Kingdom Comeuppance? – Part 1

#sadface pic courtesy of BBC website

Grant us this indulgence but we’d like to comment further if we may on stories featured this week on Wirral Leaks with a mini-series of quick fire posts .

First up is a follow up to last night’s Kingdom Suspended ! story where in our haste to get the BBC footage on the website we missed the opportunity to comment on some aspects of the latest saga in the Kingdom Security debacle and particularly the role of the  mainstream media and local politicians in ‘exposing’ how the cash for trash company operate on the say so of Wirral Council. No doubt Kingdom will still be operating to full contract value (much like the other Wirral Council suspendee Stewart/Stuart Halliday) and so will now have the capacity to have more operatives out on the streets of Wirral hounding those least able to pay a fine for what is essentially a trash tax on the poor and very little to do with environmental protection.

The most curious aspect for us was how the suspension of Kingdom Security from dealing with the business waste aspect of their contract with Wirral Council ended up on the telly. Perhaps a clue is to be had from one of yesterday’s commentators on our blog :

Taking time out from from name-dropping to comment on litter-dropping Peter ‘Granty’ Grant in his ‘Granty’s Infernal’ column was surprisingly low key on the Kingdom story (not even mentioning them by name) he merely stated :

While Wirral Council comes under fire for “Waste-Gate” (the incredibly ill-thought out fixed penalty notices blitz on businesses… )

“Waste-Gate”, eh? Now where have we heard a similar turn of phrase ? Ah yes  – “Wirralgate” . Now we know that Granty is keen on recycling – and as has been brought to our attention before, often from this very blog – but we very much doubt Granty will be referring to “Wirralgate” any time soon and certainly not in the run up to May’s local elections like he did last time round (see below). Well, not since July 2017 when the editor of the Wirral Globe got his hands on the “Wirralgate” tape anyway!

Talking of ‘literary musings’ let’s get back to Granty and Cathy Roberts , the ‘co-owner’ of the ‘Literally’ bookshop in New Brighton, who was on the telly complaining about being fined £300 over sandwich wrapper . The TV and website records Ms Roberts in full flow  complaining that sweet papers, newspapers, milk cartons and tea bags weren’t commercial waste. Whilst we agree it made us wonder a) just how much butty munching, sweet eating and tea bagging goes on in ‘Literally’ b) was Ms Roberts reading ‘Granty’s Infernal’ column in the picture on the BBC website above c) did Granty  pull a few strings with his extensive media contacts to enable the story to get such prominent media coverage ?  and d) why has the Kingdom business waste story attracted so little attention at the Wirral Globe until this week? If they had covered the matter as Wirral Leaks had done so here back in October 2018 and highlighted “the incredibly ill-thought out fixed penalty notices blitz on businesses” perhaps the co-owners of ‘Literally’ might have known what was heading their way !

Shall we await “with bated breath” to see whether Granty answers these questions in next week’s Wirral Globe column…

 

Say ALO , Wave Goodbye

Power Boy Pip’s public services philosophy – not so much arm’s length as throwing them to the dogs and/or Wirral Chamber of Commerce

We are grateful to another contributor with inside knowledge and an enquiring mind. ‘Retired WBC Officer’ writes to us with the following observations:

Hi Guys

 

Reading Granty in the WG (Wirral Globe)  today led me to the following……….

 

http://www.movecommercial.com/local-councils-working-commercially-generate-revenue-bolster-growth/

 

http://www.movecommercial.com/wirral-council-reveals-plans-set-regeneration-company/

 

I was struck by …………..

“A core aim of the team will be to encourage new businesses to set up shop in Wirral, and Cllr Davies believes the borough’s thriving visitor economy, maritime sector and reputation as a leading manufacturing hub will be among its key draws.

 

The company will also champion Wirral assets including the Wirral Waters regeneration zone, Hamilton Square, Woodside, Birkenhead town centre and the revamped Hoylake Golf Resort.

 

Cllr Davies adds: “I’m confident that these plans will enhance the opportunities on offer in areas like Wirral Waters. Obviously we work very closely with Peel and Wirral Waters is an enterprise zone so hopefully we’ll be able to promote that more effectively with these plans in place.

 

“There are a myriad of regeneration opportunities in the borough and I think this new company will be an excellent delivery vehicle to more effectively promote them.”

 

ALOs the new way forward?  Google the recent history.

Soon only the top brass will be employed at local authority,everyone else privatised.

We advise our readers to check out the above the links and we’d be grateful if someone   can tell us exactly what Wirral Council ‘leader’ Cllr Phil ‘ Power Boy Pip’ Davies means when he says:“Risks can be mitigated by looking ahead and using business intelligence and expertise out there in Wirral to ensure that we act in a timely and appropriate way.”

We tried Google Translate but they messaged us back to say they don’t do BS.

However whilst we know that Arms-Length Organisations (ALOs) are not-for-profit companies and, by establishing them, councils retain a discrete degree of control through funding agreements and boardroom influence we think they’re merely a staging post to full privatisation.  So say ALO and you can wave goodbye to public services! We are appalled (but not surprised) that a Labour council would embrace the move towards them quite so enthusiastically.  However we certainly understand why the current Wirral Council  administration would – as whilst they retain a measure of control over services the public accountability would be greatly diminished. And as we know they’re not great fans of any form of scrutiny or accountability.

‘Retired WBC Officer’ is absolutely right when they say that ‘ Soon only the top brass will be employed at local authority,everyone else privatised.’  Indeed it has been Wirral Council’s long stated intention to become a ‘Strategic Commissioning Hub’ . Talk about being hidden in plain sight!

 

What we deeply resent at Leaky Towers is those being paid handsomely for dismantling public services are usually the same municipal mercenaries sitting in waiting to benefit from the deliberately underfunded demise ( see also the NHS).

If you want to know why bullying thrives in organisations such as Wirral Council you need to look no further than the self serving mediocrities making a good living overseeing the destruction of underfunded public services and woe betide any one who questions them!

Notwithstanding the fact that one of the reasons Liverpool’s Director of Social Services Samih Kalakeche  recently resigned included the desire to go travelling – oh to have that luxury!-  we give him kudos for acknowledging that the way things are going social care may not exist soon if we don’t defend our public services.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-38882189

Therefore might we humbly suggest on Wirral that politicians of all parties , council employees , unions and council taxpayers join together in saying ALOs are not the way to go. And yes – that particularly includes Wirral Evolutions…………….