The Curse of Leaky Towers : Heave-ho for Halliday ?!

Not so smug now…

And so it would appear that according to the Liverpool Echo  Council suddenly drops man lined up for top job after ‘financial irregularity’ concerns

That man of course being Stewart Halliday , someone we’ve been reporting on and expressing concerns since 2017, mainly about how he could ever be in a position to secure a ‘top job’ at Wirral Council in the first place.  Something that the local mainstream media has studiously avoided – until today . Now apparently, according to a Wirral Council spokesperson:

Some concerns were raised by council officers about potential financial irregularities regarding how a supplier was being paid.These concerns were immediately acted upon, and the contractor has stopped work for the council while further investigations take place. Until those investigations are concluded, no further comment can be made. 

We’re not pre-empting investigations but doesn’t this sound all very reminiscent of what happened  at Halliday’s previous employment at City of York Council (CoYC)?  For those interested in finding out exactly what went on can now read the once secret Strictly Private and Confidential Report that CoYC were once desperate to keep out of the public domain HERE

Although Halliday declined to participate in the investigation we think you can probably work out who is…

Wirral Council can’t say they weren’t warned, especially by us, ( note that Liverpool Echo are careful not to mention the blog that dare not be named) and there are serious questions to be asked ,not least of CEO Eric Robinson’s judgment at appointing someone with dodgy references ,something we highlighted in our post Reference Point where we reported that “…it was Wirral Council who made NO DIRECT APPROACH to CoYC  for a reference for Halliday…”

And this is just the start – we ‘re left wondering whether the Liverpool Echo press release is a spoiler for even bigger news about a high profile departure from Wirral Council? This time the news brings into question the judgment of the ‘Leader’ of Wirral Council when it comes to high profile appointments and indicates to us that the Curse of Leaky Towers may have struck once again…

 

 

Cannon Fodder

There’s a curious email doing the rounds that inevitably found its way to us. It concerns Cllr Kate Cannon who was elected as the Labour councillor in Pensby and Thingwall following the fall from grace of her former Labour colleague Louise Reecejones . I’m sure we don’t need to recount to Wirral Leaks readers the LRJ rap sheet – but what about her successor?

It is interesting to note that information about Cannon is only coming to light now only after she was elected in May 2018  so we have to question the motivation for this particular leak with local elections (not involving Cannon) coming up. Whatever the motivation it’s all blog fodder for us – so let’s go:

First of all we are told that Cllr Cannon “set up a Ltd company to provide services as a ‘consulting nurse’ to solicitors…”

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10308000/officers

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/kate-m-cannon-423b8335

Kate.M Cannon – Medico legal Consultant – K.M.Cannon Consultancy Ltd | LinkedIn View Kate.M Cannon’s profile on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional community. Kate.M has 2 jobs listed on their profile. See the complete profile on LinkedIn and discover Kate.M’S connections and jobs at similar companies. uk.linkedin.com

So what you might say is so concerning about that ? Well ,the answer provided is as follows :

“What is worrying is that Cllr Cannon was “struck off” by the National Council of Midwives for “academic malpractice’, “dishonesty’ and “attitudinal problems”.

It is actually the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and its report can be read HERE

Now as is our wont we thought we’d check out the detail of the Conduct and Competency Committee hearing held at the Old Bailey in April 2014 which Cllr Cannon did not attend and which led to the following sanctions

The charges against Cllr Cannon who was employed as a trainee Advanced Midwifery Practitioner by the Wirral University Teaching Hospital Trust (WUTH) and studying on the Advanced Midwifery Practitioner Course at the University of Chester were that :

1. Falsely represented that the following written academic modules were all your own work when that was not the case:
   1. Clinical decision making; and/or
   2. Fetal blood sampling; and/or
   3. Post anaesthetic recovery skills
2. Failed to notify the Trust that you were being investigated for academic malpractice by the University of Chester.
3. Your actions as set out at charge 1 and/or 2 were dishonest.

