Advent Farewell 15 – Festive Five

 

This jolly Christmas video features the’ Festive Five’ . The 5 Wirral politicians who over the years have more than any others known exactly how to ‘take care of business’ .

These naughty little elves have long been doling out the Christmas presents – from food parcels for the poor to pay offs for the rich.

But then Christmas cheer always comes cheap to those who don’t have to pay for it !

Name the ‘Festive Five’ and win the chance to have your crimes and misdemeanours covered up and paid for by Wirral Council!

The Morton ‘Incident’ – Revisited

Whilst our focus was on the Nigel “Highbrow” Hobro question raised at the Wirral Council meeting on 19th December – and to which we presume he is still awaiting an answer from council leader Phil ‘Power Boy Pip’ Davies – we missed this seemingly innocuous little question from Tory leader  Cllr Jeff Green.

As you can see he , all other councillors and the Strategic Leadership Team  were given an answer to his question about ‘overcharging for care services’ which was directed at the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care Cllr Chris Jones earlier today.

Now we don’t know – yet anyway – what was behind Cllr Green’s question but we suspect he’ll be making a media statement shortly about how ‘outraged’ he is about a case of ‘overcharging for care services’ that has been brought to his attention.

We know he certainly knows of one already – as do many councillors and council officers who have chosen to cover up a quite scandalous case of overcharging.

We know this because we forwarded this email to Wirral Council whistleblower Martin Morton himself (and we were quite amused to hear he’d already received a copy !)

Morton must be so relieved that as he rots on the dole unable to find a job and with very little prospect of ever getting another job again his experience has now been redefined as an ‘incident’. That’s if you can call systemic bullying and harassment , cover ups , lies , £1 million pay offs,  £31 million toxic debts, the council  doing business with drugs money launderers, turning a blind eye to the abuse of vulnerable people , covering up of a death and the paying back of £736,000 to disabled people as an ‘incident’.

Morton maintains there is an outstanding case of over charging and that money was not paid back ‘as soon as possible’ as Cllr Jones claims or indeed at all. This allegation   follows the publication of the ‘Independent Review of Allegations Made by Martin Morton ( & Others)’ cobbled together by compromised consultant Anna Klonowski in 2012. Now we don’t know whether this is what Cllr Green is hinting at (and frankly we’re not that interested in his political point scoring) but we do have a mountain of material from Morton evidencing this further allegation of overcharging and which was not reported on his now sadly defunct blog.

We are currently working through this simply astonishing archive and will be bringing you all the tawdry details of this long running and ongoing cover up and the names of all those involved. From what we’ve seen already it makes a monumental lie of the claim that ‘lessons following the Martin Morton incident were learned and implemented’.

We will also be reflecting on the fact that almost exactly 5 years after its publication that the  so-called shockwave of Klonowski’s Independent Review can now be more accurately described as a slight tremor and failed miserably to drain the poison from the body politic on Wirral.

Panel Beaters

Now this is getting silly.Very silly indeed.

Remember the serial postponements of the Standards & Constitutional Oversight Committee which we have previously reported ? –  well as you all may know there was supposed to be a meeting of a  Standards Panel comprising of 3 councillor reps to consider   “serious” matters prior to the reconvening of this Committee . We understand that these “serious” matters concerned  the second Patricia Thynne investigation report into the alleged misconduct of senior councillors.

Well that Standards Panel meeting was set to take place next week on March 23rd. Now whilst it may still be listed as “PROVISIONAL” on the Wirral Council website we understand the meeting has now  been “POSTPONED”.

Somebody on the Labour benches must have twigged that Purdah didn’t start until March 28th and it would be inopportune during the run up to the local elections to have any more “unpleasantness” hanging around in the air like a fart in an elevator.

As we understand that Thynne completed her report at least 6 months ago it suggests to us that it’s the same old story of the Wirral Council power elite abusing their power . The same tactics were deployed with the recent belated publication of the LGA Peer Review . The fancy word they like to use for incessant delays is that reports have a number of  “iterations”  –  for  fact -checking, right of reply etc;.

What is really means is that it enables Wirral Council to not only “massage the message” but to buy some time when it comes to damage limitation.

We can only wonder what arm-twisting Patricia Thynne was subject to to take the sting out of her final report. All we will say is that at least the LGA Peer Review is now actually publicly available – there’s more chance of Lord Lucan riding Shergar in the Grand National than Thynne 2 appearing any time soon.

