We warned you in this post – HERE written before the Open golf championships to keep a look-out for this FOI request : HERE
We anticipated it would be the usual obfuscation and delay and sure enough true to form the requester had to wrestle some of the information out of Wirral Council before they started invoking the usual legal KO and invoke exemptions to deny full access to the information requested.
The exemptions mean that although we find out exactly who were the 43 Councillors who availed themselves of Wirral Council’s generous hospitality we do not get a “definitive” list of guests enjoying a pleasant day out on the public purse.
However there are some interesting revelations – the first of course being the fact that 43 Councillors had their entry to the Open paid for by the Council and not the 2 that Comrade Burgesski originally claimed (no wonder there’s financial problems at Wirral Council when the Chief Executive seems to have trouble with figures).
Secondly we note the presence of “Weightmans Lawyers” on the Thursday and Friday sessions – would that be ex- Wirral Council employees Morris Hill and Simon Goacher perchance?
Although this information is somehow allowed to leak out we don’t get a full list of business associates who were the beneficiaries of Council freebies “due to on-going commercial negotiations between the Council and the organisations in question”
Which begs the question that if there are “ongoing commercial negotiations” with certain organisations should Wirral Council be offering what might be seen as inducements or favours?
However the exemption which had us blowing our turret off Leaky Towers was the non-disclosure of the Wirral Council staff who were on the golf course rather than sitting behind a desk.
The Council refused this request “due to the seniority of the officers in question and the fact that they do not hold public facing jobs. There is therefore an expectation that their privacy would be upheld.”
“Public facing jobs?” – that’s a new one on us. How about ” Public serving jobs?” Wirral Council – have you ever heard of them? No,thought not! Especially in the light of the harrowing news coming out of Rotherham this week we simply cannot fathom the motive behind the obsessive zeal with which PUBLIC bodies consistently seek to protect their staff at the expense of vulnerable people and the public purse.
It’s the same modus operandi which is demonstrated time and time again here on Wirral where readacted reports afford anonymity to abusers and those guilty of malpractice.
It’s a protection racket for the powerful – and it is the public who have to pay.
Wirralleaks 
More great work guys, well done. The (Labour councillor) proprietor of the curiously titled Dirty Food, Hoylake not on that list of councillors, possibly because he was otherwise engaged in one of his ‘other’ jobs, waiting tables & serving dirty food to the masses in the gaff opened just in time to profit from the golf event. Mixed reviews on Tripadvisor suggest that the food & service aren’t that impressive. In fact, verging on a rip off with some interesting comments about his & his business partner’s questionable customer service ethos. He runs 2 businesses + waits on regularly. One can only wonder how much of his time’s left for his council duties for which the long suffering people of Wirral have to shell out their hard earned.
May I suggest every looks at John Braces blog which highlights the 108 organisations who benefited from Wirral council squandering ratepayers monies
and as John & I pointed out the “Labour group” are a bunch of champagne socialist feeding from the council trough and truly making pigs of themselves at our expense
When & who will stop this bearing in mind the 66 plus 3 advisors trousered £756k of our money plus the lavish
entertaining at the open For the councillors & officers Plus the 108 chosen many I cant see any change out of £200k of our money squandered on what????????.
I hope they choke on it.
A touch of Rudyard Kipling, Maid Marion’s, Fish Swimming Against the tide, any port in a storm, Napoleon’s and Normandie comes last