Tag: whistleblowing

Why did Wirral Council include Ian Coleman as a whistleblowing contact in the Passenger Transport Contract?

Why did Wirral Council include Ian Coleman as a whistleblowing contact in the Passenger Transport Contract?

Why did Wirral Council include Ian Coleman as a whistleblowing contact in the Passenger Transport Contract?

                                                 

Here is my first question to Wirral Council’s auditor (Grant Thornton) about the Passenger Transport Contract.

Wirral Council has a contract with Eye Cab Limited called the "Passenger Transport Contract". This contract started on the 1st September 2014 and runs to the 31st August 2015 and is for the provision of taxi services.

I requested to inspect a copy of the contract (see Audit Commission Act s.15(1)(a)) which was arranged for the 4th September 2015. As a local government elector for the Wirral area, I can question the auditor about the 2014/15 accounts from 9.30am on the 18th August 2015 until the accounts are closed (see Audit Commission Act 1998 s.15(2)).

Page 36 of the contract has a section titled &quotSection 5 CONFIDENTIAL COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE (Whistle-blowing) A Guide for Suppliers and Contractors (see attached page 36).

Passenger Transport Contract Wirral Council page 36 of 40 thubmnail
Passenger Transport Contract Wirral Council page 36 of 40

At the bottom of this page of the contract it details two people that a complaint under the whistleblowing procedure can be made to.

The second of these individuals is:

"Ian Coleman, Director of Finance, Wirral Borough Council, Finance Department, Treasury Building, Cleveland Street, Birkenhead, Merseyside, CH41 6BU"

Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee agreed early voluntary retirement for Ian Coleman on the 3rd October 2012 (see attached minutes).

Therefore as Ian Coleman was not an employee of Wirral Council at the time the Passenger Transport Contract was put out to tender (or when the contract was agreed) why was he included as a whistleblowing contact in the contract?

Yours sincerely,

John Brace

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Merseytravel’s Head of Internal Audit brands some whistleblowing as “Mickey Mouse” & “complete nonsense”

Merseytravel’s Head of Internal Audit brands some whistleblowing as “Mickey Mouse” & “complete nonsense”

Merseytravel’s Head of Internal Audit brands some whistleblowing as “Mickey Mouse” & “complete nonsense”

                                                                 

ED 26/11/14 15:16 – Following a complaint from Merseytravel received on the 26th November 2014, the word “some” has been added to the headline for the purposes of clarity.

Declaration of Interest: The author of this piece was years ago involved as the Claimant in litigation against Merseyside Passenger Transport Authority (defendant) and Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive (defendant) that started and concluded in 2007 in the Birkenhead County Court. This was after first raising his concerns internally with its former Chief Executive Neil Scales and former Chair of Merseytravel Cllr Dowd. At this stage the matter could have been easily settled for £15 but Merseytravel chose at that stage not to.

Merseytravel’s legal costs in the matter were estimated at £thousands (which Merseytravel paid themselves and would have had to pay whether they won or lost). The increased legal costs of Merseytravel were partly because of what happened as detailed below.

During the case Merseytravel’s barrister (in my opinion a barrister is indeed slight overkill for a £15 claim in the small claims track in the county court, but I know now it’s common practice in the public sector to do this) had to (rather embarrassingly) ask for the permission from both the Claimant (myself) and the Birkenhead County Court to withdraw the first signed witness statement of their expert witness (a Merseytravel employee) after I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in their witness statement (that the witness (a Merseytravel employee) had indeed signed a statement of truth for).

Merseytravel also sought (initially but later changed their mind on that) in 2008 to withhold documents referred to from the Claimant that were referred to in their defence. If I remember correctly a Merseytravel employee stated to me at the time that such documents (which were details of their charging policy for lost Solo and Trio passes) were not for the public.

The final judgement in the case (by agreement by both Merseytravel and myself) was later modified by the Birkenhead County Court due to a factual error made by the Judge who had not taken into account an earlier application in the case and chosen to ignore me pointing this out to him at the time of the hearing.

