Liverpool Council set to be made a 'three star state' by the Audit Commission

If this is true, it's hardly surprising. After the 2008 fiasco, the Government sent in the Commissioners. Cllr Richard Kemp & the LibDems have always denied this - they would, wouldn't they - but it's true all the same. To sort out the finances, Sir Peter Rogers, ex-CEO of Westminster CC was sent up to 'assist' Colin Hilton. Meanwhile, a whole raft of people from the Improvement & Development Agency (IDeA), the rescue arm of the Local Govt Association (LGA), were bussed in too. They formed a body called the Strategic Improvement & Implementation Programme (SIIP) which has discretely been overseeing the Council this past year. The Council has been obliged to meet the objectives of the SIIP. Minutes of this body's work are hard to obtain, being buried deep inside Council business reports. But this shadowy body has been calling the shots in Liverpool all year. So when the Auditors come to reinspect the Council's affairs, they can hardly claim all these experts have had no impact. Liverpool has been in special measures, LibDem councillors & officers required to follow instructions for improvement. Those special measures should satisfy the Auditors. But the LibDem administration should not satisfy us.

Sorry to see that you haven’t blogged on the Post article about all the freebies enjoyed by the Chief Executive of the council and fellow Directors and that they have now made donations to the Lord Mayor’s Charity after potential beaches were uncovered.
If you had blogged about that, I would have said…

If only Ronnie Biggs had made a donation to charity, could have saved him a lot of trouble. So will Hilton and his tight-fisted hedonistic crew extend the same get out option to lower ranking staff - take whatever freebie is going and drop a few quid into the salvation army collection tin on the way home?

How many of these trips to the races were in office hours where the taxpayers of the city are paying his £230,000 plus 20% performance related pay salary and his fellow directors who average about £170,000plus Performance related pay? Maybe it's how many performances at the Arena you blagged for free.

So how do you represent the city at a Tom Jones concert, did he throw his knickers on stage with the capital of culture logo on them? No wonder nothing happened after the incident when Warren Bradley phoned from his Las Vegas holiday to get the culture company (read taxpayer) to fork out for tickets at a few hundred dollars for him and his wife to see Cirque de Soliel show, which incidentally we had already paid for Jason Harborow and his assistant to go and see twice, even though the show could not be brought here.

The front line staff in the council has constant reminders about accepting gifts or invitations and that they must either decline them or record them in a hospitality register. The kinds of gifts are usually a thank you box of chocolates or flowers but occasionally somebody might bring a bottle of spirits. Mr Hilton’s staff have the sense to say thank you but no. And they are regularly reminded of this from guess where? Hilton's Executive Office.

The standards of behaviour for what is acceptable and what is not are on line for all council employees to see and they have to make an annual declaration. Is it no wonder then that people neither trust nor believe a word that comes out of their mouths. Complete double standards. These gifts and hospitality events may not be paid for out of council tax, but did they record these days as leave, where they paid by the council for the time?

Every internal investigation of course finds no wrongdoing, with the headline “cleared of such and such” just like the recent controversy over the job to Councillor Eldridges girlfriend. But if you bother to read the rest of the account, you discover that the conclusions seldom match up with the facts, such as Reeds agencies account of the chronology of events. I am sure she and Mr Eldridge are not guilty of any wrongdoing but possibly somebody thought it would get them brownie points and ended up compromising them both. The result is, it looks like cover up after cover up.

While each individual free concert, football match and the regular race meetings (it seems) are not of any great personal financial or immediate benefit, other than it saves having to pay for their own dinners, it is indicative of a self serving autocracy that has gripped this council. The consequence of this is that it tarnishes the cities reputation, it give the public the idea that all council staff are just in it for themselves and it destroys any confidence that council decisions, business relationships and deals rely more on finding favour through an old boys network of you scratch my race card and I'll scratch yours rather than what best serves the interest of the people of the city who pay their salaries. This should be opened up for a proper independent investigation along with all of the similar stories that abounded during the contract award to Liverpool Direct and the extending of that contract, despite a report condemning the arrangements, which for the most part remains a secret document. Something is rotten in the State of Dale Street.

But since you haven’t blogged about this I have had to say it elsewhere.