So it would appear that ‘Copycat Kate’ had plagiarised colleagues work and, when found out, at first denied it , then continued to lie about her misconduct :

 

Whilst the author of the email who disclosed this information makes the valid point that “It would seem that Cllr Cannon has a history of lying that lead the (NMC) to strike her off, but that is fine with the Labour Party for her to be a Cllr…” we consider that there is the  more significant wider issue of public interest to be considered. As we know the local Labour Party is riddled with world class liars (yes, we’re talking about  Cllrs Davies , G & P and Cllr Foulkes in particular) who make Copycat Kate seem like a rank amateur. So it should come as no surprise that the local Labour Party endorsed Cllr Cannon as a election candidate. However the NMC considered that there was a risk that she may act dishonestly in the future :

Isn’t it ironic that we introduced Cllr Kate ‘Copycat’ Cannon’s controversial mother Yvonne Nolan to our readers with a post titled The Nolan Principles

Doubly ironic as our many readers – but seemingly very few councillors – will know that  ‘The Seven Principles of Public Life’ are:

1.  Selflessness
2.  Integrity
3.  Objectivity
4.  Accountability
5.  Openness
6.  Honesty
7.  Leadership

In the light of The Nolan Principles and the judgment of the NMC we have to ask ourselves whether Cllr Cannon is fit to hold public office, especially when we are not aware of any appeal being made against the NMC sanction and when it includes making decisions that impact on her former employers at WUTH ? …

A Brokenshire System for Wirral’s Green Belt

The above ‘leaked’ letter above sent to Wirral Council Conservative Group leader Ian Lewis by James Brokenshire MP,  the Secretary of State for Housing , Communities and Local Government is concerned with the local political debate about how housing need figures are calculated.

As this debate is particularly pertinent to Wirral’s Green Belt issues we thought we’d call upon ‘The Prof’ for comment. Regardless of where you stand on the housing needs debate it’s hard to disagree with his assessment of the people who are supposed to be running the show. Whisper it – they don’t know what they’re bloody doing!

Gents…an interesting letter. We have the usual disingenuous crap from government. The government housing need figure is the MINIMUM a council must meet or suffer a sanction even if the number is crazy. 

That is the situation we have here. Brokenshire mentions ‘availability’ 

but not the first key planning test, ‘suitability’. That is defined by several 

things including the need to protect current residents and the new development 

residents from air pollution effects.

As I told you many of the proposed local plan sites imply serious health risks if built on. Policy also requires the preservation of green belt / spaces except in exceptional circumstances. 

He also fails to mention the last test , ‘viability’. This means that the houses 

must be affordable to customers while giving the developers / builders an 

acceptable profit level. If sites are generally not ‘viable’ it makes no sense 

to sanction local councils where this occurs. We are in the hands of idiots

at central and local level. 

                                                                                   The Prof. 

The Electioneering Begins…

As a wet,windy and dreary January slowly draws to a close it seems a long way away from the merry month of May. It must seem even further away for the poor souls who have chosen to participate in ‘Dry January’ or ‘Veganuary’ . It must feel like it’s been a month of ‘Blue Mondays’ !

However make no mistake the electioneering for the local Wirral Council elections due to be held in May have already begun in earnest. So remember every press release, every utterance a local politician makes, every leaflet drop, every stall set up outside the Co-ey by party campaigners is all designed to secure your vote.

It’s great for us – the leaks are gushing like an oil geyser . Talking of which it would appear that the electorate of Pensby, Eastham ,Oxton and Wallasey are in for a special treat as the Local Campaign Forum of the local Labour Party are apparently wanting to  target these particular areas. So at least the lucky people who live in these wards can now look forward to four months of glad handing and door stepping…

We predict that the 2019 local elections will be particularly interesting, not so much the results but the pre-purdah palaver as prospective elected members of all political parties embark on a charm offensive that, in some cases , will be guaranteed to be more offensive than charming. Just don’t let them kiss your babies…

 

Halliday Money : The Rising Son of York

Hooray! Hooray! It’s a Halli-Halliday ?…

You may recall that we brought you the news of the appointment  and resignation of Brian Bailey, Wirral Council’s Corporate Director for Economic and Housing Growth  , a significant role which includes overseeing the production of Wirral’s non-existant Local Plan.

