Tag: Wirral Council

Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 22nd April 2013 Thextons (Green Deal Installer) explain the “Green Deal”

Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 22nd April 2013 Thextons, Green Deal, Wirral Partnership Homes and rendering

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The Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee met on Monday 22nd April, although the agenda and reports can be found on Wirral Council’s website, two agenda items (Thextons and Digital Inclusion) were presentations and three (Trader Toolkit, Fair Trade and Regeneration Update) were verbal updates so for the full details on those you’ll have to watch the video of the meeting above.

Present:
Cllr Mark Johnston (Chair)
Cllr Jean Stapleton
Cllr Stuart Wittingham
Cllr Mike Sullivan
Cllr Janette Williamson
Cllr Rob Gregson
Cllr John Salter
Cllr Peter Kearney
Cllr Tony Cox
Cllr Andrew Hodson

Cllr Stuart Wittingham declared an interest in items five (Under-occupation scrutiny review), six (Draft Housing Needs Assessment) and ten (End of Year Performance Update) as he is a director of Wirral Partnership Homes.

The first main agenda item was a presentation by Simon Thexton from Thexton Properties Ltd. Mr. Thexton began by describing his various experiences working in the construction industry before starting Thextons in 2001 and said that his aim had been to create a small building firm to offer a quality service. This hadn’t worked as everyone had wanted the cheapest price instead so they had concentrated on specialist sub-contracting instead.

In 2003 they’d won a business award and the business had grown and between 2005 and 2009 they had consolidated and improved. Originally based in Brassey Street, they’d moved after purchasing a derelict pub to use as a Head Office. Although the construction industry had flatlined since 2009, he was proud that they hadn’t laid anyone off and had maintained the workforce at 2009 levels by reducing profit margins.

Eighteen months ago Mr. Thexton had been to a seminar on the government’s Green Deal and ECO (Energy Company Obligation) funding, he’d seen this as a massive opportunity for Thextons. It had taken them eighteen months to change their policies investing £150,000 in retraining their workforce in internal and external render systems. He’d travelled the country looking at how other organisations were doing internal and external rendering and bringing this knowledge back to Thextons to retrain their staff. Thextons then became a chartered building company and were PAS 2030 certified (as a Green Deal Installer).

Simon Thexton referred to the work Thexton had done on the hundreds of Wirral Partnership Homes houses being rendered in the North End of Birkenhead through Brammall Construction. He said that the Green Deal element for the public (as opposed to large landlords such as Wirral Partnership Homes) was being rolled out slower due to backlogs. He explained the various stages of the Green Deal process and the various types of work that could be done to properties using Green Deal funding.

Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 22nd April 2013 Part 1 of 3
Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 22nd April 2013 Part 2 of 3
Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 22nd April 2013 Part 3 of 3
Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 22nd April 2013 Playlist (all three parts)

Cabinet (Wirral Council) Special Meeting 18th April 2013

Special Cabinet meeting (Wirral Council) 18th April 2013 Labour confirm they’re sticking with the Leader and Cabinet model

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Present:
Cllr Phil Davies
Cllr Brian Kenny
Cllr Ann McLachlan
Cllr Chris Meaden
Cllr Chris Jones
Cllr Pat Hackett
Cllr Tony Smith
Cllr George Davies
Cllr Adrian Jones

The Chair (Cllr Phil Davies) welcomed people to the special meeting of Cabinet and asked for any declarations of interest. No declarations of interest were made, but apologies were given for Cllr Harry Smith by Cllr Chris Meaden.

The minutes of the previous Cabinet meeting were agreed.

The Chair said he would ask the Cabinet Member for Improvement and Governance to talk to this report (on revisions to Wirral Council’s constitution) after he said a few words himself. He thanked Stephen Gerrard for his work on the report.

Cllr Davies said the changes to the Council’s Constitution were “a key issue with the Improvement Board”, a “key action area in the Improvement Plan” and “an issue the Corporate Peer Challenge raised with us last Autumn”.

He continued by saying, “I want to stress at the outset that the Administration intend to continue to operate the Cabinet and Leader model, that’s very clear. We are not persuaded that it is time to depart from that model and we’re certainly not persuaded to go back to the old Committee system and I know that’s an issue of contention with the Opposition, but I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that that is the Administration’s position for the avoidance of doubt and I do personally believe that the Cabinet and Leader model is the best model for us at present and actually will enable us to work in the most efficient and effective way in which we make decisions. So I think it’s important to put that on record.”

He talked about the aims behind the changes and how their “big hope is the new arrangements will lead to greater engagement by local residents”. Cllr Davies said the new procedure for Council meetings was “designed to focus on things we are actually responsible for rather than things we’re not responsible for” and “we need to move away from the kind of too often I think all of us have been guilty about engaging in the kind of Punch and Judy aspect of debating the issues in the Council Chamber”.

Council (Wirral Council) Budget Meeting 5th March 2013

Council (Wirral Council) Budget meeting of the 5th March 2013

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The full Council meeting to decide the 2013/14 Budget was nothing if not predictable and the papers and reports for this meeting are here.

Two large petitions were submitted during the meeting, one was against closure of the Youth Centres, another of over 14,000 against closure of the Day Centres.

The Conservative Budget amendment was debated first and proposed saving the day centres and setting a 0% Council Tax rise which would’ve been achieved through savings (reducing amounts awarded to those taking redundancy, 5 days unpaid leave, “leaning Council bureaucracy” and reducing support to councillors.

Not unsurprisingly (despite Lib Dem support) the Conservative budget was defeated by Labour councillors.

