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What did 21 invoices show Wirral Council spent money on?
What did 21 invoices show Wirral Council spent money on?
What did 21 invoices show Wirral Council spent money on?
Cllr Jeff Green (right) is the current Chair of Wirral Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee
A few months ago I exercised a right under section 26 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 for invoices, credit card statements or requests for payment connected to various payments Wirral Council made during the 2018-19 financial year. Wirral Council is currently predicting it will overspend its agreed budget in 2019-20.
Due to the volume of information I don’t have time to write about what each one is for so will link to the first 21 invoices I’ve been sent below with a brief description for each one. The only allowable reasons for redaction are personal information (except for the names of sole traders) or commercial confidentiality (if there’s no overriding public interest in favour of disclosure).
New media journalist from Birkenhead, England who writes about Wirral Council.
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5 thoughts on “What did 21 invoices show Wirral Council spent money on?”
A lot of money, and a lot of waste? Penna PLC seems to be a good firm to work for, the money they are making?
Well the nearest Penna office is in Birmingham.
So any trip by Penna staff to Wallasey Town Hall is a four and half hour round trip – call it five and half hours if breaks are taken into account.
Then add on the introductions at Wallasey Town Hall, thank yous for them travelling so far, time to plug their mobile phone in to charge and you’ll get about two hours “work” for an eight hour shift.
Out of that two hour meeting – they may get to speak for a very short time (most of it will be listening as Council employees explain to councillors how you recruit a member of staff etc, how you exclude the press and the public etc).
Yes, there is a contract between Wirral Council and Penna PLC. All the senior management recruitment seems to go through them.
I suppose it would be a waste of time asking WBC what they deem as their ‘return on investment’ for the amounts spent with Penna PLC.
Penna made not far under a £4.5m profit at the end of their last tax year. Their clients either must have money to burn or maybe Penna really are the best in the business at whatever is they do?
It is a shame there is not a local service who can do what Penna do for less money (our Council Tax I assume).
Penna even have their own ‘Penna Fest’ for their employees, as seen on the video on their website.
They also keep afloat the b******t business jargon with what I can only assume is their ‘mission statement’ on executive recruitment:
“Leaders in finding Leaders
Fresh thinking, collaborative and passionate about people. These are the qualities behind the professionalism and expertise of Penna’s Executive Search Practices. Our consultants see things differently. Born out of a global human resources solutions business, we bring a broader perspective. and look to support clients shape their thinking on the talent they need to transform organisational performance and governance, deliver growth or improve profitability. So, when we work with organisations as a recruitment partner, we are clear on the leadership qualities needed to deliver success. And with Penna, our clients and candidates can access a broad range of services to support them in their journey with high quality interim capability, cutting edge assessment solutions and career guidance to designing employer value propositions through our award winning creative teams.”
It seems the more vacuous jargon written, the higher the invoice, which we the Council Tax payers, are helping to pay.
Oh I agree there are probably recruitment consultants more locally (whether they actual did put in a bid for Wirral Council contracts would be an interesting question) and indeed there has been a move by Wirral Council under the phrase “community wealth building” which has led to talk by senior councillors and senior politicians about Wirral Council spending money locally so it stays within the local economy and supports local jobs.
I’ve no idea whether Penna are the best at what they do (I don’t work in that area) – but having reported on Wirral Council over the past decade and seen Penna’s involvement in the recruitment of many senior managers (from Chief Executive downwards) – all behind closed doors although all 66 councillors then have to rubber stamp certain appointments with a vote – pick one or more of the following:-
a) because of Wirral Council’s reputation following what happened in the past people who’d be excellent at the job aren’t applying because the working culture at Wirral Council attracted a bad reputation,
b) all this talk about salaries that look like phone figures to attract the “right people” and how there’s a very limited group of people to choose from who are very in demand (bearing in mind the whole population of the EU – 513.5 million had during that decade a right to work at Wirral Council) – makes me wonder if what Penna charge is linked to the salary of the post – therefore they would say that wouldn’t they,
c) councillors may have an unconscious bias/biases* towards certain types of people – as they are selection panel,
*I’m not stating this as a fact – I’m sure they try to be fair – just it’s very hard to stop an unconscious bias.
d) at the senior management level my view is that these interviews should happen in public and being filmed (not a view held by Wirral Council councillors in the past who vote to have the public meeting go to private).
I would say however if I ever retired I think there might be difficulty in finding a person to do this job as it’s not just a case of doing the job it’s a case of finding somebody that wants to do this job and has the personality to be able to carry on while still being polite and tactful as possible – although I do lose my temper from time to time.
But just to give an example the only person I know of in recent times (and appeared on the statistics) in senior management at Wirral Council from an ethnic minority background was Surjit Tour – he resigned (and yes I personally witnessed some of the abuse he got). Bearing in mind a sizeable chunk of the population on Wirral is from an ethnic minority – it doesn’t help. Wirral Council’s workforce and its councillors should reflect the population it serves.
To me, it looks like WBC got themselves caught up willingly inside the corporate style bubble of senior management culture, I dare say because their contemporaries in other Local Authorities were doing the same thing. For businesses like Penna PLC, it must be like penning sheep (no pun intended).
When I worked in the private corporate sector at IT management level, I had to deal with snake-oil salesmen every single day trying to sell the company their new tech innovation on reinventing the wheel. I could read these guys like an open book because of my real-world experience at the coalface of IT support and problem solving. Thus, their flowery management-friendly selling techniques had zero affect on me. Phone calls were extremely short.
