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BELOW IS A CRITIQUE OF LIVERPOOL CITY COUNCIL AND OTHER ELITIST BODIES. THE FIRST DOCUMENT COVERS POSSIBLE INSTITUTIONALISED, UNETHICAL, CORRUPT BEHAVIOUR IN THE LIVERPOOL CITY COUNCIL AND OTHER PUBLIC AND PRIVATE REGENERATION AGENCIES?
FOLLOWED BY A DISTURBING REPORT ON THE KENSINGTON REGENERATION WHICH WAS WRITTEN BY A COMMUNITY ACTIVIST CALLED ROBIN MORRITT
Is there institutionalised unethical corrupt behaviour in the Liverpool City Council and other public and private regeneration agencies?
(This document was started on 28th March 1999)
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Introduction:
As a means to caricature the situation on Merseyside the analogy of the jungle is appropriate. Use of the following metaphor is an attempt to crystallize the process that has been taking place. The dominant predatory felines (public and quasi-public sector agencies) rule as they carefully prowl and meticulously observe their prey (EC resources). When the opportune time arrives they attack and firmly fix their sharpened teeth and razor like claws into the helpless beast. They then gorge themselves on a prolonged feast, while their ravenous rival competitors (private, trade union and civil society) wait impatiently to feed on the carcass that remains. While not arguing that such a natural law exists on Merseyside, the comparison is useful in depicting how the dominant actors are able to use their strength and power to obtain the lion’s share of EC Objective One funding while others are left to pick up the scraps left behind. (Dr Philip Boland research paper 1999)
Liverpool is one of the poorest cities in Great Britain and Merseyside as a whole is one of the fifth poorest regions. Merseyside has some of the worst deprivation factors in the country. As a result of these problems the region was awarded Objective One funding from the European Commission. This was to help bring about economic regeneration.
This report can be backed up with statements from official reports, reviews and press cuttings. It is intended that the reader will see the problems pertaining to the city of Liverpool and the region of Merseyside.
The main issues of concern voiced by the people who live in the poor communities are:
· The lack of easy to read information pertaining to the administration of the Objective One Programme.
· The lack of easy to read information from Government Office for the North West (GONW) pertaining to the amount of jobs that have been created directly through the Objective One programme.
· Hardly any information relating to the projects that GONW say are in the process of being initiated.
· What are these projects and when are they going to come to fruition?
· How many of these projects have failed to come to fruition.
· The lack of information from GONW and the Liverpool City Council pertaining to the administration and achievements of the Pathway Partnerships especially the ones that don't have Central Government Single Regeneration Budget (SRB).
· The need for a comprehensive guide to the Objective One programme from GONW, that covers the whole administration of the programme directly across Merseyside as a whole; and all the bodies that are involved in its administration.
· The inability of the council officers and the counsel's administration to come to terms with the fact that a well-established gravy train has evolved appertaining to the Objective One programme in Merseyside.
· The need for the City's Council officers and the staff at GONW to be continually aware of, and except the fact that there is a culture of secrecy amongst, staff and management.
· The need for council officers and staff at GONW, to except and come to terms with the fact that there is hardly any community participation in the Objective One programme or any other public ally funded project such as New Deal for Communities (NDC) and Single regeneration Budget (SRB) initiatives.
· The need for the Council’s to be aware of the fact that they serve the people of |Merseyside, not themselves and big business.
· Instead of distancing themselves from the public our city leaders should become more aware of the fact that Merseyside's population are astounded at the fact that nearly all of its council officers and certain elected members are incompetent.
· The inability of the council to see things from the community’s perspective.
· The inability of the council and GONW to inform people, via the local media, of important reports and reviews.
· Council leaders and officers making major decisions without putting them to the people.
· The ability of the council officer to pay themselves extremely high salaries.
· The way in which council officers change written descriptions of poor areas, and alter documentation purely to suit their own ends.
· The lack of accountability amongst council officers and certain elected members.
· The council's inability to understand the problems appertaining to the Toxteth/Granby area and the deprivation and poverty being suffered by its ethnic community.