Although the judge at the final hearing agreed with me that Merseytravel had discriminated against me three times because of a protected characteristic, the court accepted Merseytrave’s reliance on a statutory defence that discrimination on these three times was justified due to a “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim” because of decisions by politicians.

The four councillors from Wirral Council at the time on Merseytravel (the Merseyside Passenger Transport Authority) were:

Cllr Ron Abbey (Labour)
former Cllr Denis Knowles (Labour at the time but switched to the Conservatives)

It is perhaps to be noted that as is relevant to how politicians and those in the public sector relate towards protected minorities (and this point here is obviously to do with attitudes towards a different protected minority) that Denis Knowles in 2012 later faced a Wirral Council Standards Hearing Panel hearing based on a complaint of Denis Knowles after a comment he left on Facebook about members of the LGBT community who were members of the Labour Party. He was suspended at the time from the Conservative Party.

former Cllr Jacqueline McKelvie (Conservative)
Cllr Dave Mitchell (Lib Dem)

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A councillor asks a question about Merseytravel's whistleblowing policy at a public meeting of its Audit and Governance SubCommittee 24th November 2014
A councillor asks a question about Merseytravel’s whistleblowing policy at a public meeting of its Audit and Governance SubCommittee 24th November 2014

Cllr Steve Foulkes (Vice-Chair of Merseytravel’s Audit and Governance Sub-Committee) now part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority sent his apologies to a public meeting to discuss Merseytravel’s whistleblowing policy and was not present.

Officers of Merseytravel were asking councillors for their comments on a draft whistleblowing policy which included such priceless paragraphs as:

“10.2 If you do take the matter outside Merseytravel, you should ensure that you do not disclose confidential information acquired during your employment unless it falls within the qualifying criteria for protected disclosures. Premature or inaccurate media exposure or adverse publicity may cause needless reputational damage, impede a proper investigation or cause unnecessary distress to individuals.”

I will translate those two sentences in the draft policy into what my interpretation of the intention behind it is and probably in much clearer English:

“10.2 If you rat on us to the press, not only will we [Merseytravel] start spinning to the press and refer to any damaging press report as “inaccurate”, we’ll go after you (despite what the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 c.23 states as we’re more bothered with our reputation and making sure that we control the flow of information about our organisation to both to the public and politicians.”

The references made during the public meeting itself to a hypothetical whistleblower as “Mickey Mouse” (whether made in jest or not) speaks volumes about cultural attitudes that still persist at Merseytravel.

However bearing in mind my unusually long declaration of interest made at the start of this piece, I had better not let how dysfunctional Merseytravel was in 2007 influence my reporting of it in 2014 as the Merseytravel politicians of 2014 are keen to put its somewhat chequered past behind it.

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Merseytravel’s (now part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s) Audit and Governance Subcommittee public meeting of the 24th November 2014

The whistleblowing item (item 7) starts at 31m 48s into the meeting and can be watched above. The report and draft policy can be read on Merseytravel’s website.

Councillor Fulham at the meeting asked, “Thanks Chair. Errm, I appreciate that on page 48 of the agenda and at 7.4 in the policy, errm it says that this part of the that I’m looking at, I’ve found somewhere I’m looking at says this policy applies even if after investigation, disclosure is found to be incorrect or unfounded and there are statutory protections which the policy acknowledges for people who errm make a protected disclosure, that’s found out too. Well at the end of the process is found out not to be errm founded but it might be a reasonably held disclosure.

But what worries me is on page 46, where it says policy statement, under errm in chapter 4 “we will investigate all genuine and reasonable concerns”, but the way I would approach things, you can’t make an assessment whether it’s genuine or reasonable until you’ve investigated it? So it kind of precludes the investigation. So errm, why is that there?”

Stephanie Donaldson, Merseytravel’s Head of Internal Audit answered “OK, you’re absolutely right in so far as how can you tell that anything’s genuine or legitimate until you investigate it, so realistically everything will be investigated to a point.

However if something was found to be errm you know complete nonsense for want of a better word then that investigation would cease. We wouldn’t pursue investigating something which is you know completely unfounded or false then, but you’re right that there is the legislation requires that as long as it’s in the public interest it should still be investigated and that’s what the changes to the policy would fly at.

