Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside | A blog about Wirral Council, Wirral Council's councillors & officers

What would ICO make of these 2 documents open to public inspection?

19th May 2017 Police and Fire Collaboration Committee Chief Constable Andy Cooke Merseyside Police (right)

19th May 2017 Police and Fire Collaboration Committee Jane Kennedy PCC Merseyside center

Above are photos of the Chief Constable of Merseyside Police Andy Cooke and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside. One has responsibility for the operational side of policing, the other for the political side of policing. It was a sixteen and a half minute meeting to discuss collaboration and can be viewed on Youtube here.

CCF22052017 00000 restricted email Estuary Park stamp duty

For some reason this email (see above) about a stamp duty amount of £103,200 is marked restricted.

So the following has been blacked out:

Blackburn Dawn
Riley John Michael Edward
John Riley
Chief Finance Officer
0151 777 5177
john.riley@merseysidepcc.info

So far, that information is in the public domain already.

So, that’s probably a one off you’re thinking. But what about this £2.58 million payment?

Oh yes they’ve done it again!

Bank Name: Lloyds Bank PLC
Branch: Merchants Court, 2-12 Lord Street, Liverpool, L1 1TS
Reference: PCCM Estuary Park
Sort Code 30-95-11
Account No: 01091450
Payee: DWF LLP

On the plus side, unlike the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service they didn’t accidentally release the specimen signatures for the bank accounts too!

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Why did the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside need a seconded part-time Private Secretary costing £16,828 a year?

Job Description Private Secretary to Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner seconded from Liverpool City Council

A few years ago, before Jane Kennedy was re-elected as Police and Crime Commissioner earlier this year, the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel agreed to her request for a Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside in June 2014. Previously Jane Kennedy had stated she wouldn’t need a Deputy but changed her mind.

The appointment of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner (a part-time role of three days a week work with a salary of over £30,000) was first made to Cllr Ann O’Byrne (at the time also Liverpool City Council Cabinet Member for Housing), then in August 2015 the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner changed to Cllr Sue Murphy (a St Helens Council councillor). Cllr Sue Murphy continued as Deputy PCC until the end of Jane Kennedy’s term of office in May 2016. After Jane Kennedy’s re-election Sue Murphy was then was re-appointed as Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner by the councillors on the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel on the 14th July 2016.

In addition to the £31,800 paid to the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner (from June 2014 to the 1st May 2016, then from 14th July 2016 onwards) Liverpool City Council had been providing a seconded employee (part-time) to be a “Private Secretary” to the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner at a cost of £16,828 a year.

I requested the contract during the audit. In the interests of transparency here is the Secondment Contract Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside Liverpool City Council Private Secretary to Deputy PCC (zipped file). It’s provided as a compressed (zipped file) in case you want to read it (apologies for the poor contrast on the first 5 pages but that’s how it was provided to me).

However here’s one quote from the “Principal Accountabilities” bit of the job description, “Vet incoming correspondence addressed to the Deputy Police & Crime Commissioner/Chief of Staff, deciding on the most appropriate manner by which it should be dealt with, this ensuring that only relevant correspondence is filtered through to the Deputy Police & Crime Commissioner.”

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Why did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend “up to £16,474” on an “austerity” review with Liverpool John Moores University?

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)

The author of this piece was briefly employed by Liverpool John Moores University on work experience in February 1997 (although this was 15 years before Police and Crime Commissioners existed). However in the interests of transparency I’m declaring it as an interest.

The recently reelected Jane Kennedy (Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside) who is pictured above to the left of the photo has often spoken in public about her views on the Merseyside Police budget, the funding of the Merseyside Police and has even referred to her “sleepless nights” worrying about it all.

The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spent up to £16,474 (see the purchase order below) with Liverpool John Moores University to “commission a scoping review of the scale, dimensions and implications of austerity on community safety, crime prevention and diversionary services within Merseyside.”

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside purchase order 20th October 2015 Liverpool John Moores University up to £16474

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£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!

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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Election Result (Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner, 2016): Labour hold (Jane Kennedy)

Name of candidate	Description	Votes	%
Jane Elizabeth KENNEDY	Labour Party	186,661	61.76%	Elected
David Robert BURGESS-JOYCE	Conservative Party	54,000	17.87%	Not elected
Christopher David Vincenzo CARUBIA	Liberal Democrats	34,625	11.46%	Not elected
John Bernard Cowan COYNE	Green Party	26,967	8.92%	Not elected

There were 11,754 rejected ballot papers.

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What would ICO make of these 2 documents open to public inspection?

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Why did the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside need a seconded part-time Private Secretary costing £16,828 a year?

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Why did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend “up to £16,474” on an “austerity” review with Liverpool John Moores University?

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£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!

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Election Result (Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner, 2016): Labour hold (Jane Kennedy)

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