LEAKED: Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson hits out at 'cynical' press coverage of council's annual internal audit
Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson is not very happy with the reporting in today's ECHO of failures identified by the council's internal audit department.
He used the council's message of day function on the council's intranet to hit out at the story (which carried a statement from the council and which Mayor Anderson did not take the opportunity to comment on).
The message of the day 'In response to press coverage of the Annual Internal Audit Report' has been leaked to Dale Street Associates, here it is:
Colleagues, today the council has been labelled as a 'Calamity Council' by the Liverpool Echo. This cynical, negative attitude is all too typical of coverage of the city council, where every missed bin or road closure is reported in a negative way. It chips away at people's confidence in the Council and trust in democracy. It is disappointing that they don't show the same interest in how we have managed the cuts, or how we are working day and night to attract investment. Their coverage of the Annual Internal Audit Report is an example of this, and it saddens me greatly to see the hard work of staff taken out of context and portrayed in this way. We are open and transparent about what we do and address our weaknesses, we will not hide where we have failed or under-performed, we will take it on the chin and change how we do things for the future. The Audit report is our own internal report which shows we have nothing to hide. One example that is quite staggering is the press's criticisms of the council over blue badges. The evidence, both locally and nationally, shows that blue badge fraud is one of the most prevalent fraud issues affecting local authorities. The proactive work that we have already taken in response to this national blight is to secure 500 prosecutions, confiscations and cautions through a new team set up specifically to tackle the issue. In addition, the number of public car park spaces occupied by blue badges has fallen from 37 percent to 20 percent, indicating that the measures we are putting in place to combat this abuse are working.
The city council is responsible for more than £1 billion of public money every year. The Council's Internal Audit Service makes sure we are meeting the highest possible standards for management of the council's finances.
The newspaper story, while taking extracts from the report, did not accurately reflect the context of much of the work that has been done, and is still being done, to tackle issues highlighted. We would like to reassure you that the overall picture is one of improvement. In particular that the overall controls we have in place are adequate and effective and the overall direction of travel is positive.
Here are some steps we have already taken, in addition to the proactive work around blue badges, in relation to issues that the newspaper chose to refer to:
Driver CRB checks
The Fleet team is in the process of finalising the improvements to their recording systems, and Internal Audit will be undertaking a follow up audit in August/September to ensure the recommendations have been put in place.
Contracts
All contracts now go through a procurement board chaired by the Director of Finance and Resources and robust governance arrangements for procurement are in place. The procurement board is also closely linked with the commissioning board chaired by a Chief Officer. In future, no contract will be tendered or let without approval from the procurement board to ensure compliance with standing orders and legislation. A training programme is planned for August and will ensure every officer responsible for procurement and contracts management will receive refresher training and have support in their role to ensure these weaknesses are corrected.
Whistleblowing
The 22 percent increase in whistleblowing is welcomed as it shows our staff have confidence that they can raise issues that concern them. We will continue to raise awareness of the procedures.
Registering of gifts and hospitality
We have implemented an electronic system to allow senior staff to register these effectively and in a timely manner and a new wave of training which will address the issues raised in the audit report will take place in the autumn.
For those audits with a high risk rating, which was minimal, action plans have been put in place to address all the issues raised and significant progress has been made. As Mayor, I am 100 percent satisfied that our procedures we have in relation to audit reporting and the strong management actions taken in response are robust and comprehensive. It is regrettable that the press chose not to highlight these measures in its coverage.
Joe Anderson Mayor of Liverpool
Tuesday 24 July 2012
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Dale Street Associates
David Bartlett
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Interesting. I rang the Lpool Direct to report Blue Badge fraud and they weren't bothered. When I insisted, they said to ring the police.
The man clearly believes his own spin. And thinks he has a mandate to behave like this. Yes, a lot of people voted for Joe Anderson, but I doubt that any of them thought they were voting for this kind of control freakery.
The elected mayor is meant to ensure strong governance - i.e. good and accountable decision making - but what we have is someone who thinks this means governing strongly, with excessive control, half-baked spin, and heavy handed party discipline. Maybe there's a misunderstanding. A decent dictionary, or 5 minutes on the internet, will clarify the difference between governing and governance (they need to commission a University study to understand this??)
Yes, a lot of people voted for Joe Anderson, but I doubt that any of them thought they were voting for this kind of control freakery.
"We are open and transparent about what we do!!!" But only about the things we want you to know about, presented in the way we want to present it. Our version of events, controlled by us, with our script.
If everything was wonderful, open and transparent, they would not be trying to muzzle and control scrutiny. We will no longer have proper independent scrutiny, but will instead have the mayor, who will block anything he doesn't want looked at. He will no doubt do this "openly and transparently". And then appoint some toothless and unelected commission that will meet in private. And not have access to real documents. Or powers to ask officers for proper answers.
Proper scrutiny would provide all of this.
