Consultant Insults

Wirral Leaks has been for some time highlighting the worrying situation of Wirral Council hiring highly paid consultants at exorbitant rates whilst at the same time explaining how services must be cut and staff need to be made redundant and anyway it’s all the governments fault.

Wirral Council’s use of consultants seems to be for 3 reasons :

1) For when they’re in a hole of their own making – “Here’s a shed-load of money if you write any old flannel as long as the conclusion is – “No case to answer” !

2) Absolve the Council of responsibility for decision-making  – ” It was the independent,external consultant who recommended that we cull half of our workforce and lay waste to public services.We didn’t want to really ,honestly…..”

3) Compensate for the sheer ineptitude and negligence of  council officers on megabuck salaries who seem to have absolutely no idea what they’re bloody doing!  – As her Ladyship said ” If I was on a life raft and reliant on a full set of chief officers for survival I think I’d throw myself overboard and take my chances with the sharks”

The latest beneficiaries of the Wirral Council runaway gravy train are a consultancy firm by the name of V4 who have given Wirral Council the V-sign and been paid £260,000 for what was initially a £50,000 job – SEE HERE

Nice work if you can get it and you can get it when Wirral Council officers and councillors are simply not up to the job and where it’s always amateur hour!.

Despite this work being authorised by Labour cabinet member Cllr.Chris Meaden , Power Boy Pip displays  his renowned leadership skills and plays pass the parcel by claiming  that the issue “concerns officers”. We were also interested to read about this case that “delegated powers” to  Wirral Councillors allow payment of monies up to the value of £50,000. That’ll explain the £48,000 for “hurt feelings” then!  – ” Let’s keep it just under £50,000 and we’ll throw in a couple of packets of Benson & Hedges”.

Finally Wirral Leaks would like to offer some advice to Wirral Council staff currently facing redundancy who fancy a piece of the action.

A guide on how to become a Wirral Council consultant is helpfully set out on the ever illuminating Wirral In it Together blog:

SEE HERE
The steps are:

1. Prove yourself “useful” to Wirral Council
2. Nab a 12 month contract
3. Set up a consultancy company
4. Think of a number – treble it and there you have your daily rate (£515 in this case)
5. Get your contract extended (with or without councillor scrutiny).
6. Trebles all round!

No Future Council

Vicious and Rotten ? It’s ‘No Fun’

Which I’m sure you’ll all agree is a mightily impressive logo!

We don’t know who came up with this masterpiece of graphic design but we’re guessing it was a Friday afternoon job. However whoever is responsible for it we’re sure they had fun putting out the subliminal message that the Future of Council/Wirral is Green. Now we don’t know whether they mean the Green Party or the golf resort or even Jefferson himself but everything’s gone green.

Of course we brought you news some time ago that Future Council was coming our way – so we’ve endeavored to do some further research on your behalf.

After we were treated to a video of Comrade Burgesski on the Wirral Globe website looking about as comfortable as soggy undercrackers and explaining how the budget is as tight as Cllr Tony Norbury’s suits we thought we’d check out the consultation pack where Burgesski helpfully explains  :

“The Council has conducted a comprehensive review into all of its services. Every part of the Council has been scrutinised to ensure every pound is spent effectively and every service is as efficient as it can possibly be.
This project is called ‘Future Council……”

My how we laughed here at Leaky Towers at reading claims of  scrutiny ,effectiveness and efficiency at Wirral Council –  and the portentous tone that goes with it.
” This project is called Future Council …” sounds like something a Dr.Who alien would say just before they pressed a button to blow up a distant planet.

In the consultation document Burgesski front-loads the big scary numbers in his introduction like some kind of megalomaniac bingo caller – £100 million!, £ 70 million!, £57 million ! – but basically he’s asking the people of Wirral to decide upon where the axe should fall in achieving  £2.5 million cuts to public services (out of a total of £18 million worth of budget reductions.)