We’ll give you one guess as to his successor…

Good guess. But no, sorry it wasn’t Martin Liptrot . As you know some CCTV footage may have put paid to his meteoric – and  Cllr Phil ‘Power Boy Pip’ Davies -assisted – rise through the Wirral Council ranks …

Have another go .Yes, that’s right, it the other one. Stewart Halliday, the rising son of York. The man who arrived with a chequered past from over the Pennines and the adventures of whom Wirral Leaks have chronicled for the past couple of years.

Here are a selection of Halliday’s (and our) greatest hits :

Wirral Council – Where Transformation Means More Of The Same

Reference Point

Happy Halliday

Secret Chamber

We may never know what Halliday did (or didn’t ) get up to in York but from the reaction we’ve received from contacts in City of York Council they’re not best pleased at the appointment :

After pocketing around £300k for 21 months ‘work’? as a consultant at Wirral …, he’s now been made a Director by this LA….

It stinks !!!!

Meanwhile as far as we can see not a peep from Wirral Council or its councillors , Wirral View or the local press on the prestigious and highly remunerated new appointment. Shall we await a big media splash or will the powers that be not want to cause any waves or muddy the (Wirral Waters) about their fishing in the shallow end of the local government talent pool? …

The Poverty Tourists

It had to happen – red-eyed Heidi ‘Pass the Onion’ Allen and Frank ‘Foodbank’ Field join forces to patronise the poor in the provinces. The Guardian report tells us that Heidi ‘crocodile tears’ Allen has ‘absolutely had enough’ and has dragged her tut-tutting friend round the country to see just how perfectly dreadful it is for the underclasses.

“This denotes a new offensive…” says Frankenfield

Doesn’t it just!

Allen and Field may think that the endless anecdotes recounting the often tragic circumstances of other people’s lives is ‘blowing the lid’ off an increasingly desperate situation for many more people. It isn’t. We all know it’s a shitshow out there and we don’t need crass and exploitative politicians making political/personal capital out of it.

The absolute nadir of this brand of poverty tourism can be found on Frank Field’s own website from last year where  Wirral Councillor Julie McManus made the following report :

Tawdry and mawkish doesn’t come close…and not forgetting  the cheap plug for Feeding Birkenhead ! Even Charles Dickens would have baulked at writing something like this.

Who in this day and age writes portentous, pseudo-religious sentences as ‘And so it was…” !

Thankfully there are people out there who see the poverty tour stunt for the photo opportunity that it is and regardless of affiliations are just getting on with helping people and not waving a placard proclaiming ‘ I AM A GOOD PERSON, I CARE, HONESTLY’ . Our thanks to Fans Supporting Foodbanks. 

 

Defend Our NHS : walk-in back to (un)happiness?

 

Dear friends of the NHS

Are you ready to be insulted? You probably will be (again) on next month. Read on!

Insult and minor injury

Before Christmas 32,000 people signed petitions opposing the proposed damaging changes to Wirral’s walk-in and minor injuries services.

The petitions (organised by us and by local doctors and other campaign groups) also called for the board of Wirral’s clinical commissioning group (CCG) to organise meetings in every Council ward to explain themselves.

In November Wirral councillors* demanded that the related farcical ‘consultation’ be ended and that “…the CCG come back to clinicians and patient group[s] to discuss meaningful and open proposals to retain the existing community-based services and improve the services, not at the cost of them being subsumed into a new Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) at Arrowe Park Hospital”.

And what was the CCG response? They said ‘consultation’ would continue as planned but “notes the motion”. They said they would ‘listen’ to the thousands (having based the changes on the alleged ‘confusion’ of a few hundred).

