

So farewell then Maura Noone – as it would appear the ‘Curse of Leaky Towers’ strikes again and Noone has deservedly gone back to being a no-one.
This time her departure is not from Wirral Council or Northamptonshire County Council but from Reading Council where as we reported last month ,astonishingly, she turned up as ‘Interim Head(case) of Social Care’ and no doubt she’ll turn up at another gullible council blissfully unaware of the trail of destruction she has previously left in her wake.
After we ran the story of Noone’s gobsmacking appointment which you can read here fellow Wirral blogger Wirral In It Together took the baton and despite being given the runaround by politicians and callow media types from Wirral to Reading he managed to establish that Noone had passed the finishing line.
It was Cllr Tony Jones (no, not our very own Cllr Tony Jones) but Labour & Co-op Party Councillor for Redlands and Lead Member for Adult Social Care in Reading who was forced to eventually tweet :
Read full story here : High Noone at Reading Council. Danger averted.
Ah yes , Cllr Jones isn’t lucky for you and Reading Council that it was a ‘temporary contract’ . Shame you didn’t elaborate on how on earth Noone got that ‘temporary contract’ and how that ‘temporary contract’ suddenly ceased shortly after Wirral Leaks had joined the dots for people seemingly averse to due diligence.
We can only sit back and wonder at Reading Council’s recruitment processes and the gaps and the gloss that the Noone CV must have contained to enable her to obtain a ‘temporary contract’ in the first place. Having said that, it’s all very reminiscent of Stewart Halliday ,our very own Transformation Tsar at Wirral Council isn’t it?
However if you think these particular recruitment decisions are cruel and unusual ,be prepared to be disabused of this notion when Wirral Leaks tells you all about the current Director of Adult Social Care and Cheshire West & Chester Council , who coincidentally was also previously a senior manager at Wirral Council’s notoriously toxic and dysfunctional Department of Adult Social Services alongside Noone.
We know shit floats but we’re sitting here open mouthed (no pun intended) when we read the revelations about this high ranking public official that have been sent to us following the fallout from the Noone fiasco. However we’ll leave His Lordship to fill you in (so to speak) on this particular piece of work when he returns from his holidays…
It was whilst we were researching our piece on the appointment of Paul Boyce, Wirral Council’s new Director of Children’s Services , that we came across an interesting concept that cash-strapped Wirral Council would do well to heed.
Of course you can read the Cllr Bernie Mooney approved version of the appointment in the following local media outlets :
You may remember that we mentioned that following an Ofsted inspection in 2010, which identified children’s services at Cheshire West & Chester ( CWaC) to be ‘inadequate’ , a certain Gerald Meehan was one of the people brought in to oversee the Ofsted improvement plan. Indeed between 2010-15 Mr Meehan was somehow working at both Halton Council as head of the children and enterprise and as strategic director of children’s services at CWaC . According to The Taxpayers’ Alliance lobby group in 2015, Mr Meehan was on £168,700.
Meehan then replaced departing CWaC CEO Steve Robinson in 2015 . Curiously Meehan was appointed on £30,000 less than his predecessor with a salary of £150,000. According to a report about the appointment in the Chester Chronicle
Mr Meehan will earn £150,000 compared with Mr Robinson’s £180,000 wage as it is argued the task is less onerous compared with that of Mr Robinson who helped set up CWaC from scratch in 2008 before it became a fully fledged authority in 2009.The huge restructuring of council services that followed saw thousands of posts made redundant so it is also claimed Mr Meehan will be in charge of a smaller organisation.
The full report can be read here
Meanwhile that same year neighbouring Wirral Council ,who as we know operate in a parallel universe ,actually INCREASED the CEO salary by £40,000 to £175,000 following the departure of slash and burn CEO Graham Burgess. Apparently the justification for the increase was that Wirral Council wanted to ‘attract the best’. We suppose it all rather depends on how you define ‘the best’ – certainly best for the ruling Labour administration – but for the people of Wirral ? Is it any wonder that current CEO ‘ Stressed’ Eric Robinson has a lower profile than Lord Lucan?
