£206,000 extra for Wirral’s potholes, £170,000 for selling “ornamental pleasure gardens” and a land swap to a body that doesn’t exist!

£206,000 extra for Wirral’s potholes, £170,000 for selling “ornamental pleasure gardens” and a land swap to a body that doesn’t exist!

£206,000 extra for Wirral’s potholes, £170,000 for selling “ornamental pleasure gardens” and a land swap to a body that doesn’t exist!

                                        

Jane Kennedy (left), the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Labour Party candidate in the 2016 elections for a Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside at a public meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (2015)
Jane Kennedy (left), the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside | Right Sir Jon Murphy QPM (Chief Constable)

Wirral Council has accepted an extra £206,000 from the government’s Pothole Action Fund to be spent on (no prizes for guessing) fixing potholes on Wirral’s roads.

The details are in a report, but they expect to repair around 3,887 potholes and Wirral Council will be publishing a report on how they spend the money.

Of the £206,000 allocation, £116,000 is planned to be spent on surface dressing, £20,000 on “micro-asphalt” and £70,000 on patching.

The surface dressing work will be carried out in August and the micro-asphalt work is planned to start in July.

In other news, Cllr George Davies has managed to agree a land swap with a public body that was abolished in 2012. Yes, I couldn’t make this up if I tried!

The Merseyside Police Authority (abolished in November 2012) is now the “owner” of a piece of land (according to his decision). Maybe Wirral Council needs to move with the times and realise it’s the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside (after all only last month we had the second election for who would be Merseyside’s Police and Crime Commissioner)!

Finally, onto a phrase you don’t hear very often on this blog “ornamental pleasure garden”. Wirral Council has decided to sell land next to Gibson House to a developer for £170,000 despite covenants restricting its use to an “ornamental pleasure garden”.

Wirral Council selling off green space is of course a worry elsewhere on the Wirral with its flagship Hoylake Golf Resort project causing such concerns a local Hoylake councillor Cllr Gerry Ellis recently called for the project to be scrapped.

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Expense claim forms for Councillor John Hale (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Expense claim forms for Councillor John Hale (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Expense claim forms for Councillor John Hale (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

                                                   

Carrying on with the series of councillor’s expense claim forms we get to councillors whose surnames begin with H and the first one of those is Councillor John Hale. Councillor John Hale is a Conservative Party councillor for the ward of Hoylake and Meols (that’s the name of one ward not two different wards). He’s been a councillor since 1975 and according to Wirral Council’s website apart from a few months in 1999 has been a councillor for nearly all that time.

He’s one of Wirral Council’s representatives on the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel who earlier this year banned filming at one of their meetings in Birkenhead Town Hall. The Merseyside Police and Crime Panel most recent meeting on September 4th 2014 could be filmed (however we weren’t at it). I will however point out that Councillor John Hale was a member of the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel but wasn’t present at the meeting of 24th April 2014 when that filming decision was made by Councillors Frank Prendergast (Everton, Liverpool City Council (Labour)), Peter Brennan (Old Swan, Liverpool City Council (Labour)), Doreen Kerrigan (Linacre, Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council (Labour)) and Moira McLaughlin (Rock Ferry, Metropolitan Borough of Wirral (Labour)).

However in a cunning move the “powers that be” (Knowsley is the host authority for the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel), made sure that future meetings of the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel are now held in Huyton (reason given was “cost grounds” at the public meeting I wasn’t allowed to film earlier this year) which when you consider this increases the costs of many councillors’ expenses claims travelling there, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s staff travel costs etc it would seem to be a rather spurious claim as although Knowsley said they could get their own Council Chamber for “free”, it’ll still form part of the administrative costs I’m sure they’ll claim back from the Home Office.

It seems a common theme that the increased costs of doing things differently are never brought up in a public meeting (which let’s face it in many places are run for the convenience of officers and councillors not the “public” who often aren’t even there) just the supposed “savings”. After all Knowsley officers had a very long briefing (in private) with the four councillors before the meeting started and one can only guess (from what was during the public meeting that they wouldn’t allow to be filmed which is a decision that didn’t even make the official minutes) that the officers persuaded them to hold future public meetings where officers work (therefore Knowsley officers wouldn’t have to travel much to different bits of Merseyside but the many people on the Panel, whether independent members or councillors, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s staff and everyone else going to this meeting would have to travel further) and not holding it at a more central place in Merseyside. I assume it’s Wirral Council paying these travel costs (for its councillors on the Panel) because nobody has ever told me whether these expenses are recharged back to Knowsley (as the host authority).

What however is interesting to note is that Knowsley Council received £53,000 in 2013/14 for the administration costs of the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel and £11,040 for those on it (which is up to £920 per panel member for expenses) from the Home Office.

Maybe Knowsley think the room hire cost for Birkenhead Town Hall is just too extortionate when you consider Knowsley are only receiving a paltry £53,000 from the Home Office!

