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Expense claim forms for Councillor Andrew Hodson (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Councillor Andrew Hodson is a Conservative councillor for Heswall ward. His expense claim forms are below.

Some of his duplicate claims seem to have been disallowed.

To be honest I did manage to do this myself once over a very small claim when a politician (although our expenses claims were over smaller amounts than councillors plus we didn’t get paid allowances (only the fulltime ones did)). Our expenses took an incredibly long time to process as they all required four signatures (three politicians and an officer)) which at times put you off claiming at all. All our expense claims had to be initially signed off by two politicians (the person claiming and another politician). Rather stupidly I completely ignored the verbal advice of our treasurer at the time who told me it was a duplicate claim and then got rather embarrassed later when it was brought up by an officer when it got processed and disallowed as I got shall we say shouted at by an officer for doing so. However I admitted my mistake, said I was sorry for stupidly ignoring someone’s warnings and learnt my lesson about actually listening to people you are senior to and I never did it again.

Part of the problem was that I had submitted the original claim many weeks ago and as it hadn’t been paid yet, I naturally assumed that I had forgotten to do so as I have a tendency to be absent-minded at times. Rather embarrassingly the original claim got paid a day or two after I submitted the duplicate.

So duplicate claims happen, even to people like me! Human error can happen and that’s why there are checks and balances. Certainly the expenses system we had in place was (and we’re talking about sums of about ~£25 per a year per a politician and only about ~£8 (or less) a year of that sum was actually from the taxpayer, so it was very small sums indeed I got shouted at over) was even more arcane and bureaucratic than Wirral Council’s is. When I handed over to the person who replaced me, some jokes were made at the time about it being like the MP’s expenses system, I had to tell them it wasn’t that generous!

Cllr Andrew Hodson expenses claim 2013 2014 page 1

Cllr Andrew Hodson expenses claim 2013 2014 page 2

Cllr Andrew Hodson expenses claim 2013 2014 page 3

Cllr Andrew Hodson expenses claim 2013 2014 page 4

Cllr Andrew Hodson expenses claim 2013 2014 page 5

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The list of councillors at Wirral Council that didn’t claim expenses during 2013-14

Councillor Chris Blakeley of the Conservatives points out on Twitter that there are many councillors that haven’t claimed expenses (I’m not referring to allowances) in 2013-14 including himself.

@level80 I just think you should tell people on your blog the names of those who are not claiming more money from the public purse

— Chris Blakeley (@CllrCBlakeley) September 15, 2014

He suggests I write a list of those that didn’t claim expenses in the 2013-14 period.

Here it is compiled from this list here (although some are now as this last financial year ended in April former councillors): Councillors Abbey, Blakeley, Eddie Boult, Brighouse, Brightmore, Clements, Cox, Crabtree, Bill Davies, Dodd, Doughty, Ellis, Foulkes, Fraser, Gilchrist, Glasman, Green, Gregson, Hackett, Harney, Hayes, Andrew Hodson, Kathy Hodson, Johnston, Adrian Jones, Chris Jones, Kearney, Leech, Lewis, Meaden, Mitchell, Mountney, Muspratt, Niblock, Norbury, Patrick, Realey, Rennie Roberts, Rowlands, Walter Smith, Stapleton, Sullivan, Sykes, Walsh, Watt, Steve Williams, KJ Williams and Williamson.

Obviously the money that these people could have claimed (but didn’t) could be used for providing the services the Wirral people expect of a local Council. Using the councillors that did claim as a guide to amounts as to what this hypothetical amount could be, it represents a saving of about £13,700.

The list linked to above shows the allowances councillors get and let’s face it there are not many people that get paid a mileage allowance to travel from home to their place of work. Yes, being a politician isn’t a “job”, it’s an office, but after the MP expenses scandal broke a few years ago I was surprised so many at Wirral Council were still claiming expenses at all.

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Expense claim forms for Councillor David Elderton (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Our thrilling alphabetical series on councillors’ mileage expense claims to Wirral Council’s Human Resources department continues with Councillor David Elderton. Councillor David Elderton is a Conservative councillor for West Kirby and Thurstaston ward. We were supplied with ten pages relating to him and thankfully he seems to be submitting them on a monthly basis and actually filling them in!

