transformation and Improvement) at a Cabinet meeting on the 7th March 2016

To very little fanfare, Wirral Council have published the 12 page peer review conducted by the Local Government Association last year. This was accompanied by a press release which glosses over some of the criticism in the peer review.

Here are some quotes from the peer review (followed by my comments in italics):

Financial Strategies

In past years the council has been overspending in some directorate revenue budgets and using its reserves to balance the revenue budget. This issue was reflected in the previous peer challenge in 2012 and the council needs to develop the 2016/17 budget and not divert from it. It is currently anticipating a £9.2m slippage on this year’s savings target of £38m.

Political leadership

The Leader’s role as Chair of the Merseyside City Region is seen as recognition of the important role that the Wirral is playing in the development of the city region.”

 

Well shortly after this peer review, Cllr Phil Davies resigned as Chair and Mayor Anderson is now Chair of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

“However, the Senior Leadership Team is not currently giving adequate corporate leadership and this needs to be much stronger if the Plan is to be delivered effectively. More connected leadership is needed from the top to the bottom of the organisation. The council must have the senior officer leadership resource to create capacity to deliver change. The peer team also had a concern at the current high use of consultants and interims who are providing temporary specialist support. This is not a concern about consultants/interims per se, but an observation about their number and duration. The council should continue to ‘invest to save’ – efficiently and effectively – using the right external help for specific time-limited purposes, but look to reduce the overall number of longer-term interims in key roles. The council needs to move quickly to a new organisational shape to support the Chief Executive, including providing the right kind of strategic level capacity.”
 

If I hadn’t written Why has Wirral Council spent £6,003,273.07 on temporary staff over the past 10 months? around a year ago, would this have even been mentioned in the peer review?

Relationship with residents

The council and its partner agencies recognise that they want to form a different relationship with residents in the future. There is general recognition that relationships with local communities has been negatively impacted by the past challenges the council has had to deal with. The new relationship will be based on a clearer Wirral narrative, a greater ability to listen to resident’s issues, making better use of the data and intelligence the council gathers across the Wirral and greater use of channels use as digital and social media.”

 

Ahh, listening to residents’ issues such as over 6,000 signing a petition against closure of Girtrell Court but you go ahead and decide to delegate closure to the Cabinet Member anyway? Or is this all part of listening to residents then doing the opposite of what they want?

The Council’s approach to partnership working

There is evidence of community involvement in the council’s budget processes, although more limited evidence that this has influenced decision-making.”

 

So, this seems to imply that when Wirral Council have a budget consultation, the consultation has a limited effect on the decision after the consultation?

“There is also an opportunity for a more coordinated and cost-effective approach to community engagement amongst the Wirral Partnership members. This might extend to a more joined up approach to communications and campaign activities.”
 

Despite reading this a few times, I’m a little unsure what this means? Anyone care to hazard a guess? I thought the constituency committees were supposed to do community engagement?

New Models for Service Delivery

Delivering significant change must take account of some instances of low staff morale generated by the perception of indiscriminate universal cuts in service provision in recent years.”

In other words Labour councillors constantly going on about government cuts nearly every public meeting is damaging staff morale at Wirral Council.

“The move to new ways of working will need to be driven by a much more powerful Senior Leadership Team to collectively own and drive transformation.”
 

In other words, there’s going to be a senior management restructure and some managers are going to be leaving.

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What did a 3 year FOI battle with Wirral Council reveal about councillors’ equipment and training?

What did a 3 year FOI battle with Wirral Council reveal about councillors’ equipment and training?

                                                    

ICO Information Commissioner's Office logo
ICO Information Commissioner’s Office logo

A fortnight ago, required to do so by ICO decision notice FS50596346 Wirral Council finally provided some more information in response to my FOI request first made on the 29th March 2013.

I will point out (in case you’re wondering why it has taken nearly three years to get to that point) that this request has also been the subject of two other ICO decision notices FS50509081 and FS50569254.