I suppose the purpose of that one in the policy statement and I will take some advice through you Chair from legal, is that errm, that if we received a complete nonsense of an allegation and it’s clearly complete nonsense from Mickey Mouse for example that we would not investigate that, there are boundaries aren’t there?

Errm, but you’re absolutely right to say that in a majority of I think all cases, it would be you have to undertake an investigation in order to assess its legitimacy.”

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The incredible £20,000 report into Dave Green/Colas that Wirral Council wouldn’t release on “data protection” grounds

The incredible £20,000 report into Dave Green/Colas that Wirral Council wouldn’t release on “data protection” grounds

The incredible £20,000 report into Dave Green/Colas that Wirral Council wouldn’t release on “data protection” grounds

                          

Roadworks on the Wirral from 2011
The Colas contract included maintenance of Wirral’s roads

Three and a half months ago I submitted a FOI request for a dozen documents held by Wirral Council that were given to Richard Penn before writing his thirty-nine page report into Dave Green’s involvement in the Colas contract. Over three months later they have replied, providing a copy of the Council’s conflict of interest policy and conflict of interest procedure.

What’s interesting is what’s in the list of ten documents requested that they refused to supply on “data protection” grounds. One of these was a report that cost Wirral Council £20,000 from their then auditor the Audit Commission. It was a twenty-six page Public Interest Disclosure Act report into what happened during the tendering of the multi-million pound Colas contract. Despite Wirral Council’s reluctance to release it in response to my FOI request it was in fact published on their website as it was considered during an Audit and Risk Management Committee meeting that met in September 2010.

Here are some quotes from that report by the Audit Commission that obviously Wirral Council didn’t want to release in response to my Freedom of Information Act request:

“However, the issues raised were genuine concerns and our review did highlight some weaknesses including a lack of clarity about separation of duties, inadequate records and documentation and the need to clarify corporate systems for raising and recording potential conflicts of interest. There were also examples of a lack of proper consideration of or disregard of procedures, for example meeting with potential tenderers during the period between the post tender qualifying stage and tender
submission.” (page 7)

“These weaknesses potentially left the Council and individuals open to external challenge. If there had been external challenge to the contract by an aggrieved bidder, the remedy could have led to substantial damages being paid and loss of reputation by the Council. Going forward, a new EU Remedies Directive applicable to new procurements advertised after 20 December 2009 means that aggrieved bidders now have tougher remedies against public authorities that break procurement rules. The High Court will be able to set aside signed contracts resulting in delays to services, as well as significant and costly litigation and further procurement costs (see Appendix 3 for further detail).” (page 7)

“As noted at paragraph 1, the PIDA concerns were raised with us following an internal PIDA investigation. The Council needs to continually consider the adequacy of its Whistleblowing procedures and how well they are complied with to ensure that individuals have confidence that issues will be fully investigated and lessons learnt.” (page 7)

“Concerns were raised with us that a meeting was held by the Director of Technical Services and another senior officer with one of the tenderers between the post qualifying stage and tender submission.” (page 11)

“However, the meeting was not minuted and so there is no formal record of what was actually discussed. The Director of Technical Services and the other senior officer indicated that the reason for the meeting was to clarify whether tenderers could bid for both the main tender and for the sub-contract work for the in-house tender. Holding this meeting and failing to record it was clearly inappropriate and contrary to procedure and put the Council at risk of non-compliance with procurement regulations and the tenderer at risk of disqualification.” (page 11)

“The invitation to tender clearly specifies the procedure for enquiries from potential tenderers in order for the process to be open and fair for all concerned and to ensure there is no canvassing which would result in disqualification from the tendering exercise” (page 11)

“Concerns were raised with us that the Director of Technical Services had failed to declare a potential conflict of interest regarding a personal friendship with an individual in one of the firms bidding for the contract.” (page 12)

“Our review confirmed that a conflict of interest form was submitted by the Director but this was done retrospectively. We found no evidence of any information being shared as part of this association.” (page 12)

