At least £3,787.20 spent by Wirral Council on losing health and safety case

At least £3,787.20 spent by Wirral Council on losing health and safety case

As was reported in the Wirral Globe earlier this year Wirral Council lost a case to the Health and Safety Executive leading to a fine of £25,000 and Wirral Council having to pay the other side’s legal costs of £9,417. The case was to do with twenty-nine workers in its parks and gardens department being affected by Hand Arm vibration syndrome and Wirral Council pled guilty to the case which was heard in Wirral Magistrates’ Court.

This Weightman’s invoice shows that Wirral Council’s costs for a month of Weightman’s work on the case was £3,787.20. It’s an interim invoice though and Wirral Council’s legal costs would’ve been higher were they represented in court.

I could write a lot about the subject of Wirral Council & health and safety, but as there has been much written before on this topic I won’t, but feel free to leave a comment on this topic if you wish. The main peak of the action in the form of anesthesia was observed 3-4 hours after ingestion. Enough anesthetic effect was for approximately 8 hours. With severe pains, Soma does not completely anesthetize, but they remove part of the pain and make it at least somehow portable, with moderate pain they reduce it to the level that one starts hoping for the best. Read more at http://www.shaynahiller.com/buysoma/ The pressure decreases, but for me it is within the normal range.

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Incredible £7404 spent by Wirral Council on legal advice for Birkenhead Town Centre regeneration

Incredible £7404 spent by Wirral Council on legal advice for Birkenhead Town Centre regeneration

Incredible £7404 spent by Wirral Council on legal advice for Birkenhead Town Centre regeneration

                                                               

Earlier this year Wirral Council paid £6,000 to Weightmans for “professional charges in relation to the potential regeneration of Birkenhead Town Centre to include all time up to and including 17 December 2012” and £1,404 for procurement advice from Peter Oldham QC. You can see the invoices by clicking on these links and there’s a Wirral Globe article from July about Neptune being asked to come up with a master plan for the area.

Wirral Council have a Corporate Procurement Unit so why didn’t they ask them for advice instead? They even have sixteen in-house solicitors they could have asked. I wonder if they thought that asking a Weightman’s partner and a QC meant that if someone made a FOI request for the advice, Wirral Council can (rightly or wrongly) claim a section 42 exemption (legal professional privilege). However as this advice isn’t in relation to any legal proceedings, section 42 doesn’t apply. Therefore I’ve made a FOI request for the advice provided on the whatdotheyknow website.

Update: 26th September 2013: Wirral Council have switched it from a Freedom of Information Act request to one dealt with under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and refused it under regulation 12 (5)(e) “commercial confidentiality” and 12 (5)(b) “legal advice privilege/legal professional privilege”.

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Outrageous 20 Page Wirral Council Contract over Secret Hourly Legal Rates

Outrageous 20 Page Wirral Council Contract over Secret Hourly Legal Rates

Outrageous 20 Page Wirral Council Contract over Secret Hourly Legal Rates

                                                         
Before Bill Norman left Wirral Council’s employment he said during a public meeting that Wirral Council had much less in-house solicitors than the previous Council that had previously employed him. Currently Wirral Council has sixteen fifteen people in-house to give legal advice (David Abraham, Ali Noman Bayatti, Louise Kate Bragg, Gregory Oghenebrume Eyitene, Angela Mary Green, Colin John Bennett Hughes, Victoria Michelle Leece, Rosemary Ann Lyon, Elizabeth Macgregor, Anne Frances Quirk, Cecilia Mary Rathe, Sally Jayne Rotherham, Joanne Elizabeth Rutherford, Lucy Victoria Shaw, Surjit Tour and Karen Christina White).

As a result of having more legal work than people employed to do it, work gets outsourced. Some of this is through the North West Legal Consortium that have a website here. Basically it’s a collaboration between a number of local Councils and others (such as Merseytravel, The Office for the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and The Office for the Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire) for legal services from firms such as Weightmans LLP and Eversheds LLP. The “outrageous” clause in my opinion in the contract is this though:-

17. Confidentiality

The Consortium has entered into agreement with Solicitors Firms and Barristers Chambers in relation to discounted fee rates. Each of these rates is commercially confidential to that Firm or Chambers and as such should not, without the prior written consent of that Firm or Chambers be disclosed to any other Firm or Chambers or any other third party outside of the Consortium. Authorities should use reasonable endeavours to ensure either by themselves their servants or agents that they treat such Confidential Information as confidential and safeguard it accordingly; and they hereby agree to use reasonable endeavours not disclose such Confidential Information to any other person without the Solicitors Firm or Chambers prior consent.

What this means is that they can charge a three figure sum an hour for legal advice and despite the public’s right to inspect these documents and make copies (without redactions) Wirral Council will just black box out the amounts on for example this Weightmans table of prices here and here.

With this level of redaction (which extends to the invoices themselves too), how can the Wirral public know they’re getting value for money at these “discounted fee rates”? What’s the rate they’re classed as discounted from anyway? Links to the whole North West Legal Consortium contract are provided below.

North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 1
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 2
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 3
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 4
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 5
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 6
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 7
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 8
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 9
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 10
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 11
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 12
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 13
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 14
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 15
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 16
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 17
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 18
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 19
North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement Page 20