So far Wirral Council has stated that the information requested would cost too much (section 12), that to give me the information would be prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs (section 36), that they class that doing an internal review of that decision as vexatious (section 14) and now finally when all of those prior decisions have been proven to be flawed, they withheld some of the information requested claiming it’s personal information (section 40).

My feeling about this is that Wirral Council, who refer to their approach in public as open and transparent have tried to engage in attrition warfare with myself and the regulator ICO over this request.

Mind you this is Wirral Council. Wirral Council is where responses to FOI requests from the press get delayed because they have to be "signed off" by the former head of their press office Emma Degg and their Monitoring Officer Surjit Tour?

So what did I request that was released a fortnight ago? One document was minutes of the Members’ (Members’ means Councillors’) Equipment Steering Group meeting held on the 7th February 2013. The other document was minutes of the Members’ Training Steering Group held on the 19th March 2013.

Quite what is in these two documents that requires a nearly three year cover up about their contents, I’m not sure. The scanned pages Wirral Council have supplied for the meeting of the Members’ Equipment Steering Group and the Members’ Training Steering Group are unfortunately scanned at a low resolution which can make them hard to read. So I will reproduce them both below starting with the Members’ Equipment Steering Group. As that mentions audio recording and webcasting of committee meetings I will declare an interest.

The part of this request that relates to the minutes of a meeting of the Headteachers and Teachers Joint Consultative Committee I have appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) and am at the stage of awaiting ICO’s response to my appeal.



Actions from Members’ Equipment Steering Group Meeting held on 7 February 2013

  1. Actions from the last Meeting
    I Pads had been discounted at the last meeting.

  2. Members’ Homepage and Toolkit
    – Homepage
    Members would consider the proposed content and come back to XXXXXXXXXXXX with any suggestions for inclusion.

    – Toolkit
    The proposed detail of the Members’ Toolkit was endorsed and XXXXXXXXXXXX would progress it.

  3. Councillor Equipment Device Options
    XXXXXXXXXXXX would obtain a price for the following devices:
    430 i 5
    430 i 3
    A recommendation will be made to the Cabinet subject to price and specification
  4. Councillor Equipment Printer Options
    The preferred printer was HP Office Jet 8000. In exceptional circumstances only would a Member’s own printer be connected to the network.
  5. Wireless in Wallasey Town Hall
    All Committee Rooms in the Town Hall would have wifi facilities by the time Members were in possession of their new IT kit.

    Officers will look at the possibility of Members being able to receive emails on smart phones via wifi.

  6. Councillor Equipment Rollout Timetable
    – Personally owned Ipad
    A system would be purchased, configured and installed by IT Services to allow Members to use their own Ipads.

    – Laptop
    This was an option. Members will keep their existing bag.

    – Router
    This was an option.

    – Telephone Handsets
    Members would keep their existing handsets.

    – Furniture
    New furniture would not be purchased

    – Modern.gov Application
    Modern.gov could provide an Application so that Personal Devices could access "Exempt Items" at a cost of £3000. This would not be taken up

    – Political Offices
    Office staff would not be included in the new equipment roll out.

    – Windows XP and Office 2010

    – Broadband Choices

    – Further Members’ Survey

  7. Councillor Case Management Systems
  8. Use of Personal Electronic Devices
  9. Use of Councillors own equipment
  10. iPad and HP Slate Autumn Trial
  11. Audio Recording and Webcasting of Committee Meetings
  12. Date and Time of Next Meeting

    XXXXXXXXXXXX to canvass Members and arrange the next meeting.

  13. Any Other Business


Below should be the Action Minutes of the Member Training Steering Group held on the 19th March 2013. On the original there is a third column with OD (Organisational Development) Team written next to points two to nine. It’s easier to write this in HTML without creating the way it is laid out as a table so I have left this out. I’ve also left out the page numbers and the filename/path on Wirral Council’s computer that it’s stored. However these can be viewed on the original.