“The Director of Technical Services completed a conflict of interest declaration on 11 November 2008 and submitted it to the Chief Executive to be considered at his next annual Key Issues Exchange (KIE) meeting which was held in November 2008. However, it was following the award of the contract (16 October 2008) and should have been submitted and discussed with the line manager at the start of the tendering process. In addition, as the tenderer was an existing contractor, there should have been existing annual declarations on file. This retrospective declaration has clearly allowed the relationship between the Director and the individual to be viewed with suspicion.” (page 12)

“The Director of Technical Services indicated that the individual in the firm is an acquaintance who is a close friend of his brother who had previously worked for the firm. Although the Director was aware that the individual worked in the firm he judged that there was no conflict to declare. Once he became aware that the individual would be involved in the contract going forward the Director submitted his conflict of interest form in line with his judgement and his interpretation of the Council’s procedures.” (page 12)

“However, Council procedures clearly state that in order to manage conflicts of interest (including any perception of a conflict), employees should complete the form even if there is nothing to declare and return it to their line manager at the KIE and any amendments should be made immediately. During our review we found no evidence of any annual declarations of interest for the Director prior to the one submitted on 11 November 2008 apart from those covering the period when his brother worked for the firm. However, the absence of annual declarations was not unusual in the Council at that time and was raised as an issue in Internal Audit reports during 2008 and a memo dated March 2009.” (page 12)

“The key issue is whether the Director or his line manager should have made the judgement about whether and when a potential conflict should be declared. Our view is that it was the responsibility of the Director to make the line manager aware of his ‘acquaintance’ when the firm first contracted with the Council and this should have been reviewed when the tendering exercise started and the firm received an invitation to tender. The judgement about whether it was a conflict (or a possible perceived conflict) then rests with the line manager and arrangements could have been put in place to ensure that it was appropriately managed and any ‘perceptions’ of conflicts rebuttable.” (page 13)

“As noted above, the absence of annual and updated declarations as well as poor evidencing of review and consideration by line managers was not unusual within the Council. We also found during this review that there were weaknesses in the procedures around the employment of consultants, for example ensuring sign up to confidentiality clauses and completion of conflict of interest forms and supporting consideration (one of the consultants had previously worked for the winning firm).” (page 13)

“The Council needs to continually consider the adequacy of its Whistleblowing procedures and how well they were complied with to ensure that individuals with genuine concerns have confidence that issues will be fully investigated and lessons learnt.” (page 15)

“During the period when the contract was tendered and let any external challenge by aggrieved bidders could have lead to damages being paid.” (page 23)

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Improvement Board (15th November 2013) The next five minutes (a transcript)

Improvement Board (15th November 2013) The next five minutes (a transcript)

Improvement Board (15th November 2013) The next five minutes (a transcript)

                                   

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A previous post on this blog deals with the first five minutes of the Improvement Board meeting. Since then over roughly a week since the video of the Improvement Board meeting was uploaded to Youtube, the first part of the meeting has been viewed nearly two hundred times at the time of writing! As there was such interest in it, I thought I’d continue with a transcript of the meeting, carrying on where I left off which was five minutes and twenty-four seconds in.

Joyce Redfearn (Chair, Improvement Board): We’re going to move on in terms of making sure we get through the questions. John Brace, are you present, yeah?

John Brace: As there are quite a lot of questions and they’re in here already, I’m quite happy with you reading them out if that would be speeding things up a bit.

Joyce Redfearn (Chair, Improvement Board): I think that’s really helpful of you and thank you for submitting it in advance, because people have the script in front of them and because it’s long, I won’t actually read it out as we did in one of the other sessions if that’s alright, but we will let you come back when we’ve given the answer, unlike the other sessions, in terms of if there are supplementary questions or points that you feel we didn’t cover from your email, ok? Thank you. Graham do you want to go?