· The involvement of the local media in what seems to be a one sided portrayal (favourable to the New Labour Party) of local issues.
· The involvement of BBC Radio Merseyside in local political issues, and there ability of portraying a one sided view of things, (preferably New Labour's view).
· The involvement of radio-station personalities and newspaper editors with the Democracy Commission when they should be politically impartial.
· The involvement (directly or indirectly) of radio station personalities in Local Government and Central Government issues
· The inability of the city 's leaders and media to stand up against Central Government and demand the interjection of more SRB and other funding sources, primarily to enable the successful drawing down of Objective One funding sources in to all Merseyside's 38 pauperised Pathway Partnership areas.
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Guide to the first Objective one Programme:
Guide can be observed on my web page http://www.whistleblower.nstemp.com/custom2.html of Whistle blower web site.
People Not Profit (PnP) organisation web site:
I have also made contact with the organisation People Not Profit (PnP) who are also asking questions about the way in which European funding is being administrated and spent. There web site is www.peoplenotprofit.co.uk PnP have made a link to my web site.
On September 1998I successfully completed a research course at Hope University. The subject I chose to research was the Objective One programme. At the time community activists where finding it extremely difficult to understand how the programme was evolving. It seemed quite impossible to gain a comprehensive picture of how the programme was being put together or to gain access to any significant information. Such is the bureaucratic nature of the programmes evolution information is spread across many agencies and local government bodies. The Objective One programme has evolved into such a complicated maze of agencies and Partnerships that a whole book could be written about it.
It was determined by my tutor and myself that there was a need for an easy to read, but extensive guide to the Objective One programme. I chose as my research project the task of putting together a guide. When I completed the guide, which consisted of 15,000 words and 51 pages, which was only a compilation of information that was written by the many various agencies. I took it to Government Office for the North West (GONW. Government Office has now changed its name to Government Office for the North West Regions. I explained to them that there was a need for a comprehensive guide explaining to the public how the Objective One programme had evolved and how many people where involved in its administration.
GONW only managed to put together a leaflet guide, which consisted of a couple of pictures and a few hundred words. For some reason the guide was never printed, or even used as a forerunner to a more elaborate guide, even though my tutors at Hope University where impressed by the way in which the guide portrayed such a bureaucratic programme in a simple way. I have often wondered why the guide was never taken seriously? I can only conclude that the many people who where in charge of the programme's administration where deliberately keeping the people of Liverpool and Merseyside in ignorance, because they where making such a mess of it all. For
what other reason would they withhold this information?
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Changing all the goal posts:
Since the guide was written many things have been changed, especially with the arrival of the new chief executive David Henshaws. Mr Henshaw, working with the Liberal Democrat administration, has changed the whole structure of the Liverpool City Council. There is now a new Single Programming Document, which is available from the Chamber of Commerce, who it is said, played a big part in its compilation. There is also talk of reducing the local Partnerships in Liverpool from 11 to five. Its as though all the goal posts are being changed to further confuse people. It’s quite obvious that these changes are taking place because Merseyside has been granted another £844 million Objective One funding in 2000. (Merseyside now has this money).
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A well-established gravy train:
An article by the former editor of the Business Week (a once weekly supplement in the Liverpool Daily Post) Alex Hunt, titled Alex Hunt's Midweek View reported: "Objective One" The only democratic option is on a nuclear scale and therefore unusable, tells an extraordinary story connected with the way in which the Objective One programme on Merseyside has evolved. It speaks of the Liverpool Council's inability to stop its regeneration experts from leaving and setting up public/private partnerships to advance their already profitable careers.
The article goes on to report how: The council has expanded its in house training programme to train staff in the dark arts of regeneration programmes and complicated grant applications. Objective One grant money was probably made available to help them do this.
The article further goes on to say how the EC is swathed in bureaucracy and how over five years of its existence in Merseyside the Objective One programme has developed into a well established gravy train.
