Christmas Day in the Control Room

Inspired by  Christmas Day in the Call Centre one of our many aggrieved contributors has kindly provided us with a seasonal , if dark , insight into the Wirral Council control room that is worthy of The Brothers Grimm. Read it and weep ( yet again).

It serves to reinforce our belief that Wirral Leaks serves a repository for all those people who said “NO”. The good people of the world who know the difference between right and wrong , refuse to be chess pieces and can’t be bought like chattels:

After your report on Massive Asif call centre Christmas this is a little insight into the councils still fully operational control room after the supposed closure of 2014.

5 cover staff on the same pay band as former staff doing 40% less duties as you can imagine the mood is quite festive and cheery with staff enjoying many shifts on overtime rate as the new year approaches and the rustling of sweet wrappers at the bottom of the office Quality street mix with the clunking of shoes discarded as feet are placed onto the once hectic work stations as the click of the kettle breaks the silence from the once over used telephones.

We all know those workstations have been overused on various weekends but even that was brought to a halt when the chauffeur was called back onto the road and Cindereaden wasn’t allowed there after 12.

The madness of the Christmas and New Year has gone replaced by nose picking,ball scratching and working out how much more overtime can be fitted in before the end of March.

The 40% eye in the sky is now embedded in the far away land of Bootle never to return, a ghost of Christmas past.

Happy Christmas all at Wirral Leaks

JKs Happy Elf

 

All at Sea

Now we don’t profess to know the ins and outs of the New Brighton  Lifeboat Station dispute – although we’d be delighted to be fully appraised. Nevertheless it sounds as though it has all the characteristics of what goes on at Wirral Council – nepotism, abuse of power and behind the scenes machinations.  So it came as no surprise to us that the name of  former head of Lifeguard Service Tony Jones popped up in a post on the Save Our Lifeboat Station Facebook page that was forwarded to us .

https://www.facebook.com/groups/954271521385697/

Wirral Leaks readers will remember Tones when he was merely a prospective councillor and  was involved in an epic campaign fail by producing a leaflet that broke Electoral Commission rules. And thereby proving his suitability to be a bungling Labour councillor he was ,needless to say , duly elected.

https://wirralleaks.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/campaign-fail/

From what we are reading about the New Brighton Lifeboat saga it is very strangely reminiscent  of Wirral Council’s Control Room debacle  , where clearly management in cahoots with councillors wanted rid of the staff and created a bogus redundancy situation to do so , getting  rid of the whole team. Similarly the team at New Brighton Lifeboat Station seem to have been got shut of  – one way or another.

As this Facebook post from October 7th explains this has potentially serious consequences  :

Once again we have to report a failure by the LOM (Lifeboat Operations Manager)  at New Brighton Station. We have been informed by a reliable source that the Atlantic 85 fast response rib is off service from 15:00 today till Sunday 19:00 hours.

That means everyone is in danger the nearest RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat is Hoylake a good 15 – 20 minutes sea journey to get to a victim. Can you hold your breath or tread water that long ?

21 sacked and resigned crew are sitting at home, fully trained and available for duty. Those at the station whom no one can touch the LOM and divisional DOM (Divisional Operations Manager) feel that you the public should be put in danger.

All because they didn’t realise that we the ex crew are a tightly packed one unit, cut one you cut us all. We have fought as hard as we can to reverse this pathetic decision, but the old boys network at the station is too strong.

We need the public help to press the RNLI to come to its senses. We would all return today if the perpetrator of the kull at the station was removed yes you the LOM shame on you and your band of bad men.

We have evidence of a plot to remove “driftwood” as they put it from the station and orchestrated a plan including shutting the station 12 months ago.

Now your donations are being used to pay hotel bills and expenses for helms from different stations around the country to give you the impression that all is back to Normal at the station.

Please help and forward to all your friends and family enough is enough…..

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=535061780019066&id=100005457464596&set=gm.998783906934458&_ft_&__tn__=%2C%3B

The post and the comments at the foot of the post are particularly revealing and sadly familiar. With references to old boys network, bad men, dictatorship , the apparent contempt for lifeboat crews and the ignoring a vote of no confidence is it any wonder with that kind of background Cllr Tony Jones fits right in at Wallasey Town Hall?.