Graham Burgess (Chief Executive, Wirral Council): Just in response to the first question which relates to a whole series of appendices to the AKA report, our view is that err all the appendices actually contain very sensitive personal information and to release those appendices would be in breach of data protection and also the duty we have to individuals who gave us information in confidence, or in relation to their own personal medical or financial circumstances. Therefore it’s our view that it would be inappropriate to release those documents as they contain a whole host of sensitive information. Clearly these matters can be tested, if you wish to test our view, via FOIs and the Information Commissioner, but so far our position has been and has not been challenged in respect of those appendices. It’s our view as you can see from some of them anyway, clearly showing they do contain very sensitive personal information.

Joyce Redfearn (Chair, Improvement Board): I think that was recognised within the question, certainly in terms of one of the appendices, thank you.

Cllr Jeff Green (Leader, Conservative Group): Yeah, can I just check when the Chief Executive said ‘we decided’ who the we were?

Graham Burgess (Chief Executive, Wirral Council): Well it’s the Council, I clearly represent the Council.

John Brace: Sorry, as I’m entitled to a supplementary on that. In relation to that list, I know that there were councillors present at that one and that was used as a justification that councillors had signed off on the special charging policy, so if you released it with the other names blacked out, wouldn’t that mean people could have at least a bit of accountability as to who the people were who agreed to that?

Graham Burgess (Chief Executive, Wirral Council): Can I also say Chair that with your agreement it would be the intention of the Council to print all these questions, place all these questions on our website and all the answers to them as well so it can be available for people who couldn’t make it at this meeting so they can see what we’re saying.

In respect of that, obviously this is a question that only came in at five o’clock last night which was reasonable and obviously your supplementary has just been asked now so I’d need to probably go away and take advice on that point and we’ll give you the answer both to you John personally and put the answer on the website for everybody to see and certainly Joyce and the Improvement Board will take that into account when they write the final report.

Joyce Redfearn (Chair, Improvement Board): So thank you, for that particular question, it’s really helpful. Do you want to keep on going in terms of the series of questions because we’ve got them in front of us?

Graham Burgess (Chief Executive, Wirral Council): The next question I think refers to the Martin Smith report and again our position is the Martin Smith report was redacted as it contained personal information and the Council has a legal obligation with regards to public disclosure of that information to the individuals mentioned in that report.

The Council’s responsibility extends not only to the public, but to any person or body to which the information relates, the Council considers every case on its merits and maintains its position that disclosure is not appropriate in these circumstances. Once again there are ways of challenging the Council, via the Information Commissioner another way if you think the Council is being unreasonable and the Council has and will always respond to the Information Commissioner’s ruling.

I would say however that perhaps the most important part of that report particularly is the recommendations around our whistle blowing, grievances and bullying policies, all of which have been progressed in line with that report and all of which is referred in response to critical incidents report that’s also considered by the Audit Committee last night.

Joyce Redfearn (Chair, Improvement Board): Thank you, is there anything further as you’re present that you want to ask? Move onto the councillors point which is in the next question.

Graham Burgess: Thank you, I’ll just stay standing up, shall I?

Joyce Redfearn (Chair, Improvement Board): Yeah, I think you should, you could keep your jacket off.

Graham Burgess (Chief Executive, Wirral Council): Again it’s a similar point that the Council does have responsibilities to the individuals named in these reports and this must be considered in relation to disclosure and redaction. Full disclosure of the Martin Smith report would in the Council’s opinion contravene its legal obligations under the Data Protection Act, with regards to upper management’s control of information in its possession.

Once again there are ways of challenging the Council independently if people have a different view and I would encourage people if they don’t agree with the Council’s position to challenge us and we will state our case to the Information Commissioner or any other relevant body. We believe as well as obligations to the public as a whole, we have obligations to individual members of staff, public, service users to protect their interests and that’s why we’re acting in this way.

If however, people think we’re wrong, then it’s worth challenging our position and we welcome people challenging our position. Thank you.

Member of public heckling: You’re wrong, you welcome challenges, you’re wrong. You’re far from being open and transparent and that’s ridiculous. I apologise to you all for that.

Graham Burgess (Chief Executive, Wirral Council): Can I just say?

Joyce Redfearn (Chair, Improvement Board): That’s your view, so I, what we will do is allow further questions and comments at the end and I understand that was a heartfelt, but we’ll go through the series if that’s ok with you.

