REPORT: Second Liverpool Mayor scrutiny committee - Mathew Street Festival, Hillsborough vigil, 'baffling finance reports', and LDL
I've just got back from the second Liverpool Mayor select committee.
There were a few announcements tonight by Joe Anderson.
Here they are summarised below:
Next year's Mathew Street Festival will be revamped.
Last week the we revealed a £400,000 funding blackhole in next year's budget due to the loss of European funding. The festival costs £800,000 to stage.
"There has been speculation about the festival," Mayor Anderson said. "No decision has been made, but it is going to be revamped. It's not going to be the same as last year."
He said within the next month the "exciting" events programme for the following year would be revealed.
He also announced the select committee will in future have a majority of opposition councillors.
He said: "It's about scrutiny and checking things, I am happy with that."
The council is due to have one of its bi-monthly meetings on Wednesday - the day of the release of the report by the Hillsborough Independent Panel.
Liverpool council has organised a vigil at St George's Plateau starting at 6pm.
Mayor Anderson announced that the 5pm council meeting would be put back to 7pm for council members to be able to attend the vigil.
He said: "Hopefully the Hillsborough Independent Panel will give what everybody has wanted for 23 years - the truth."
He also revealed that a health commission to be led by renown expert Prof Ian Gilmore had not started yet because of a prior commitment.
The mayor and Prof Gilmore are to meet next week to discuss when the commission might start.
For the past two years the Liberals have been involved in setting a joint budget with the ruling Labour group.
But Mayor Anderson said this was in doubt because ground rules had not been agreed and time was running out to do so.
He initially announced that Labour would be going it alone, but agreed to "reflect" on the situation after protests from Liberal leader Cllr Steve Radford.
In discussion about finance documents, Liberal Democrat Erica Kemp revealed she's baffled by some of the terms in the report like 'sweating an asset'.
Mayor Anderson joked that there is no need to feel embarrassed as 90% of councillors don't understand either.
Cllr Radford also urged the mayor to breakdown council contracts to allow small companies to bid for work.
He went on to say that some of the costs associated with the controversial £70m annual Liverpool Direct Limited (LDL) IT and call centre joint venture with BT were "astonishing".
Mayor Anderson said he would set up a seminar to allow councillors to ask questions on the subject of LDL.
He said many issues regarding LDL were often "taken out of context".
"There is nothing to hide here. I think it is a good idea there's a regular opportunity for members to ask questions."
The seminar will be chaired by the chair of the mayoral select committee Liberal Cllr Hazel Williams.
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David Bartlett
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What I find amazing about the Mathew Street festival is that tax payers in this city pay for the council to stage this festival, for what? This is a festival clearly used by the majority of people as an excuse to get drunk.
I didn't attend the festival this year for that exact reason, even though it was in the end, cancelled. The previous year there were vast amounts of "young people" carrying round carrier bags full of booze, then sitting in a "strictly no alcohol zone", openly drinking, police walk by. Nothing. Why claim to enforce fines for drinking in these zones, underage drinking especially, then don't enforce them.
The council need to wake up to the fact that this festival is a waste of money. Money that could be better spent on a true family-friendly festival.
Re: Mathew Street Music Festival. SevenStreets.com recently ran an article 'Seven ways to save the festival'. I think the Council should look at those suggested if they want ideas for next year.
http://www.sevenstreets.com/events-and-attractions/feature-events-and-attractions/7-ways-to-save-liverpoolmathew-st-festival/
In a city that's packed full of musical talent, it's a shame that so much council tax money is spent on bringing in cover acts and tribute bands from outside Liverpool.
Radford is spot on with "astonishing" costs. A great many other aspects of LDL are equally astonishing.
And they actually have the cheek to talk about sweating the assets - you have to know what assets you actually have, before you can think about sweating them.
We own 40% of LDL - so it's a fairly major asset (bragging in its latest annual report that 2011 was its most successful year yet.....).
Do we know how much they actually earn from third parties? No.
Do we even know if what we buy from them (in terms of equipment, etc.) is actually good value? Not a clue.
Did the Mayor even mention the fact that last week he became a director of LDL (on 30 August, according to Companies House), joining Chief Exec Fitzgerald? Doesn't sound like it.
So the people at the top of the Council, the ones with specific responsibilities for the LDL contract, are actually directors of this successful but highly secretive company. A massive conflict of interest, with no safeguards whatsover.
How on earth can they possibly imagine that "a seminar so councillors can ask questions" is adequate scrutiny of a grotesque arrangement like this? A teaching session. No doubt there'll be a slick presentation with cute fonts, slogans, and clever graphics.
This is patronising rubbish - stonewalling to avoid holding anyone to account for anything.
Do they think we, councillors and public alike, are all complete idiots??
They certainly seem to.
Earlier this year, the Finance & Resource committee finally decided to set up a proper scrutiny panel (i.e. one that actually met, asked hard questions, got hold of the relevant documents, etc.) just before the Mayoral election. Since then they "decided" not to pursue this because the Mayoral scrutiny committee would scrutinise joint ventures, including LDL. Nothing whatsoever has been done in 4 months (apart from paying out huge sums to LDL every month, with no detail whatsoever, as per usual). Except for this seminar idea.
If they do change the composition of this committee, then I really hope that the new lineup are brave enough to tell them what to do with their seminar, and start asking some hard questions instead.
I am pleased Mayor Anderson will finally allow Councillors to ask questions towards srcutiny of the costs associated with the LDL deal. Although I doubt difficult questions will be answered properly by David McElhinney and Ged Fitzgerald.
The LDL deal is a monster and still haunts the City Council.
Just echoing Katie 54 and Hiltons former Hotel : there should be no need for a 'seminar' (what a patronising term) for councillors - they are elected to scrutinise such matters as LDL.
Councillors - you have a moral duty to understand this contract and question it. This isn't an additional job - it's at the heart of your role. LDL spends tens of millions of council money every year. It brings in unknown millions in revenue which goes straight to BT - even though Council staff, premises and equipment are used to generate this revenue! This isn't conjecture - it's all established fact, with the key information already in the public domain.