It contains interesting details in it such as details of a briefing about Wirral Council’s Hoylake Golf Resort with that popular person at Wirral Council [officer name redacted]. In fact there are many redactions, which is probably why HR took about a month to do this.

I’ll point out it’s not Councillor David Elderton redacting this, it’s Wirral Council officers. The issue of a briefing for councillors in that area about the Hoylake Golf Resort was discussed at a meeting of Council so it’s nice to see it happened, albeit with Wirral Council’s usual air of secrecy about the whole matter. When are Wirral Council going to be open and transparent with the public about this matter instead of shrouding it in the veil of commercial interests and secrecy?

A lot of the rest of the pages are to do with Councillor David Elderton’s work on Wirral Council’s Planning Committee, its associated site visits and other committees that he is on. As he provides departure and arrival times it shows how long things take when a councillor lives at the other end of the Borough from Wallasey Town Hall. It’s a shame the redactions of it don’t help with understanding more about the work councillors do behind the scenes away from the gaze of the cameras and public.

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 1

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 2

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 3

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 4

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 5

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 6

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 7

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 8

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 9

Cllr David Elderton expenses claim 2013 2014 page 10

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Expense claim forms for Councillor Phil Davies (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Updated 22nd October 2014: A further page was provided for Councillor Phil Davies on the 17th October which is detailed here.

The next in this series of expenses claims is that for Councillor Phil Davies (a Labour councillor for Birkenhead and Tranmere ward). As part of the 2013-14 audit I requested the underlying claim forms for these claims from councillors and other underlying financial information. Personally I think in the interests of openness and transparency these should be published on a monthly basis, although there is now no legal requirement on Wirral Council to publish anything other than annual totals once a year.

Councillors are paid these amounts through the payroll system at Wirral Council and certain details were redacted from each form before I was given copies. These are matters such as councillor’s signatures, car registration numbers and officer names/signatures.

I haven’t been given a list of what’s been redacted from each form, but I was told this information. The forms were given to me this morning alphabetically by councillor surname, so the second in this series (which started with another councillor called Davies, but not Phil but George) is Councillor Phil Davies.

These are for expenses claimed during the 2013-14 financial year (so should cover the period from the 1st April 2013 to the 31st March 2014). If anything it shows the public how busy Councillor Phil Davies has been in that year, however as Leader of the Council that’s to be expected.

I did also ask for the underlying financial information to support these claims forms such as receipts, but the person I originally made the request to is now on holiday and such paperwork has not been provided to me (yet). Who knows what will happen in the near future as the 30th September 2014 deadline fast approaches?

Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 1

Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 2

Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 3

Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 4

Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 5

Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 6

Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 7

Cllr Phil Davies expense claim 2013 2014 page 8

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Expense claim forms for Councillor George Davies (Wirral Council) 2013 to 2014

Wirral Council councillors in addition to what they get paid for their official duties (called allowances), they also have an expenses system too. As part of the 2013-14 audit (as I have a legal right to) I requested the underlying claim forms for these claims and other related bits and pieces. Personally I think like the MP expenses issue, these in the interests of openness and transparency should be published on a monthly basis, although there is no legal requirement on Wirral Council to publish anything other than annual totals once a year.

Councillors are paid such amounts through the payroll system at Wirral Council and certain details have been redacted from each form before I was given copies. These are matters such as councillor’s signatures, car registration numbers and officer names/signatures.

I haven’t been given a list of what’s been redacted from each form, but I have been told this information. The forms were given to me this morning alphabetically by councillor surname, so the first in this series is Councillor George Davies (who is a Labour councillor for Claughton ward).

These are for expenses claimed during the 2013-14 financial year (so should cover the period from the 1st April 2013 to the 31st March 2014). If anything it shows the public how busy Councillor George Davies has been that year, ranging from his duties as a Cabinet Member, his work on the Pension Committee to other matters he is involved in.

I did also request the underlying financial information to support these claims forms such as receipts, but the guy I originally made the request to is on holiday and such paperwork has not been provided to me (yet). Who knows what will happen in the near future as the 30th September 2014 deadline fast approaches?

Updated 21/10/2014: A further four pages of Cllr George Davies’ expense claim forms were provided on the 17th October 2014.