However peering into the murk of Wirral Council councillor’s expense claims, it’s now unclear whether Councillor John Hale’s expense claim to Wirral Council for travelling to the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel are (or have been) recharged back to the host authority Knowsley or not. Certainly if Knowsley is getting “up to £920 per member for expenses” it would seem terribly unfair for Wirral residents to be footing the bill through both national and local taxes whilst Knowsley gets the money. It’s something I’ll have to ask Wirral Council’s auditor Grant Thornton about though as I’m unsure.

Its predecessor body (before the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in November 2012) the Merseyside Police Authority met in Liverpool City Centre. However from what I remember the new Police and Crime Commissioner Jane Kennedy as far as I know decided that the building the Merseyside Police Authority used to meet in wasn’t needed. Public meetings involving the Merseyside Police now happen in a variety of different locations.

Huyton, from a historical perspective is part of Lancashire and we both half wondered if this came about because in Birkenhead Town Hall (whilst waiting for the briefing to finish) we both said in earshot of a Knowsley Borough Council employee that if they had the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel as far away as Huyton that we probably wouldn’t be able to get to its public meetings.

This is just one aspect of his expenses claim though but if expenses aren’t currently being recharged back to Knowsley it may represent a small saving to Wirral Council if it was. It’s certainly a question I should ask of Wirral Council’s auditors.

Below are Councillor John Hale’s expense claim forms.

Cllr John Hale expenses claim 2013 2014 page 1
Cllr John Hale expenses claim 2013 2014 page 1
Cllr John Hale expenses claim 2013 2014 page 2
Cllr John Hale expenses claim 2013 2014 page 2
https://johnbrace.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/cllr-john-hale-expenses-claim-2013-2014-page-3.jpg
https://johnbrace.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/cllr-john-hale-expenses-claim-2013-2014-page-3.jpg
Cllr John Hale expenses claim 2013 2014 page 4
Cllr John Hale expenses claim 2013 2014 page 4
Cllr John Hale expenses claim 2013 2014 page 5
Cllr John Hale expenses claim 2013 2014 page 5

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The incredible £754,783.18 that Wirral Council councillors cost (plus amounts for the Mayor & Deputy Mayor)

The incredible £754,783.18 that Wirral Council councillors cost (plus amounts for the Mayor & Deputy Mayor)

The incredible £754,783.18 that Wirral Council councillors cost (plus amounts for the Mayor & Deputy Mayor)

                      

To very little fanfare (compared to the local newspaper coverage that used to go with the annual publication of MP’s expenses), Wirral Council has published on its website what it paid each of its councillors for 2013-14 with a breakdown by basic allowance, responsibility allowance, telephone rental (although this is a £NIL amount for everyone on that list), expenses, subsistence, travel expenses and car mileage. Despite replying to a FOI request and stating this was part of Wirral Council’s “openness and transparency” it is in fact a legal requirement that they publish this information annually (if you’d like to leave a comment referring to the specific Act of Parliament or regulations that require them to do this feel free).

This list includes three people who aren’t councillors but are “independent persons” and are appointed by Wirral Council councillors. These three have a role set down in law in dealing with complaints about councillors. They are also co-opted on Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee (whose next scheduled meeting has been cancelled).

Unlike the councillors none of these three get a basic amount, but receive £25 for each meeting they attend of the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee. In addition to this they are able to claim car mileage for meetings associated with their role. The annual amounts for these three are the smallest on the list being £90.80 (Dr. Burgess-Joyce), £122.40 (Brian Cummings) and £208.10 (RS Jones).

For the politicians, the lowest annual amount paid was to Cllr Matthew Patrick of £3,794.14. This is because he was only elected part way through that year in October 2013 in the Upton by-election. The by-election in Upton happened because of the death of Cllr Sylvia Hodrien, who also appears in the list receiving a part year amount of £4,373.84. Former Councillor Darren Dodd is the only other name to receive a part year amount of £6,019.11 as he resigned part way through the year and moved to Leeds.

The rest received the basic allowance of £8,712.48. In addition to this amount roughly half receive an extra responsibility allowance which for this financial year applied to thirty-three out of the sixty-seven councillors. An extra responsibility allowance is paid to the ten members of the Cabinet (generally an extra £9,171 although the Leader receives £22,927), chair of a committee, leader or deputy leader of a political group etc. The largest responsibility allowance paid was to Cllr Phil Davies of £22,926.96 (this is in addition to the basic allowance of £8,712.48). The smallest amount (that wasn’t £NIL) paid as a responsibility allowance was to Cllr Lesley Rennie of £203.38.

In total (the councillors and independent persons) claimed a total of £5,171.75 in car mileage payments, £490.99 in subsistence payments (this a meals allowance when they’re away from home for over four hours) and £1,684.64 in “expenses”.

The total cost (from this list) to the taxpayer for 2013-14 for the councillors and three independent persons was £754,783.18.