So, my point would be, Local Authorities must be letting businesses like Penna PlC
through their doors with very little resistance. Perhaps in their sector they are ‘approved suppliers’ of their service and competitively priced in the grand scheme of public sector recruitment. Perhaps this is what makes Local Authorities like WBC permanent cash-cows for their business model. As such, everybody must just accept it as ‘the done thing’ without asking questions. Perhaps your posting here may be a catalyst needed for further questions.
A lot of money, and a lot of waste? Penna PLC seems to be a good firm to work for, the money they are making?
Well the nearest Penna office is in Birmingham.
So any trip by Penna staff to Wallasey Town Hall is a four and half hour round trip – call it five and half hours if breaks are taken into account.
Then add on the introductions at Wallasey Town Hall, thank yous for them travelling so far, time to plug their mobile phone in to charge and you’ll get about two hours “work” for an eight hour shift.
Out of that two hour meeting – they may get to speak for a very short time (most of it will be listening as Council employees explain to councillors how you recruit a member of staff etc, how you exclude the press and the public etc).
Yes, there is a contract between Wirral Council and Penna PLC. All the senior management recruitment seems to go through them.
I suppose it would be a waste of time asking WBC what they deem as their ‘return on investment’ for the amounts spent with Penna PLC.
Penna made not far under a £4.5m profit at the end of their last tax year. Their clients either must have money to burn or maybe Penna really are the best in the business at whatever is they do?
It is a shame there is not a local service who can do what Penna do for less money (our Council Tax I assume).
Penna even have their own ‘Penna Fest’ for their employees, as seen on the video on their website.
They also keep afloat the b******t business jargon with what I can only assume is their ‘mission statement’ on executive recruitment:
“Leaders in finding Leaders
Fresh thinking, collaborative and passionate about people. These are the qualities behind the professionalism and expertise of Penna’s Executive Search Practices. Our consultants see things differently. Born out of a global human resources solutions business, we bring a broader perspective. and look to support clients shape their thinking on the talent they need to transform organisational performance and governance, deliver growth or improve profitability. So, when we work with organisations as a recruitment partner, we are clear on the leadership qualities needed to deliver success. And with Penna, our clients and candidates can access a broad range of services to support them in their journey with high quality interim capability, cutting edge assessment solutions and career guidance to designing employer value propositions through our award winning creative teams.”
It seems the more vacuous jargon written, the higher the invoice, which we the Council Tax payers, are helping to pay.
Oh I agree there are probably recruitment consultants more locally (whether they actual did put in a bid for Wirral Council contracts would be an interesting question) and indeed there has been a move by Wirral Council under the phrase “community wealth building” which has led to talk by senior councillors and senior politicians about Wirral Council spending money locally so it stays within the local economy and supports local jobs.
I’ve no idea whether Penna are the best at what they do (I don’t work in that area) – but having reported on Wirral Council over the past decade and seen Penna’s involvement in the recruitment of many senior managers (from Chief Executive downwards) – all behind closed doors although all 66 councillors then have to rubber stamp certain appointments with a vote – pick one or more of the following:-
a) because of Wirral Council’s reputation following what happened in the past people who’d be excellent at the job aren’t applying because the working culture at Wirral Council attracted a bad reputation,
b) all this talk about salaries that look like phone figures to attract the “right people” and how there’s a very limited group of people to choose from who are very in demand (bearing in mind the whole population of the EU – 513.5 million had during that decade a right to work at Wirral Council) – makes me wonder if what Penna charge is linked to the salary of the post – therefore they would say that wouldn’t they,
c) councillors may have an unconscious bias/biases* towards certain types of people – as they are selection panel,
*I’m not stating this as a fact – I’m sure they try to be fair – just it’s very hard to stop an unconscious bias.
d) at the senior management level my view is that these interviews should happen in public and being filmed (not a view held by Wirral Council councillors in the past who vote to have the public meeting go to private).
I would say however if I ever retired I think there might be difficulty in finding a person to do this job as it’s not just a case of doing the job it’s a case of finding somebody that wants to do this job and has the personality to be able to carry on while still being polite and tactful as possible – although I do lose my temper from time to time.
But just to give an example the only person I know of in recent times (and appeared on the statistics) in senior management at Wirral Council from an ethnic minority background was Surjit Tour – he resigned (and yes I personally witnessed some of the abuse he got). Bearing in mind a sizeable chunk of the population on Wirral is from an ethnic minority – it doesn’t help. Wirral Council’s workforce and its councillors should reflect the population it serves.
To me, it looks like WBC got themselves caught up willingly inside the corporate style bubble of senior management culture, I dare say because their contemporaries in other Local Authorities were doing the same thing. For businesses like Penna PLC, it must be like penning sheep (no pun intended).
When I worked in the private corporate sector at IT management level, I had to deal with snake-oil salesmen every single day trying to sell the company their new tech innovation on reinventing the wheel. I could read these guys like an open book because of my real-world experience at the coalface of IT support and problem solving. Thus, their flowery management-friendly selling techniques had zero affect on me. Phone calls were extremely short.
So, my point would be, Local Authorities must be letting businesses like Penna PlC
through their doors with very little resistance. Perhaps in their sector they are ‘approved suppliers’ of their service and competitively priced in the grand scheme of public sector recruitment. Perhaps this is what makes Local Authorities like WBC permanent cash-cows for their business model. As such, everybody must just accept it as ‘the done thing’ without asking questions. Perhaps your posting here may be a catalyst needed for further questions.