Member of public who previously heckled: Apologies about the time you take on this decision.

Graham Burgess (Chief Executive, Wirral Council): Can I just say clearly if people think we are wrong, that’s perfectly right to challenge us and there are ways of processing those and it can be challenged independently and we welcome those challenges and if we are wrong of course we will publish the documents.

12:04

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Improvement Board Review Consultation: Some Comments

Improvement Board Review Consultation: Some Comments

Improvement Board Review Consultation

           

Wirral Council is currently running a consultation on a review of the Improvement Board as it looks likely that in the near future the joint Wirral Council/Local Government Association Improvement Board will cease to be. Members of the public can also submit questions to be asked about the review when the Improvement Board meets in public session on Friday (the deadline for questions is 5pm on Thursday).

The report makes interesting reading, I thought I’d just quote from a few sections along with some comments of my own. Quotes are in bold.

“Wirral now is a very different place and has demonstrated an ability to manage some very challenging situations. This ability needs to be sustained and to grow. This report enables us to risk assess whether this is likely to happen.”

This could be read a number of different ways, “manage some very challenging situations” would sound to some like getting better at spin/reputation management. The author of this comment (the Chair of the Improvement Board) seems to be sceptical as to whether Wirral Council’s ability to manage can happen in the future.

“Its aim was to help Wirral to deal with the fundamental corporate challenges it faced, not to respond to individual complaints or reports. It now feels right that the Council and the LGA jointly agree the next phase based upon the recommendations in this report.”

This statement seems rather strange as it was individual complaints and reports that highlighted the “fundamental corporate challenges” that Wirral faced. Had Wirral Council responded (and changed as opposed to just saying they would) as a result of the “individual complaints and reports” things wouldn’t have got as bad as they were.

“At first, as we looked into Wirral’s difficulties, we found further serious issues in addition to those already shared. As we looked at these we felt that some denial was creeping in.”

Ah denial, a speciality of Wirral Council, you can just imagine Wirral Council saying to the Improvement Board, “I feel fine. This can’t be happening, not to me.” It also hints at the fact that in addition to denial there was another factor of Wirral Council’s culture the “conspiracy of silence” otherwise known as “burying your head in the sand”.

“We offered advice, an essential part of our role, to ensure things were not denied or made worse.”

Ah denial is not just a river in Egypt but also flowed through Wirral Council? Many people have tried to offer advice to Wirral Council in the past (some such as external legal firms paid extremely handsomely to do so), wordy reports have been produced with many recommendations, but “fundamental corporate challenges” are a result of cultural issues and will only change when people’s attitudes change.

“One of the real joys has been to see Wirral learning from others, challenging themselves in peer review and growing in confidence about their strengths and ability to contribute particularly in Merseyside.”

Wirral Council is now described in terms that parents usually use for their children.

“Wirral was also considered to be lacking in openness and transparency, and this led to the reputation of the council to be weakened in the eyes of our residents, MPs and the press.”

There are some that would say abolishing the eleven Area Forums which met three times a year and had a standing agenda item at which the public could ask questions they didn’t have to submit in advance and Wirral Council’s recent desire to turn down many recent Freedom Of Information requests claiming exemptions are backward steps with regards to openness and transparency.

“Financial and strategic planning were weak, and systems and processes needed to protect the Council from being exposed to significant risks were not in place effectively, and/or were not
complied with consistently.”

Well Wirral Council’s auditors kept telling them that and Wirral Council kept failing the value for money assessment year after year.

“This created an environment where trust, clarity of responsibilities, vision and strategic planning were not able to flourish, and resulted in behaviours which prevented the Council from being able to serve its community in a way which any ordinary council would want to.”

Again behaviour is referred to which is the result of a culture at Wirral Council.

“These issues culminated in the publication of the AKA report in January 2012.”

Err no, the AKA report was never published in full. Yes, the main body of the report was published, but the seventeen appendices (referred to as annexes in the report) weren’t. These amounted to a few hundred pages of material sent to Wirral Council by AKA with her report that Wirral Council didn’t publish (although its understandable with regards to annex L). This unpublished documents included minutes of a meeting where councillors agreed to the “special charging policy” and wouldn’t have fitted with the narrative that it was all the work of two former Social Service managers.