The Lib Dem Budget went further and proposed saving a whole raft of services the day centres, youth centres, grants to voluntary groups, school crossing patrols, Birkenhead kennels and ruling out a charge for collection of garden waste. It also proposed keeping the Area Forums and reducing councillors to sixty. This would’ve been achieved through savings in agency workers, reductions in councillors allowances and senior management pay, capping the redundancy payouts, less glossy brochures, reduced audit fees and some other minor savings. This Budget also would’ve led to a 0% increase in Council Tax. The Lib Dem Budget was also rejected.

So the Budget that passed was the unamended Labour Cabinet’s budget recommendation of the 18th February 2013, this Budget will lead to an overall increase in 2% in Council Tax (any higher would trigger a referendum) and includes closure of one of the day centres, cancelling the Tranmere Rovers sponsorship, getting rid of Area Forums, a cut of £1.5 million to the budget for Childrens Centres/Surestart, a cut of £1 million to the Street cleaning budget, a cut of nearly £1 million to the Home Insulation scheme and various other cuts to Council services. For the full details of Labour’s budget you can read the papers on Wirral Council’s website.

Wirral Council (Council, 17th December 2012): Christmas Omnishambles Edition Part 1

Part 1 of a report of the Wirral Council meeting of the 17th December 2012: Christmas Omnishambles edition

I feel obliged to write about the complete omnishambles that public meetings at Wirral Council are becoming. If it was a one-off I wouldn’t mind, but this isn’t the first time something similar has happened and points to a worrying officer culture developing at Wirral Council. Wirral Council officers at last night’s public meeting were given instructions from above in keeping the hordes* out of last night’s public meeting of the Council.

*Hordes refers to both the press & public (that is someone who is not a current Wirral Council councillor or officer). I was tempted considering the thought processes of senior officers to use the word pleb instead of horde.

I hope whoever is reading this understands that I write about this first because it affected a large number of the press and public and shows how Wirral Council treat people (that is fellow human beings with rights!*) in a depersonalised way similar to cattle. Whether the “orders from above” came from councillor or officer or both just shows how people are treated by Wirral Council and needs to be put in the public domain.

*A list of human rights is provided in the ground floor lobby on the wall, although you’d need X-ray eyes to read it as its mostly obscured by a potted plant.

A little bit of background first, the Council meeting just before Christmas traditionally tends to be one where the Mayor organises something involving children performing. Just picking one from past Council meetings at random (2009, when Cllr Hodson was Mayor) there was a girl singing in Chinese. This happened during the public meeting (which last night was supposed to be) during Mayor’s Communications and made it more enjoyable for those present.

Last night’s public meeting was supposed to start at 6.15 p.m. (here’s the agenda sheet). If you want further proof of this just look at the Mayor’s Diary.

Prior to the meeting starting the Mayor (or someone from the Mayor’s office) had invited children from nearby St Georges Primary School, Wallasey to sing Christmas carols. Accompanying the children were about twenty-five parents and grandparents who’d come along to hear them sing. They’d been asked to turn up to the Town Hall well in advance of the meeting so the children could get the tour of the Town Hall. Whilst this was happening the parents and grandparents were ushered up to the public gallery.

Myself and Leonora (my wife) also went up at this point, partly as she was getting a reaction to a cleaning product used incorrectly on the hard floor in the lobby as she didn’t have her mask.

Prior to going up to the public gallery I was asked by a Wirral Council officer (and agreed) not to film the children singing, as a courtesy I said yes (this is partly due to commercial reasons). The last time I agreed to such a request was the Youth Parliament public meeting of the 9th October 2012.

The first warning sign came when happily sitting in the public gallery at about 6.15pm a Wirral Council officer came up to the row behind me and asked me (and Leonora) to leave on the basis the public meeting was a “private meeting”. I told him what I thought of it (basically it isn’t) and the guy told me not to “shoot the messenger”. After all (and this is me reading between the lines) when you’re one of the thousands of Wirral Council officers that’s been issued with an “at risk of redundancy” letter you’re unlikely to refuse an instruction from your line manager (or indeed senior management) when you’ve got a family to support and management will decide who gets made redundant. This is why it is very rare at Wirral for a officer to refuse a request of a councillor or management.

So we were both escorted from the public gallery to the Round Room, where hundreds of people were being “kettled”** by a number of Wirral Council officers in high vis jackets in the Round Room and Civic Hall to prevent them being at the public meeting. Sadly this resulted in my wife having a transient ischaemic attack (mini-stroke) due to further exposure to the chemical. Wirral Council officers were quoted as being “too busy” to offer any first aid.

** see earlier comment on human rights

For more on this night you can read Liam Murphy’s piece in the Liverpool Echo or Stephanie’s piece in the Wirral Globe. BBC Radio Merseyside was also there to cover the protest.

Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee 27th November 2012: Changes to Council Tax Benefit

Council Tax Benefit changes, replacement of Council Tax Benefit from April 2013 and replacement with new Local Council Tax Support Scheme

The Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee agreed (except for Cllr Gilchrist) to recommend to Council Scheme 1 to replace Council Tax Benefit which from April 2013 will be called Local Council Tax Support Scheme.

Those who are now in receipt of a state pension, war pension, disability premium or disabled child premium won’t see any change to their current entitlement. Working age claimants (apart from those groups just mentioned) will find the most Council Tax Support they can receive will be limited to 78% of the Council Tax liability.

Council Tax Support will only be awarded to those with savings under £6,000, rather than the current savings limit of under £16,000. Backdated claims will be stopped and the flat-rate Non-Dependant deduction set to £9.90 per a week.

Wirral Council’s Cabinet have also considered the proposed scheme and also recommended Scheme 1 to Council.