The article says: Like the computer programmers who created a bug that only they themselves can cure (getting paid huge sums in the process) so there are legions of grant application professionals out there getting rich on deciphering the appalling processes developed by their ancestors. Unfortunately these very same people were also responsible for devising the EC. (Business Week Jan 1999).
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Newsletter I put together about Objective One:
European 'Objective One' what's it all about and what does it mean? £635 million, over £1.5 billion when matched by Government and private sector money (With another £844 million due again in the year 2,000) to be spent over a six year period. Given to Merseyside by the European Commission to help economically regenerate the region and bring an end to poverty, depravation and social exclusion; to help reach the most disadvantaged in our communities. Has this happened? Can the 500,000 people who live in the 38 recognised disadvantaged areas of Merseyside (known as Pathway Partnerships) honestly say they have seen notable changes in their communities?
You can’t argue with the facts!
Merseyside has some of the worst depravation factors in Great Britain and is one of the fifth poorest regions in the country. Over two thirds of Liverpool's population are living either in or on the fringes of poverty. In Merseyside as a whole over half of the population are living either in or on the fringes of poverty (Council's Anti Poverty Unit). Some time ago the Liverpool City Council stated in one of its many documents that the ultimate aim of the City Council's economic development activities is to promote prosperity for the residents of Liverpool. Has this happened? It’s nearly five years since the money came and incredibly the region’s GDP has become 3% worse than before it received the money.
Is there a veil of silence?
It was reported that 76% of the population of Merseyside have never even heard of the Objective One programme or of what it is supposed to represent. Yet the European Commission recommended extensive community participation in its administration. Is there a conspiracy of silence? Are we being deliberately kept in the dark? Do the local media know what is going on? Are they instead obsessed with the favourable spin? Do our local MP's and Euro MP's know what is going? Are the so-called 37 Pathway Partnerships suppressing information? Is there a conspiracy of silence? Are the people who are working in regeneration living in an illusion? Could it be that they don't want the people of Merseyside to know what is going on because the army of regeneration experts, business advisers, administrators and council officers are making such a mess of it all?
The affluent suburbs!
One thing is for certain the people who live in the affluent suburbs have definitely benefited from this bureaucratic programme. If we take into account the endless supply of business advice agencies, regeneration experts, architects, deciphers of complicated application processes, university lecturers college lecturers, bankers, colleges, universities, TEC's and local authorities employed to make complicated grant applications and the amount of people employed in the huge learning, advice and processing industry runs into thousands.(media source). The figures could be much more than this but no one seems to know exactly. This is not surprising as no one can actually give a precise figure to any aspect of this run away freight train Objective One programme. It has for want of better terms, taken on a life of it's own. Local media sources are already suggesting that more than £70 million of the Merseyside programme has been spent on paying the fees of these and other professional advisers and the EC is unable to say whether this figure is accurate or not.
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Is there a need for all the advice agencies?
The would be entrepreneurs and small businesses who have tried to access money through the many agencies say they where so astounded by the complicated bureaucratic drawn out process that many of them simply gave up. Are the multitude of so-called business advice agencies deliberately dragging the process out to justify their very existence? Casual observations would suggest that there are a considerable number of professional services, from accountants to public relation agencies, which have the EC and the Objective One programme to thank for their existence on Merseyside. (Media source). To the ordinary person in the street it would seem that anything connected with the EC is infused with bureaucracy, a lack of democracy and a total absence of accountability. It’s not so long ago that the most bizarre and sinister accusations were levelled at Jacques Santer’s European Commission and his band of merry autocrats. Fraud, nepotism, cronyism, rifles with silencers, how scary! At first the European Parliament did nothing, giving more authenticity to the charge of lack of accountability. In fear of more scandal the European Parliament eventually capitulated and forced the European Commission to resign.
The Partnerships! Are they part of a wider subterfuge?