Although the consultation document explains that 300 Council jobs are going to have to go it doesn’t explain as to why – so we did a bit of number – crunching of our own and came up with this suggestion:

£10 million : “We have also agreed to restructure every Council department to reduce our employee costs by almost £10 million, which is part of a decision (and a saving) agreed last year. While the impact upon residents from these changes will be reduced, saving £10 million in employee costs means, in effect, around 300 Wirral Council jobs will be lost – hopefully mostly on a voluntary redundancy basis…”

£10 million : The amount of toxic debt which Wirral Council had to write off last year as a result of  incompetence and dishonesty of council managers and the negligence and lack of scrutiny by councillors.  We advice council employees to remember this comparison when they receive their redundancy notices   –  SEE HERE

However it’s not all doom and gloom – there’s low comedy to be had throughout the consultation document. For example it’s as if there’s someone digging Burgesski in the ribs and telling him to intermittently include something about how much the Council cares for the vulnerable (despite all evidence to the contrary)

Bullshit Bingo fans will enjoy the use of the words  “outsource” “robustly” and “hub” .

Whilst lovers of Spot the Gobbledygook will cherish this particular example : “Assets  – Delivering the consolidated asset requirements of the services, enabling key service changes through the rationalisation and future proofing of the asset base”

However praise be to the comic genius who came up with this :” The workforce and elected members of Wirral Council are public servants. We are here to serve the people of Wirral and that will not change. What must change is how we serve you. Meeting our duty as public servants means finding the best, most cost effective way of improving residents’ quality of life…..”

Satire at it’s finest!

“Cold & Bureaucratic” – The Closure of Lyndale School

And so with heartbreaking and crushing inevitability comes the news that Wirral Council’s Labour Cabinet has voted unanimously to close Lyndale School.
A special school which taught and supported some of Wirral’s most vulnerable children who have a multitude of complex needs.

Remember the Council’s pledge to protect the most vulnerable in the wake of damning reports criticising how they treated disabled people? Remember the “What Really Matters?” consultation where the people of Wirral said they wanted the Council to protect our most vulnerable citizens?  Remember how Director of Childrens Services Julia “No” Hassall said she was “minded” to close Lyndale School last November?

The same Julia Hassall who claimed at the Cabinet meeting that compared to the desperate pleas of the parents and staff speaking on behalf of the children they loved and cared for she sounded “cold and bureaucratic”.

“Cold and bureaucratic” doesn’t come close to describing the sham of a consultation, the dragging on the usual highly paid “independent consultant” Lynn “Wrong &” Wright ,the shameless going through the motion of listening to parents and staff and petitions and the “we know best” decisions made behind closed doors.

In other words the usual “bureaucratic machinations” which have plagued Wirral Council for years and continue to do so – and all to the detriment of Wirral’s citizens and particularly when it’s concerned with the treatment of disabled children.

Finally  we implore you to remember the names of the Cabinet members making the decision to close Lyndale School and particularly the one Councillor who we feel is simply not fit to hold public office , let alone make a decision significantly affecting the lives of people who he clearly regards merely as a means to pay his Council expenses.

Green Smear Campaign

Congratulations once again to Tranmere/Birkenhead Green Councillor Pat Cleary – you really know when you’ve arrived on the local political scene when the local “Labour “party “big hitters” start a smear campaign.

So having taken out one of “Labour’s” Inner Ring ( Bri “Nylon” Kenny) at the last local elections it was only a matter of time before the “Labour” group demonstrated that they’re green with envy at Cleary’s success at engaging with local communities and articulating what his party stands for…… something which , in their complacency , the “Labour” group seem to have given up on.

A “Labour Party” flyer sent out by a clear(l)y rattled Power Boy Pip and Frankenfield  screams “Vote Green – Get Blue” like a petulant,spoilt child who hasn’t grown up in 25 years and is used to getting it’s own way.

Our sage advice to Cllr Cleary is not to worry – believe us this isn’t the first smear campaign the “Labour” power elite have organised against a Green !!!………