A – Award B – Budget Cuts C – Campaign
Press release:
GIVE US BACK OUR STOLEN PASSPORTS!
Over the last 17 years, staff leaving Wirral Council with over 25 years’ service have been given long service awards. 412 of these retiring employees opted for a Passport for Life, giving them free or discounted access to Wirral’s Leisure Centres.
On the 1st April, the Council withdrew these passes, as part of its Budget savings, without seeking the consent of the passport holders.
Unsurprisingly, this met with an angry response from former staff, who were firmly of the view that an award for life should mean just that, and only expire on the death of the holder.
A campaign group has been established, consisting of about 30 people affected by the Council’s decision. We are determined to fight this injustice until the passports are re-instated.
The group is looking at all avenues to challenge and expose this mean-spirited withdrawal of our long-service awards. We see this as a massive insult to the 412 Passport holders who have given well over 10,000 years of combined service to the Council. This was an Award, freely given, within the terms of our service conditions, presented by the Mayor in an award ceremony, in accordance with a policy which states that “the Council recognises and values the contributions of all its employees and acknowledges the importance of rewarding its long serving employees.” As such the awards were ours to keep for life. We want them back!
Anyone interested in joining the campaign should contact norman.meddle@btopenworld.com
Wirralleaks 
G’day Lordly
I wish these people well but they will need stamina.
When they were just throwing the dosh about they let Wirral “Funny” Bizz get away with £2,000,000.00 and didn’t give a toss.
We are still looking for justice five years on so I wish them well.
Ooroo
James
Luvya Leaks XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
IF THEY VOTED TO CLOSE LYNDALE
IF THEY VOTED TO CLOSE GIRTRELL COURT
IF THEY CONSPIRED OVER WIRRAL “FUNNY” BIZZ WHISTLE BLOWERS
IF THEY HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH WIRRALGATE
IF THEY VOTED TO TAKE AWAY THE PASSPORTS
DON’T VOTE FOR THEM
That my friends means every current incumbent scum bag up for re-election
I agree that this will be a struggle but I’ve been doing that with Wirral for many years, mostly as a worker. In the 80’s we saved 22 Elderly Persons Homes from closure but they decided to close them one by one on health and safety grounds. Their tactic was to run them down until they became inhabitable rather than invest in refurbishments. Compare that to the refurbishments of top executives office, Town Hall carpets etc. In the mid 90’s Wirral had almost 100% in house Home Care. All staff were employed by the Council, with good terms and conditions, proper training, and scrutiny of performance. Present day sees 100% privatisation, poor wages and conditions, little training and poor scrutiny. The profit motive has taken over from the caring motive.
The real reason to snatch our passports is glaringly obvious. The Council aims to privatise Leisure Services and to make it look far more attractive to the profiteers it rationalises that those who get the services for free (our long service award passports) are not an attractive proposition.
Put it this way, if you don’t do anything you definitely lose. If you take action you stand some chance, keep your pride and give them a bit of a headache!
In Wirral there is so much ‘done to the public’ as opposed to being done ‘for the public’ that the question has to be asked; “What is actually in it for the Councillors making these decisions and bulldozing them through, at any cost?”
Hellish place to work for. I never thought I would say that about a Labour administration.
Culturally, the place is lost. In the wilderness. A complete and utter basket case whose good people have been assaulted, pillaged, raped repeatedly before being dispensed with – by a long line of ravenous abusers going back decades.
The fact that this council STILL DON’T have any External Investigations Policy and Procedure has waved through all sorts of outrageous conduct. Other councils DO have that and it serves the public well. But here, the deliberate, calculated absence of it serves the abusers admirably and us very badly.
To this day, as far as external investigations go, they remain free to call in who the hell they like, brand them “independent”, manipulate the outcome, declare no case to answer, then emblazon the resulting official documents with that “Independent” falsehood before getting down and dirty on the next scam. Here’s a very brief and not exhaustive recap:
1. The Anna Klonowski Report
2. The Rob Vickers Four Week Delay in Care Report
3. The Richard Penn (Bill Norman, David Green, Ian Coleman, David Taylor-Smith) Report
1. Was flawed at the outset, courtesy of then leader Councillor Jeff Green because Klonowski had an undeclared (for the purposes of the investigation) interest, that of being a trainer for councillors and senior officers. Investigations came to an abrupt end part way through when Klonowski decided that looking into the behaviour of councillors – the ones she’d previously been ‘training’ in governance (which later became failed governance on a massive scale) – wouldn’t be possible because she “didn’t have enough time”. As a result hundreds of thousands of pounds of disabled people’s pilfered cash remained pilfered.
2. Was flawed because Vickers, an ex-social services manager at St Helens Council failed to make clear at the start that he had no prior connection to Wirral. A whitewash soon followed, the Social Services whistleblower was not contacted because Vickers chose to interview ONLY the senior officers behind the money-saving scam which had resulted in much suffering and an alleged death. They defended their own actions to the hilt. Vickers’ “Care” company was quickly given a bumper contract; he himself got a senior interim position with the abusers for a year and walked away with a six figure sum at the end of it all, presumably for a ‘job well done’ in whitewashing away the foul stain of sickening abuse.
3. Again, was flawed at the start because Penn, similar to Vickers, failed to clarify that he had no prior connection to Wirral Council. He later told me in an email he did declare this verbally, but what the f*ck use was that six months later after he’s banked £47,000 reward for a job well done and scarpered? What quickly became apparent with Penn after some simple Google browsing was he’d built a reputation as a bruiser who rolled his sleeves up, got stuck in and fought very successfully for senior council officers in trouble. So……. who else would you bring in to ‘independently’ investigate 4 x senior council officers in trouble but a man accustomed to being paid big bucks to fight their corner tooth and nail? A “no case to answer” verdict quickly followed.
Nothing has changed. The headlong spiral down into the gutter continues.
The Wirral public will hope this council made a long overdue departure from abnormal practice by selecting Pat Thynne, and a purge of the gutter dwellers will start, gather pace, make a clean sweep and herald a new dawn. We are optimists after all.