Which leads us to make this heartfelt plea  : Enough is enough! . Can we just cut the crap and ask somebody to just leak the damn report ?. Let’s face it Wirral Council are not averse to making strategic leaks when it suits them (not that we’re complaining!). Let’s not forget the infamous leaks of confidential information involving former Head of Tourism Emma Degg . To leak one confidential  Compromise Agreement looks like carelessness but to leak two looks like there’s a hidden agenda…….which brings us full circle back to the cancellation of the Standards Panel !.

EXCLUSIVE: Thick As Thieves

Now from what we’ve observed of an increasingly desperate Wirral Council leadership is that they’ve been told to do two things  : a) praise council staff publicly even when treating them like crap and b) mention the utterly vacuous and meaningless window dressing that is their 20/20 Vision Wirral Plan at every opportunity ( “We have a plan ,we know what we’re doing – honestly”).

Well can we tell Wirral Council that judging by the increasing amount of correspondence we’re getting from the crime scene that is Wallasey Town Hall that council staff are getting increasingly pissed off with the fakery – seriously pissed off.

Nothing is pushing their badly-done-to button more than a case which in some ways is a microcosm of how Wirral Council operates. It’s a case which has been knocking about our inbox for some time and when one of our sources writes : ”  I would appreciate anonymity as we all know what happens to WMBC whistleblowers…”  this tells us everything we need to know about the poisonous culture which still seemingly infects the alleged “Most Improved Council in Britain” than any number of feelgood press releases.

Council staff are not so much singing like a canary but singing like Shirley Bassey and their song goes something like this:

“Lightfingered – he’s the man, the man with the petty cash , Council-tax payers cash……” 

This doleful refrain concerns a certain Mr.T – T in this case stands for thief
We understand that Mr.T was suspended under that polite euphemism “misappropriation of funds” (something that Wirral Council have been quite adept at themselves) and although apparently Mr.T owned up the act, he was suspended on full pay during a lengthy investigation before he was recently dismissed.

However what is vexing Council staff is that it is alleged that this matter “was not reported to the police, central government, the audit commission or Wirral council tax payers and has been swept under the carpet in true WMBC style”.

No change there then you might say (no pun intended) – especially as this was someone caught with their hands in the petty cash till  – as Wirral Council  have an inglorious record of lurching towards the twin perils of  “reputation management”  and “cover up” when it comes to situations such as this.

We understand that the figure that has been filched is approximately £30,000 but common opinion among council staff is that as there was no thorough investigation that the actual figure could be much more than this.We understand that Mr.T could have been stealing money over a number of years and nobody knows the exact amount as Wirral Council only investigated what was stolen within a particular financial year.

Of course Wirral Council are welcome to deny any of these allegations…..

Questions and comments that have been put to us – although perhaps they should be put to Wirral Council leaders or even more pertinently to Merseyside Police are :

• Why was it so easy for Mr.T  to steal thousands of pounds?
• Who countersigned any monies/petty cash? If not why not?
• I suspect this is due to the fact that said colleague had access to thousands of pounds in petty cash and was able to spend from the council budget until his heart was content as he was not managed for a minimum of 3 years
• Staff reviews should take place every year! but his line Manager left and he was then left to his own devices!! You have to ask why internal audit were not doing an annual audit? If they had this would have been picked up very early.
• It is now believed that he is working elsewhere and had faced no consequences for his actions besides dismissal
• This person has taken the Wirral taxpayers money and needs to be held to account.Where is the deterrent? Where is the accountability? Where is the public interest? Where’s our bloody money?

I think the only question we can actually answer is the one about Internal Audit.They were doing their usual job of obeying their political paymasters and/or being inept .However for the rest it would seem it is the usual tale of Wirral Council failing to take any responsibility for their own negligence in allowing this situation to arise in the first place.

We’re left wondering as to whether someone with £30,000 + of Council Tax arrears would avoid legal action quite so readily?. Indeed Wirral Council  seem to be labouring (no pun intended again) under the misconception that the money they lose through their negligence/incompetence is THEIR money – so it can just be written off and forgotten about.

Consequently Wirral Council leaders rap sheet of cases where they protect their positions of power by protecting wrongdoers continues to grow.

However when you’re thick as thieves with thieves,liars,bribers and bullies might we suggest to those in power it’s time to take a long hard look in the mirror and decide as to whether you still have the moral authority to run a local authority.