 

Returning & Non-Returning Officers

We’ve received a couple of further leaks this past week which indicate that Wallasey Town Hall is very much the sleazepit it ever was.

Firstly we hear the news that Super-Duper Director Clare “Wet” Fish has failed to follow the golden rule of Wirral Council – “Use what you know to get what you want” as we’re reliably informed that :

“Cabinet in secret threw out Eric’s restructure proposal which would have allowed Clare Fish to go with big pension and severance payment ahead of pension changes later this year……..”

So not only does Eric “Feeble” Robinson finally find out where he stands in the scheme of things  – basically he does as he’s told and his  reward for fronting the Wirral Council charade is £ 175K + perks. Nice work if you can get it and you can get it if you (don’t) try and change things.

Similarly do we have any sympathy for Ms.Fish ? – absolutely not!. Have you seen what she’s been on these past few years?. And how exactly have the people  of Wirral benefited from her six figure salary?! . What’s more we know she’s threatened to resign in a fit of pique well before now but obviously the lure of filthy lucre proved too much. She could have done so much better financially if she threatened to spill the beans on what she knows – but a well brought up gal like Fish is obviously out of her depth (!) when it comes to dealing the Birkenhead Boot Boys.

Indeed Ms.Fish would be advised to have some regard for our second leak on how things work at Wirral Council :

“First officer – 30 years of unblemished service,professional and respected by staff. Second officer investigated for fraud, assaulted colleague but ex mayors chauffeur and late night control room host for Cllrs. You can only guess who got the job!

Previous ludicrous job descriptions for Control Room (Team Leader and Technical Officer) you posted on your site have been approved with interviews taken place.

Problem being these posts have not been advertised internally or externally and with a 100+ on the redeployment register plus our very popular ex senior officer it makes you wonder why these posts were ringfenced for a few staff whose positions(Community Patrol Officers) are not under threat of redundancy.

The unions have been made fully aware of this situation but up to now absolutely no response to be honest no surprise there.

It seems the old guard has been replaced by the same thinking new guard where policies and procedures only apply to manual workers not suits behind desks.”

So it appears that somewhat incongruously Clare Fish will soon be able to sit in solidarity with the former Control Room staff as having been betrayed and dumped by the powers that be as a non -returning officer.

Perhaps if she’d threatened to tell us what she knows about the thus far hidden “Returning Officer” scandal she might of got herself a better pension deal!.

You know where we are Clare!. Might we suggest that leaking to us might be the most valuable contribution you’ve made to the people who’ve been paying your over inflated wages these past few years!.

Uncontrollable

New year – new leaks.

The Wirral Council (out of) control room saga continues.

We’ve been leaked draft job descriptions (see below) which were accompanied by the following comments:

“New Super Duper Job roles for control room.If you have seen a more grander job description I would love to know, funny the author/authors are not named, I enclose the old redundant JD to show how this role incorporated both of these ridiculous made up posts.The name/names of the author/authors have been left off these drafts which is very strange as new job role descriptions should carry the name and title of the person proposing.

Rumours are the proposed masterminds of these JDs  are also to be the beneficiaries when the roles are agreed and advertised.”

 

JD Emergency Control Room Officer (1)

The new Job Descriptions go on a bit ( 5 pages each ) and include every conceivable role including solving world hunger (hey guys don’t you know that’s Frank Field’s job ! – well that and helping cover up council corruption!).

Now Wirral Leaks take on all this is as follows:

The reasons Wirral Council senior managers wanted to get rid of control room staff were :  a) the staff knew too much b) they couldn’t manage and c) because managers could abuse their power and get rid of them.

However senior managers :

a) couldn’t be arsed “managing” the situation b) didn’t know how to manage the situation and c) went for the nuclear option.

However as with any nuclear option there is always fallout!

And so having destroyed people’s careers and livelihoods we now find Wirral Council desperately covering their tracks and claiming the same jobs that were being done by people they made redundant bear no relation to the new super-duper all singing,all dancing,all watching control room staff.

We can’t help reflecting that the sooner Wirral Council staff realise that despite the soothing words from councillors about how much they value them that essentially they are pawns on a chessboard.

Furthermore it reinforces our believe that based on Wirral Council’s recent history there are two ways to preserve your position at Wirral Council : On your knees or on your back!.