What went wrong at Liverpool City Council (part 2)?
By John Brace (Editor)
and
Leonora Brace (Co-Editor)
First publication date: 26th March 2021, 18:09 (GMT).
Continues from What went wrong at Liverpool City Council?
Since my last article, there have been a variety of articles going into the different aspects of what went on at Liverpool City Council.
I write this in what I jokingly refer to as the Archive Room, boxes and boxes of paperwork, which are copies of source documents in case somebody with more money than sense should challenge one of my articles, there are of course a number of documents that relate directly to Liverpool City Council, plus many electronic documents, notes, video of public meetings and metadata.
That neatly leads me to yesterday’s (25th March 2021) public meeting of Liverpool City Council’s Audit and Governance Select Committee (see below).
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Audit and Governance Select Committee (Liverpool City Council) 25th March 2021
Usually public meetings of local council audit committees are not viewed over a hundred times in a 24 hour period, but this was the first public meeting since Max Caller’s report was published.
The words that were said at the meeting are not the issue as people hide how they feel behind words. The body language was extremely revealing though.
Acting Mayor Councillor Wendy Simon appeared to be in a hyperviligant state with the look of a parent whose children had been caught misbehaving.
She stated during the meeting, “We know we need to rebuild the trust of our residents and communities”.
There was a grilling given during the meeting (unusually) to their auditors Grant Thornton, who in as polite a way as possible explained it wasn’t their job and if Liverpool City Council employees and councillors had shut their gob about what had happened (that’s a translation from auditor speak to Scouse) it was unfair to expect the auditors (receiving approximately £191,000 a year) to flag up to councillors what had gone on.
Outgoing Councillor Malcolm Kennedy (representing Liverpool from Spain), to incredibly stony looks from current Cabinet Members spilled the beans about what had happened regarding St John’s Market when he had been in the Cabinet and the broken promises to market traders.
The end to the Lib Dem call-in of the Cabinet decision in January regarding St John’s Market was predictable as the Labour councillors on the Committee agreed with the Labour Cabinet decision.
At the end the meeting went into private session to discuss what Liverpool City Council had been investing money in.
The above tells you (if you watch the meeting too) all you need to know about Liverpool City Council, what went wrong and why!
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I would like to know why some of my council tax is going over to Liverpool?
And when the Government will be doing the same for Wirral by bringing someone in to overseer it
Hi Keef666,
Thanks for your comment. There’s an element of everyone’s council tax in Wirral, Sefton, St Helens, Knowsley and Liverpool that funds the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority – residents will have a vote in May 2021 as to who is elected as LCRCA Mayor.
However the LCRCA region is the whole city region, not just Liverpool (despite the name).
As to your point about Wirral, back in 2012 it was decided that a Local Government Association Improvement Board meeting behind closed doors was the answer, as with the answer above about the LCRCA, Wirral residents will have a vote in a few weeks time as to the political leadership of Wirral Council.