Action Minutes

Member Training Steering Group

19 March 2013

Apologies -: Surjit Tour, XXXXXXXXXXXX

Attending -: Cllr McLachlan (Chair), Cllr Clements, Cllr Glasman, Cllr Gilchrist, Cllr Harney, Cllr Hornby, Chris Hyams, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

  1. Welcome and introductions

    The group welcomed XXXXXXXXXXX who is an associate tutor with the LGA and will be providing an overview of the Leadership Programme for Members

    Noted that Cllr Clements did not attend the last meeting and apologies had been received.

  2. Minutes and Matter Arising

    a) Terms of Reference
    Agreed that the Chief Executive would be included as support for the group.

    The group would continue to sign off requests for training and will continue to be mindful of the travel and accommodation costs.

    Agreed that OD would report back on a quarterly basis training approval decisions.

    Agreed to put the terms of reference into themes and circulate.

    b) Recruitment to Leadership Modules

    Agreed that Members should forward names to XXXXXX to reserve a place on the course and to contact XXX should they have any queries.
    An introduction session will run on the 10th April a Flyer will be sent out providing the details of the session. XXXXX explained that the Pre course briefing would cover an introduction to the programme followed by the completion of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire as this would form the basis for the content on Module one, feedback would then be provided either face to face, which preferable or over the phone, prior to the programme commencing on the 8th May.

    It was noted that participants are required to attend both modules to benefit from the programme.

    c) Elected Member training onto the committee calendar

    Agreed to escalate the request to include members training from the skills for Wirral programme into the committee calendar.

  3. Standing Item – Training Update (since last meetings)

    a) 13th February – Developing the Council of the Future

    Noted that 30 attended the event with a mixture of feedback

    Agreed to chase up the feedback from this event and share with Members.

    Agreed to look at how Member’s could be provided with more opportunities to feedback and participate in these events.

    b) Public Health and Wellbeing: 20 February 2013

    Noted that 9 attended with very good feedback

    c) Understanding Local Government Finance: 27 February 2013

    Noted that 8 attended with very good feedback

    d) Media Skills

    Noted that 2 attended with very good feedback

    e) High Level Communications Skills

    Noted that 5 attended with very good feedback

    f) Attendance on training

    Agreed to continue to send reminders for training but as a rolling programme of events that month and to include flash reminder the day of the training that spaces are available.

  4. Standing Item – Upcoming training ( Members Development Programme)

    a) Effective Surgeries and Caseload Management Training

    Agreed to look at were we are up to with an Electronic System for case load Management. Meeting already arranged with IT to discuss this and Members IT training, feedback would be provided at the next meeting.

    b) Training Venues

    Agreed to look at other venues rather than The Laurie’s Centre for Elected Member training sessions and move the training already book to other venues, to minimise costs.

  5. Standing Item – Approved Duty Requests

    No outstanding approved duties

    a) Spending for Approved duties

    Members to discuss and feedback as to how they would like to spend monies for approved duties, agreed to monitor on a case by case basis.

    b) Feedback from Events Attended

    Agreed to look at feedback from events and if particularly effective consider developing a Wirral version of the event.

  6. Standing Item – Budget

    a) Profile 2012-2013

    Budget profile discussed and noted that there would be an under spend this year. Details shared with the group.

    b) Profile 2013-2014

    Approximately £13,000 has been committed to date. Budget to be monitored at each meeting.

    c) Spending for Approved Duties
    Agreed to explore options around external funding available.

  7. Members Development Charter.

    a) PDP Returns
    46 PDP have been completed with 6 scheduled for April. This would bring the total to 52 PDP completed, which takes us over the 75% requirement for completion of the Members Charter. Agreed to continue to encourage the completion of all outstanding PDPs.

  8. Members Development Programme Accreditation

    a) Agreed for flyer to be sent to all Elected Members to promote the programme

    b) Additional information from ilm to be sent to Cllr Harney

  9. AOB

    a) 4th April New Constitutional Event 6pm – 8pm Floral

    b) 16 May Key Transformation and Improvement Agenda Session
    Suggestion from Cllr Glasman Ethics and Conduct.

    c) Training for Members – Directorships and Trusts

    Advert to be sent to Elected Members when programme agreed

  10. Date and Time of next meeting

    30 April 2013 4 – 5.15pm



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