The arguments should (but there’s no guarantee) be aired again in February. AND WE URGE YOU TO ATTEND TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD.

• On Tuesday, 5th February 2019 at 2.00pm in Birkenhead Town Hall there’s a meeting of the Joint Strategic Commissioning Board*. Three Wirral councillors (Councillor Chris Jones, Councillor Bernie Mooneyand Councillor Stuart Whittingham  will meet a mass of CCG representatives to continue the now agreed plans to run local health and care services jointly. Oh, by the way, the Council now picks up the tab when the CCG gets into (more) financial hot water, acting (to quote the document) in a ‘cash management/banking role until anticipated income is received’.
• Then on Tuesday 12th February from 1.00pm in the Exmouth Room at the Lauries in Birkenhead it’s the CCG Governing Body meeting. Will they have listened by then?  They tell us that “An analysis of the feedback received during the consultation period has commenced.  This will be considered along with other evidence by the NHS Wirral CCG Governing Body later in the year [no date given].  The analysis and report is being completed by an external organisation.” (Uh, oh! We hope it’s not PWC!)

*Ignorance or hypocrisy?  Wirral Council wins at Pointless

Wirral councillors do not seem to realise that they can condemn walk-in changes as loudly as they like but their opposition is pointless. Why? They have signed a ‘Section 75’ agreement with the CCG. That’s part of the ‘sustainability and transformation/accountable care/integrated care’ system which the Council has been aiding and abetting for years – while denying it was happening. It includes ‘urgent care transformation’ and the end of current walk-in services. That’s why persuading them to change direction and defend our NHS is ever more important.

So, who said romance is dead?

What more appropriate date on which to discover the answer to that question than Thursday 14^th February? We will be holding our next public meeting that evening (details soon) and hope that you will share your Valentine’s Day with fellow romantics determined to Defend Our NHS.

Best wishes on behalf of DONHS

 

Wirral University Teaching Hospital : The Empty Chair

 

Our well placed Wirral University Teaching Hospital source writes to update us on the Wirral University Teaching Hospital (WUTH) Chair appointment situation and to give an insight into the current management culture:

Dear Mr Justice

It is just possible your piece last year that Sir David Henshaw was the sole candidate may have had an impact.
It was announced last week, to senior medical staff, that the interview for the chair has NOT yet taken place, contradicting an earlier (and minuted) announcement that it in fact had, and the decision was to be announced by end November.
Details are sparse but it is now believed there are now 3 candidates who will be interviewed “within days”.
Cynics say the rumour that applicants are: Sir David Henshaw and his best-mates -in -all-the-world Sir Duncan Nichol and Sir David Dalton – and Nichol & Dalton are “ringers” and will drop out are wide of the mark, and the truth is considerably stranger than this fiction.
Other WUTH news includes virtue signalling of epic proportions:
Only recycled paper is now used in WUTH – which went paper free some years ago !
WUTH are “refreshing” it’s PROUD* values ! (see below)
No one is sure what this actually means, or if it can mean anything –  but in practical terms all employees have to undertake “learnings” in 2 hour sessions where they are reminded not to be beastly to their workmates.
The “usual suspects” deliver this advice without any trace of irony – senior management do not attend these sessions but all attendees are reassured senior management attend different sessions – and chillingly; at those senior management sessions feedback from the “learnings” is discussed. 

On re-reading this I am forced to admit that none of it makes any sense – but it does give an accurate picture of the overarching strategy that underpins the organisation your readers will turn to when their own health is in peril… 

*Who could ever forget this ? PROUD? Er, it’s a no from us …

Special Educational Needs and Disability : ‘The best interests of the children have definitely not been at the forefront of everyone’s thinking…’

Cllr Bernie ‘The Bruiser’ Mooney is characteristically bullish about the turnaround in Children’s Services that have previously been rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted and is telling us children’s services are ‘much improved’   . However ,even after £20 million of additional funding has been pumped into this vital area of work ,  dare we suggest that there are areas of Children’s and Young People’s Department  , such as Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) – see SEND for Help  and further correspondence we have received including from a concerned parent below,  where it seems there’s a long way to go on the ‘improvement journey’…

This is particularly in light of the fact we all wait with breath held for Ofsted to finally drop in on the department.