For some obscure reason I’m not really sure of, in earlier years the amount that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are paid is published separately. This doesn’t seem to have been done yet this year (at the time of writing), but in 2012-13 came to a total of an extra £12,228.80. I would guess that the amount for the mayoralty in 2013-14 would be a similar amount to this.

A number of councillors also represent Wirral Council on outside bodies. There are two councillors who represent Wirral Council on the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority are paid an extra £1,834 each. These amounts are paid directly by Wirral Council to these councillors.

There are other outside bodies such as Merseytravel (four councillors from Wirral Council) and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority (four councillors from Wirral Council). These two pay these councillors directly extra amounts for these extra responsibilities. A list similar to the one Wirral Council produces is published on their organisation’s website annually. These amounts are not included in this list from Wirral Council as such payments are made directly to councillors by those bodies rather than through Wirral Council.

A resolution to Council in previous years required Wirral Council to publish these extra amounts received too from bodies funded through the council tax such as Merseytravel, the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority and until it was abolished and replaced with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside & Police and Crime Panel, the Merseyside Police Authority.

As with the complicated scheme in place at Wirral Council, these amounts can vary quite considerably from a basic allowance that all receive to large amounts for the Chair.

Taking one public body, the figures for Merseytravel (which is now part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) haven’t been published on Wirral Council’s website for 2013-14, but the 2012-13 figures show that Wirral Council councillors received a basic allowance each of £5,202.13 (with part year payments to Cllr Blakeley and Cllr Foulkes), an extra special responsibility allowance for three councillors ranging from £1,095.38 to £4,063.29 as well as travel & subsistence payments ranging from nothing claimed to £997.99.

So, although the “cost of democracy” at Wirral Council is at least £754,783.18, in addition to this amount is the cost of the Mayor & Deputy Mayor and the currently difficult to find amounts councillors receive for representing Wirral Council on outside bodies (which Wirral Council should following a resolution agreed by Wirral Council publish on its website but in recent years hasn’t).

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Police and Crime Commissioner (Merseyside) Poll: Who do you think you would be most likely to vote for?

Poll on 2012 Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner election candidates Geoff Gubb | Hilary Jane Jones | Paula Clare Keaveney | Jane Kennedy | Kiron Reid | Paul Duane Rimmer


Declaration of Interest: The author is an elector in this election.

Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Candidates | 15th November 2012

There are six candidates for the one Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner vacancy following close of nominations yesterday (19th October 2012). Polling day is on 15th November 2012. They are as follows (in alphabetical order):-

CANDIDATE
SURNAME
Candidate Full Name Commonly used surname (if any) Commonly used forename (if any) Party Description
GUBB Geoffrey Ian GUBB Geoff The Conservative Party Candidate
JONES Hilary Jane UKIP
KEAVENEY Paula Clare Liberal Democrats
KENNEDY Jane Elizabeth KENNEDY Jane Labour Party Candidate
REID Kiron John Cuchulain REID Kiron Independent
RIMMER Paul Duane English Democrats – “More Police – Catching Criminals!”

As there is more than one candidate it is a contested election. Each candidate is allowed to spend up to £182,529 on their election campaign and has to provide receipts for any expenditure over £20. Each candidate has had to pay either a cash deposit or banker’s draft deposit of £5,000 (6*£5,000 = £30,000 in deposits collected in total). If any candidate receives less than 5% of the vote their £5,000 deposit won’t be returned. Donations over £50 to a candidate’s campaign also need to be recorded.

The vote will be under the Supplementary Vote system, which means if any candidate gets more than 50% of the 1st choice votes they will be elected the winner. Everyone voting will get a 1st and 2nd choice vote. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the 1st choice votes, then the 2nd choice votes are used (but only 2nd choice votes that were for the candidates that had the most and second most 1st choice votes). So say for instance 100,000 ballots are cast. The candidates are Candidate A, B, C, D, E and F and the first choice result was D (32,600), E(32,400), C (15,000), F(8,000), A(5,000) and B(2,000) would result in:-

First round
Candidates C, F, A and B eliminated. B loses £5,000 deposit.

Second round

First Choice Second preference votes for D Second preference votes for E
C 5,000 4,900
F 2,000 3,000
A 1,500 1,500
B 600 600
Total 9,100 10,000

These votes are then added to the totals for the first round. So:-

Candidate D 32,600 (first round) + 9,100 (second round) = 41,700
Candidate E 32,400 (first round) + 10,000  (second round) = 42,400

Candidate E is declared the winner with a majority of 700.

UPDATED 20/10/2012: The author received his polling card in this election today.
Declaration of Interest: The author is an elector in this election.
Declaration of Interest: The author was a student at a university which employs one of the candidates (Kiron Reid).
Declaration of Interest: The author was previously in the same political party as two of the candidates (Kiron Reid and Paula Keaveney).

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