For reference a list of these appendices are below:-

A Appendices as Referred to in the Report
B Equality & Human Rights Commission Letter Dated 29 December 2010
C First Improvement Plan
D Care Quality Commission Inspection Report
E Charging Policy for Supported Living Services
F Documents Relating to 27 Balls Road
G Standards for England Decision Notices
H Documents Relating to Reimbursement Claims
I Emails Relating to Supported Living Contracts
J Documents Relating to Service Provider 2
K Documents Relating to Service Provider 3
L Medical Information Relating to Martin Morton (MEDICAL IN CONFIDENCE)
M Documents Relating to Service Provider 4
N Minutes of Adult Protection Strategy Meetings Relating to Service Provider 4
O Documents Relating to the Safeguarding Adults Unit
P Minutes of the DASS Monitoring & Development Sub Group Meeting Held on 11 December 2008
Q Employment Dates for WMBC Employees

“Trust and respect needs to be developed between politicians and senior management.”

One of the criticisms in the past was that certain politicians and senior management were so trusting of each other that the politicians didn’t properly hold the officers to account. Maybe more trust and respect needs to develop between these two groups and the Wirral public they are there to serve.

“The need to establish effective governance procedures, particularly with regard to risk management, whistle blowing and audit. Also to ensure there is a clear protocol for sharing information with Members and a clear scheme of delegation. The expectation is that this will contribute to developing a culture of openness rather than
secrecy.”

The constitution includes a “clear scheme of delegation” and if councillors or officers are unsure about how a particular decision is delegated to they should read it! Any employee considering blowing the whistle that knew how previous whistleblowers had been treated would be deterred from doing so if they wanted to remain an employee of Wirral Council (and in the current economic climate there is a lot of competition for vacant jobs). Some have only chosen to blow the whistle after they’ve left the employment of Wirral Council.

“It is proposed to strengthen the independent nature of the Audit and Risk Management Committee through the appointment of a majority of external members.”

This is an interesting recommendation, but would the Audit and Risk Management Committee also have an independent Chair that wasn’t a councillor of the same party as the current administration? I know at least on one other Council the convention is that the Chair of the Audit and Risk Management Committee is always an opposition councillor, as the view is that when the Chair is of a different political party to the ruling administration that the Chair can be free to say what they like without the worry that their party would censure them for highlighting something embarrassing that the ruling administration would prefer to remain out of the public domain.

The current Local Audit and Accountability Bill going through Parliament is discussing a legal requirement on Councils for auditor panels (with the option that a Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee could be nominated as the auditor panel) with the majority of members of the auditor panel being independent members.

“Members have been very engaged in the process and initial feedback is mostly positive, although concerns have been raised about the size of the scope for the Families and Wellbeing Policy & Performance Committee.”

Having one scrutiny committee that covers both education and social care (that together consume a majority of the Council’s budget), that’s already large at about fifteen councillors, plus the half a dozen or so education co optees required by law is too large a committee in both numbers and remit. I think it needs to be split into two committees one focussing on education, the other on social care & health.

“The Council has strengthened the ways in which people can raise their concerns, including the Whistle-blowing and Grievance policies, which will be further reviewed in the light of recent legislative changes.”

I’m curious as to what the “recent legislative changes” referred to are.

“Wirral had one of the highest numbers of Freedom of Information requests in the country.”

Personally I think this is a bit of a myth, I know a number of years ago Wirral Council published in a report how many freedom of information requests they received along with other Councils on Merseyside. I got population figures and calculated the FOI requests per a thousand population. Wirral wasn’t even the highest or second highest out of the Councils on Merseyside. The Council with the highest number of FOI requests per a thousand of population I seem to remember was Sefton (the explanation perhaps being is that there are a number of parish Councils in the Sefton area). Even Liverpool City Council’s FOI requests per a thousand population were higher than Wirral’s.

“leading to a requirement in this last year by the Information Commissioner for Wirral to achieve an audited 85% response rate over a three year period.”