Both of mine were failed considerably by the department and have ongoing concerns as a result – being out of school since May and July 2018.  Whilst Mr Boyce has refused to share the report with the parents, I know the concerns I took to the ‘whistleblower’ and these are very serious actions – which continue with my children to this day.

I have tried to approach Mr Wood – new SEN lead and purported to be ‘the one’ to change the department around.  Rather than be the hero to uproot the failings of the department and exact the change that the citizens had hoped for, it seems he is just overseeing the demise of the department whilst the children suffer.  

Whilst he arrived with a ‘considerable number’ of tribunal cases when he started in August and his ability to influence them was ‘very limited’ what he is now willing to acknowledge is that “the best interests of the children have definitely not been at the forefront of everyone’s thinking”.

Now let’s pause here for a moment.  As a parent who had tribunals lodged at that time and knowing that my children’s interests were most definitely at the forefront of my thinking, it is clear from this admission that Mr Wood knows the SEN department do not have children’s interests at the forefront of their thinking.  Wirral SEN department – part of ‘Children and Young People’s Department’.  Worrying at best.

In light of the report that led to the letter sent to parents in October 2018 – some 2 months later, it would appear that the children’s interest continued to remain ‘not at the forefront of everyone’s thinking’

Mr Wood then goes on to state that he has secured extra funding but it is ‘ironic’ that so much of the departments time remains committed to tribunals.  Unsurprising given his assertion in the previous paragraph – this being the only recourse available to parents when it appears staff within the department ‘definitely’ do not have the ‘children’s interests at the forefront of their thinking” and therefore refuse the support that is so obviously needed.  Please forgive me for failing to get my violin out at this point!

Given his background is in digging up fossilised tortoise droppings, perhaps attempting to write Wirral history rather than simply study it is a step too far for Mr Wood…

                                                     

On the Highway to another Maccy D’s ?

Maccy D’s cheek by jowl with Highways depot. Planning at its finest.

Another recent news story that readers have sought our commentary on is this one headlined McDonald’s drive thru planned for Prenton

A source writes:

How long has the word ‘through’ been ‘thru’? The next thing you know they’ll be spelling the name ‘Foulkes’ as ‘Fucks’. And ‘Trump’ as ‘Davies’.

For indeed as you can read the story concerns Cllr Steve ‘Foulkesy’ Foulkes the Chair of  Wirral Council’s Planning Committee seeking a site visit to the Durley Industrial Estate to check the suitability of the location for yet another McDonald’s. Well it’s better than having to go to work isn’t it Foulkesy?

We can safely assume that Foulkesy won’t be popping into ‘Total Fitness’ gym while he’s there but he might well pop in to Wirral Council’s Highways depot . After all he might want to meet up with some chums who were willingly  involved with him in a political smear campaign and have been actively involved in protecting his and Cllr George Davies sorry arses ever since . But in return for what we ask ourselves? We don’t know whether Foulkesy will  be meeting up with old acquaintances for sure because, as we can see from this Freedom of Information request titled Organisational breakdown of highways and transport division   , Wirral Council are curiously reluctant to identify details of staff currently working within the Highways department. We are only allowed to know the name of the Interim Director at the top of the tree because he is the only public servant who earns over £50K…

The reminder of Foulkesy’s  long standing dishonesty makes us want to once again question his suitability to be Chair of any Committee, let alone the Planning Committee. If any Wirral Council Committee requires the Chair to be like Caesar’s wife and above suspicion it is this particular appointment.

We’ll know if there’s been any jiggerypokery with this planning application if Maccy D’s incongruously opens up on an industrial estate and introduce a ‘Sorrento Burger’ in tribute – made from 100% British bully beef (guaranteed no foreign muck and with a hot and fiery sauce)…