Take Finance & Resources. Before the election, the select committee wanted to resurrect the LDL scrutiny panel and allow it to complete the work it was supposed to do when set up 3 years ago, before it was muzzled. Are they going to have one - no chance. If looking at how tens of millions of our money is spent on ICT equipment every year in a totally untransparent way is not fairly and squarely within the remit of this Committee, I don't know what is. But you can bet this particular proposal will be kicked into touch. It won't happen.
Because our open and transparent council consistently refuses answer questions about LDL - and doesn't even report properly the many people in LDL earning well over the threshold for reporting. Or, instead of refusing to answer, pretends it doesn't have the information. Then, when the Information Commissioner gets involved, they suddenly realise that, lo and behold, they do have information...... etc etc. And then, eventually, after a lot of hassle and a very long time, the information is actually released. But it was too late to actually influence the refresh, although hopefully we will be able to get them to finally start to get a grip on this.
Why isn't he concerned at a massive increase in internal whistleblower complaints, or that the Local Government Ombudsman found an LCC internal audit investigation's conclusion that there was no cause for concern, over contract procedures, "incomprehensible"??
This will be the tip of the iceberg, because to LGO can only look at complaints that have caused damage or loss to an individual or company. It has to be specifici, so they can't look at rotten strategies and policies that affect everyone - like the LDL business. Imagine what they would have found if they'd looked at that - more of what the other investigations found. And total inaction by the council.
As for the Echo, they are, if anything, too restrained. If they really wanted to put the boot in, there's plenty of ammunition. But they haven't.
Thanks to FOI there is a positive litany of dreadful and damning facts, on whatdotheyknow and other sites, and in some of the comments made here.
What does he want - that they just print council press releases, with council spin.... and refuse to publish information leaked by people who are clearly so frustrated by a total refusal to admit that there is ever any kind of problem.
They've given the new Mayor an easy ride, publishing some pretty sycophantic stuff.
They need to serve their public better -and themselves, in terms of readership and site visits - and start putting the boot in and publishing more of the information that is now in the public domain. Please.
While this on the surface could be seen as a mayor backing his staff which could be a good thing, truth be told is that any criticisms here do not apply to well over 99 % of the staff. Not so much as they are not guilty but purely because their job does not involve anything contained in the report.
Bringing in the head of LDL on a temporary basis to re-create the top table to a more LDL friendly top table and then keeping him there well .... what are the chances of anyone believing that everything is above board and open and transparent. I think on a scale of 1 to 10, one would need to go to decimal places to register a score.
I visited the Council site hoping to see a copy of the audit report, but couldn't find it. All I found was Joe's retaliation against the Echo. Could somebody provide a link please? As a taxpayer I'd like to see what's in this report.
Katie's spot on about LDL - why wasn't this highlighted in the report?
About LDL not being mentioned in the report - this is because it is not something the LGO can look at. It certainly does not mean there's plenty to look at and criticise.
As individuals, or as companies, we can complain to the LGO if something has damaged us in some way, but an individual cannot do this unless it can point to specific damage to them personally.
Things that affect everyone in an area are not within the LGO remit. They are for the District Auditor - the Audit Commission may well have been downsized, but the powers are still there, and they still have teeth, if we use them.
The fact that you can't find the audit report on the council website shows how ludicrous the Mayor's assertions are.
If you deliberately suppress something, and then it is leaked, it is positively perverse to then moan that people are carping and being unfair to the council, not recognising the hard work they do, etc. etc.
We all accept and entirely understand that the overwhelming majority of the people who work for the council work hard, and do their jobs well, but clearly this does not apply to everyone and everything. We are entitled to know when and how things have gone wrong. And why.
There's a famous quote about people who do not learn from the mistakes of history being doomed to repeat them....
They have yet to convince anyone they've learnt anything at all from the 10 years of our wonderful partnership with BT.
Apologies, my last post was confusing.
This latest leak is an internal audit report, looking on progress since the LGO criticisms in 2009. Not the LGO report itself.
So Griff's question is entirely reasonable - why hasn't the council internal audit department looked at the LDL contract - especially regarding procurement of all sorts of goods and services that were not in the original contract, about which there have been loads of allegations of overcharging?
The answer, I suspect, is that they were not allowed to.
The report can be read here
http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/documents/s103424/Internal%20Audit%20Annual%20Report%20July%202012.pdf
Dave Tory - thanks. Don't know why I failed to find it.
Indeed, no mention of LDL - given the scale of this contract and also its many controversies, this seems surprising
Griff, I think the answer to this is that the LDL contract has been redefined - it's a partnership.
Everyone working together towards a common goal, in harmonious understanding. So no benchmarking, no monitoring, no proper contract management.
And LDL does not appear to be part of the remit of the Director of Finances and Resources - it's now the direct responsibility of the Chief Executive, and his 20 million a year Policy & Partnerships office. With direct input (according to the published organisation chart of the council) from the LCC Chief Information Officer/CEO of LDL, who we pay God knows how much(because we certainly don't) to sell BT goods and services to the Council - at prices that no-one has a clue about.
So they won't allow these trained procurement and contract management people to get anywhere near LDL.