I thought the monitoring by the Information Commissioner was over a three-month, not three-year period, maybe someone can enlighten me with a comment as to whether I or the author of the Improvement Board Review report is right?

“A Leader’s Board has been established as a key mechanism for the Chief Executive to engage with Political Group leaders. These sessions provide an opportunity to discuss emerging issues and increase collaboration on key issues such as changes to the constitution.”

Well I might make a FOI request for the Leader’s Board minutes, however I thought proposed changes to the constitution (which have to be agreed by Council) was the remit of the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee?

“It is crucial that the Council embeds a shared understanding regarding what behaviours are appropriate” when developing relationships internally and externally.”

Again the Improvement Board review highlights a certain amount of inertia to changing Wirral Council’s culture and working practices.

“A number of the critical reports received by the Council were a result of staff not being listened to appropriately and issues raised not being dealt with in a timely manner.”

This states the obvious and is what the Wirral public have known about for a long time.

“The key changes regarding corporate governance and decision making have significantly contributed to promoting a culture of openness rather than secrecy.”

As detailed earlier some of the changes have led to less openness so do this just mean more internal openness or openness with the public at large?

“Decisions are made in a transparent way, and information is more easily available to the public, this is demonstrated by the publication of all decisions made under delegation.”

Ha ha, it’s a legal requirement on Wirral Council that the decisions made under delegation by individual Cabinet Members are published. It’s not some voluntary thing that Wirral Council does because of a desire for openness!

“Wirral had one of the highest numbers of Freedom of Information requests in the country”

Oh here we go with this myth again, the raw numbers of FOI requests need to be adjusted for the varying population figures of different Councils across the country. When that’s done Wirral’s number of FOI requests isn’t unusual at all.

“In the event of a performance exception, senior managers attend Committee meetings to present an action plan detailing how they intend to get back on target.”

Yes but there’s only a “performance exception” if the statistics for that indicator are reported. I was recently at a Committee meeting where a performance indicator relating to HR was not reported. Councillors took the non-reporting of this performance indicator as a performance exception, but as it couldn’t be established that a performance exception had occurred (as the statistics for it weren’t given) a senior manager from HR wasn’t there to answer questions from councillors.

“In particular it will be important to review the changes through Members surveys, staff surveys and feedback from the local community.”

Exactly how will “feedback from the local community” on the changes happen? Does this mean someone emailing a councillor, going to their surgery, signing a petition or a formal consultation (or maybe all of them)?

“The first couple of meetings of the Improvement Board were examples of things that you would not see in
most Councils. These included late papers, confused reports tabled on the day and rooms not set up, little clarity of roles and a substantive number of the senior management team excluded from meetings. In terms of atmosphere there was not surprisingly a feeling of confusion and fear. One of the most chilling quotes from the AKA report was that
the ‘abnormal had become normal’.”

Ah yes, welcome to Wirral and its “bureaucratic machinations”.

“Tough decisions have to be made to deliver change. Changing culture sometimes requires changing people.”

This is true.

“One area that it would be valuable for the LGA to consider for future arrangements is the relationship between the Board and the public and local community. It is an opportunity to improve transparency, but it should not be seen as a mechanism for dealing with individual complaints or to take the place of the appropriate methods for
dealing with complaints. Managing public expectations and determining how best the Improvement Board relates to the public needs to be carefully thought through.”

The Improvement Board replaced the Corporate Governance Committee (which met in public), my suggestion is that Improvement Boards should meet in public, not private. When the Cabinet agreed to the setting up of the Improvement Board it wanted every third meeting of the Improvement Board to be in public, instead the first two or three items are in public then the public are ushered out and the Improvement Board meets in private. Without the accountability of meeting in public, the public will always be sceptical that it is not acting in a transparent way. Meeting in public would prevent some of the criticism such as late reports as reports would have to be published on the website a week before the meeting. The public either don’t have (or don’t know of) any other avenues for dealing with complaints as opportunities for public engagement (such as public question time at Area Forums) have been removed. Individual complaints can also be an indication of wider problems that fall within the Improvement Board’s remit.

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