Give A Little Whistle …….

These are strange times indeed when Frankenfield follows in the footsteps of Tory Tyro Jefferson Green and shows the latter that he is a rank amateur when it comes to politicking by making a very belated reference to a £48,000 under the counter payment to a senior council officer.   SEE HERE

We have to say that we find Frankenfield’s stance on the matter to be most curious and indeed why he suddenly feels the urge to go public on the matter at all.This is seemingly all in aid of securing a similar pay-off for a group of whistleblowers who (for some obscure reason) he particularly likes to court and fete.

Frankie Says: ‘The debt Wirral owes to those who blew the whistle is considerable’

The nature of this “debt”  is just one of many questions we’d like to raise and hope that the only Wirral MP who ever sees fit to comment on, interfere with or, so it seems to us, actually run Wirral Council can clarify once and for all.

What exactly does Wirral “owe” to these particular whistleblowers? From what we’ve read it would appear that they exposed that Wirral Council MAY have flouted EU regulations when it came to a highways contract tender ( which may not be right – but in the steady stream of scandals emanating from Wallasey Town Hall it hardly seems to warrant screaming front page headlines ) ….now we must make it clear that we are NOT decrying whistle-blowers here – everyone knows they are our meat and potatoes and we have followed this intriguing case for some time.All we are saying is that we don’t seem to be getting the full story……in fact we know we aren’t!

For example is Frankenfield now saying that this case is about so much more than exposing a bureaucratic oversight and the Richard Penn “No Case To Answer” report relating to the Colas highways whistleblowing case is BOGUS (we’ve long stated at Leaky Towers that this report was a stitch up).If so can he make a public statement to that fact?

Can he also clarify as to why he is asking Wirral Council to put their hand in the till once again when we understand that this group of whistle blowers didn’t actually work for Wirral Council? Is Frankenfield going to show his new found commitment to whistle blowers and back Nigel ” Highbrow” Hobro who similarly exposed malpractice about which Wirral Council have serious questions to answer , although he too didn’t actually work for the Council?. Furthermore did he support the Wirral Council whistle blower who we know about who was left to rot at home for SEVEN YEARS before being paid off and silenced last year?(yes it would appear that Wirral Council are still gagging people even after Burgesski publicly stated they weren’t)

As with the £48,000 pay off we are asking Frankenfield to identify the heinous treatment that was dished out these whistleblowers that he think warrants such  a pay off.It is our belief that the contentious £48K payment was more “hush money” than for hurt feelings .Is this the case here?.All we can see is that one of the whistleblowers was named in a council report distributed to councillors. Again we need to state that we don’t doubt for a second that these whistleblowers have suffered ( it seems to the fate of all whistle-blowers) but once again we don’t appear to be getting the full story……..

As we stated above , the timing of  Frankenfield’s public pronouncement is most curious and leads us to ask as to what made him want to focus on the senior council officer who suddenly and spectacularly seems to have fallen from favour? Have they served their purpose and – like so many before – are now to be cast aside in the name of political opportunism?  Will there be a flurry of further damaging revelations that will follow in the wake of this opening salvo?

We’d be most grateful that in the PUBLIC INTEREST if Frankenfield  could answer the above questions and particularly in the hope that he’s been listening to his inner Jiminy Cricket………  Let’s see exactly what Frank erm, nose 😉 ?

Tax, Cuts & Fat Cats

As a follow up to our “That’s A Bit Rich…” story we thought we’d like to report on how on how the other half live – the little people who fund the lavish lifestyles and inflated wages of the so-called public servants in Wallasey Town Hall. The people who are hounded for their Council Tax and Bedroom Tax so that this golden shower can indulge in Mayor-making jamborees and golf beanos and far east junkets and lavish refurbishments.

Their creative funding of such indulgences includes the curious tale that Wirral Council has received what is known as a discretionary housing payment of over £900 from a ridiculously named housing association with whom “associations” with the Council go back a long way . The amount paid to the housing association on behalf of a tenant allegedly paid in error has been compliantly handed over to the Council although it is believed that the latter have no legal right to the money as it rightfully belongs to the tenant.

We suspect that this payment has something to do with the dreaded Bedroom Tax – upon which Wirral Council’s stance is simply reprehensible. They may like to blame central government for introducing the tax ( no we won’t call it a spare room subsidy) but fail to emphasise that it is a local government decision on how – or even if – it’s implemented.

Could it be that Wirral’s Labour Council want to play the blame game for political ends and are using vulnerable people as a means to do that?

Thankfully we hail Joe Halewood and his highly informative blog SPeye Joe for keeping us informed on Wirral’s shameful implementation of this Robin Hood in Reverse tax – robbing the poor to pay the rich.

His recent post titled “Wirral’s Labour Council and bedroom tax sophistry” tells you everything you need to know about the Town Hall bedroom tax spin and which strangely doesn’t appear in certain sections of the local press  – SEE HERE

Health and Safety gone…

Lord and Lady Wirral- Leaks aren’t quite sure about the legality of “volunteers” running crowd management control and security (see email below)  but Eldritch our loveable gardener wasn’t too keen on the idea of us “extending the opportunities “for him to volunteer additional services for nought but a pat on the head and a smart new hi-vis tabard.  But he did say “The ways I see it sir,  it seems all Local Authorities will be run by volunteers sir in the future, it’s that Big Society bollocks those F**k-witted Eton toffs talk about!  I hope these “volunteers” have proper insurance- it seems it’s not so much as Health and Safety gone mad, as Health and Safety…. gone.”

“Great Scott! “ roared Lady Wirral- Leaks, “I really do hate to think what might happen at a Michael Buble concert, I hear his fans can be quite the handful, in fact almost as relentless as Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear in pursuit of their prey!!  The whole idea of using volunteers, trained or not simply to cut costs where there are large numbers of people sitting in the dark is as outrageous as it is dangerous.  Why, if there was a serious incident, such as a mass “Buble-gasam” you could almost guarantee  nobody would be held accountable.”

“But my dear Lady,” I gently chided,” this is the Wirral, accountability is not a concept they understand”

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EMAIL:

“Dear Everybody,

As you will all be aware the council is going through a very difficult time and the requirement for savings has fallen on every single service area.  As part of the savings associated with the Floral we intend to extend the opportunities for volunteers to engage in the work of the theatre and seek to phase out our reliance on external contractor Kadansa who currently provide our stewarding services.

I appreciate how important the role of the steward is to the safe delivery of performances/events, however, there is no getting away from the fact that we spend a great deal of money on stewards and we simply will not be able to sustain this level of spend in the years ahead. There are many excellent examples of theatres working with volunteers as stewards and it is my intention to launch a brand new volunteers’ scheme in the spring of 2013 with the aim of volunteers taking over as stewards from September 2013. Volunteers will be supervised by our own Front of House Manager and a further two members of our staff team who will have responsibility for the fire panel etc. All volunteers will have gone through a fairly rigorous recruitment process and will receive full training.

In order for this scheme to get off the ground we are appointing a Special Project Co-ordinator for six months and it is anticipated that this person will be in post from January 2013. They will work directly with P’s team and J who is ultimately going to take over the role of ‘Volunteer Co-ordinator’ as part of her duties once the scheme is launched. The success of the scheme will depend very heavily on how well it is administered and also on how well we engage with our volunteers on a daily/weekly basis –quite a task and one that I am not underestimating, hence this lead in time.

We will continue to require security officers from time to time, however, Kadansa has been advised that we will not require freelance stewards after 31^stAugust 2013. I have emailed P and he will be informing his freelance staff of our decision.

This is a big change I know and I am sure that many of you will have comments/suggestions to make so please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me directly. “