And so with Wirral Council continuing to slough off staff and services like a snake shedding its skin isn’t time we asked whether the CEO and senior officer remuneration should be exponentially lowered ? Will we look back in years to come and think that rewarding public servants to facilitate a free for all for free enterprise was a shameful period for public services. It’s not only about how central government (of all political hues) has encouraged outsourcing and asset stripping it’s also about how public servants in local government getting paid very well for placing public assets into private hands. So whilst there are rich pickings at the top of the tree it seems that everyone else in public service are at the bottom waiting for windfall in the form of their P45.
The day after our update on children’s services A Reality Check For Children’s Services which followed a meeting of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee , Wirral Council issued a press release to announce the appointment of Paul Boyce as the new director of children’s services rather than do so at the aforementioned meeting.
Welcoming the news of Mr Boyce’s appointment, Cllr Bernie Mooney, cabinet member for children’s services, said: “Paul is an excellent appointment.We said we wanted an outstanding candidate and that is exactly what we have.
Everywhere he has worked he has driven major improvements…….
Getting someone of Paul’s calibre – he has a national reputation as a leader in this field – to come to Wirral and help us improve even further is a real coup for us.
I know he will hit the ground running and very quickly deliver the excellent children’s services we all want for our young people and families.”
As you can read in full HERE Boyce Appointment the Wirral Council press release reveals that Paul Boyce is the current executive director for children at Knowsley Council . It also states that :
“he led improvement in children’s services at Knowsley, Cheshire West and Chester and Halton councils improving the services and Ofsted rating in each area cementing his position as one of the most sought after leaders in the UK within children’s services”.
Needless to say our curious readers wanted to know more about the appointment and the claims made about Boyce. Consequently it has been discovered that Boyce left Halton Council in 2009 for Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWaC) and acquired the responsibility for a wide range of children’s services from July 2009 to September 2011. As you can see here CW&C Ofsted Ofsted judged the services as inadequate in 2010 under 9 categories including safeguarding children. Subsequently from September 2011 to March 2013 Boyce moved into a new post of Head of Strategy and Commissioning whilst the overall responsibility for children’s services was transferred to Gerald Meehan (now CWaC CEO ) and Sandra Campbell who were brought in to oversee the Ofsted improvement plan which followed the inadequate judgement. Mr Boyce left CWaC when that post was removed under a reorganisation in March 2013 with a rumoured six figure redundancy payment.
The following month Boyce was appointed as interim director of children’s and adult services in Knowsley and at a later date he was permanently appointed to the post. Lucky for some , eh?
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/paul-boyce-97130257
April 2014 Ofsted judged the overall effectiveness of Knowsley’s children who need of help and protection, children looked after and care leavers as inadequate – this after Mr Boyce had been in post for exactly a year. Whilst a subsequent Ofsted inspection published earlier this year identified that there had been significant improvements in children’s services and they were no longer rated inadequate, the report identified that improvements were still required in some key areas , specifically , children who need help and protection and children looked after and achieving permanence Knowsley Ofsted
It remains to be seen whether future improvements in Wirral’s children’s services bear testimony to the stellar reputation that Paul Boyce is claiming for himself and repeated by Wirral councillors desperate for someone to remedy the current inadequate status of children’s services. But then with things as they currently stand the only way is up for a highflyer like Mr Boyce.
After we reported last July that Wirral had signed a ” Concordat” with Cheshire West And Chester Council to explore sharing services – SEE HERE
It now appears that Wirral Council has, according to it’s Chief Executive Comrade Burgesski, made a ” brave” decision and decided to give the engagement ring back.
Clearly the thought of jumping into bed with a Tory-run Council proved too much when there is a much more compatible match over the River Mersey. And what’s more we’re sure that jumping into a bed with a Tory can lead to ,ahem, compromising positions!!!
Burgesski’s statement “It is right to thoroughly investigate an opportunity and have the bravery to say it isn’t right for us at the moment” is spin taken to the point of delirium. Do they truly believe this bollocks or has the Department Of Spin completely given up ?
We’re amazed he didn’t add some classic kiss-off lines such as :
However we must say the reference to “bravery” had us all guffawing loudly.
” What do they mean?….” I implored.
Verity sidled over and whispered in my ear : ” If you don’t mind me saying so your Lordship they don’t know what they’re doing…. or to purloin a phrase from Eldritch – they don’t know their arse from their elbow”
Meanwhile we’re left wondering whether it’s only a matter of time before Warrington Council is lured into HKLSHSW Combined Authority ” Super Council” and Wirral Council’s ” special relationship” with that authority is formalised.