What are the Partnerships? They are supposed to represent the voice of the people who live in the 38 disadvantaged areas, but do they? A report undertaken on behalf of the Liverpool University indicated that 76% of the people who live in the 38 disadvantaged Partnership areas didn't know that their neighbourhood was part of a Partnership area, and the ones that did don’t really know what’s going on. The report concluded with, developing and sustaining community involvement in Partnerships requires not only time and resources, but also a commitment to democratic principles. Few could honestly say that democracy was an attribute connected with the EC ideology.
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The Central Partnership Team:
They are supposed to co-ordinate and support the 11 Partnerships across Liverpool. There is one of these teams in each of the five Merseyside boroughs. Liverpool's team is situated in the Central Policy Unit and seems to be as secretive as the council. When I first approached them for information in connection with how much money had been spent on projects in the 11 pauperised Liverpool Partnerships they said. Quote. The information requested here is not the kind of detail kept by my team. Eventually through my local councillor I found out that they did have this information. In my opinion, how can there be any worthwhile community participation when what seems to be a bureaucratic secretive culture like this has been allowed to flourish? (With the new round of Objective One funding £844m, which was awarded to Merseyside in 2000. (In 1999 or 2000 the “Central Partnership Team” ceased to exist and the people who worked there where moved to other regeneration initiatives).
The so-called Five Drivers For Change!
Objective One is subdivided into five parts, which are technically known as drivers for change. The fifth part £524 million was supposed to be targeted at improving the likelihood of unemployed people getting jobs and involving communities in the Partnership Pathway areas- neighbourhoods which are economically depressed - improving the local environment, community services and the general quality of life. Has this happened? The Liverpool City Council recently admitted (1997/98) that there had been a considerable underspend across Merseyside's 38 Partnership areas, especially in the areas that don’t have SRB funding. The underspend amounted to £10 million, £17 million when matched.
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It’s top secret and it’s a "Gravy Train"!
The most mind-boggling aspect of this whole scenario is the lack of information and the semi-secretive bureaucratic ethos that surrounds the projects evolution, but the whole history of the European project has been infused with the mentality that nothing, which might damage its long-term good, should be revealed or even admitted. (Media source).
A local journalist wrote: Despite the first Objective One programme being only four years and a bit into it’s existence Objective One is already developing strong symptoms of being a well established gravy train.
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The elusive 25,000 jobs:
When Merseyside received the first round of Objective One funding £635 million (another £844 million is due in the year 2001) the European Commission advised Government Office For the North West that 25,000 jobs should be created by the end of 1999. (This date has now been conveniently changed to 2001). This has not happened. If you approach GONW they are not able to provide you with any credible figures. They do have complicated graphs relating to jobs created, but many community activists say these figures are not credible or reliable. In fact GONW are now as unhelpful and as unaccountable as the city 's council officers and the senior elected members.
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Is the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo ignorant to what is going on or are they part of a wider subterfuge? (Newspaper articles and comments on articles by Mike Lane)
It was recently reported in the Liverpool Daily Post (Dec 23/1999) that all of Europe's £635m Objective One funding for Merseyside will have been allocated by the end of the year deadline, an Objective One spokesman said last night. And it is estimated that the six-year financial aid package has attracted a total of £1.5b to the region, made up of public sector funding to match Brussels's input, and boosted by private investment.
Local government officers overseeing the allocation of funding claim the original target of creating 25,000 jobs will be surpassed once the full impact of Merseyside's first tranche £638m Of Objective One aid has fed through.
So far 16,429 direct, permanent jobs have been created, but current, and proposed projects, could take a further two years to complete, by which time more jobs will be secured. As of the 22 Dec 1999 98% of the £635m European aid package has been allocated, while the remaining 2% will have been promised to specific projects before the December 31 1999 deadline.
(This figure of 16,429 is highly questionable. A question mark also hangs over what type of jobs these 16,429 jobs are, and how much money they pay. Comment by Mike Lane).
Preparations are now on course to begin drawing down from the second tranch of Objective One funds, worth an estimated £844m, by next spring.
(This money is now available. Comment Mike Lane).
Liberal Democrat councillor Flo Clucas, who sits on the Objective One monitoring committee, hailed the first six years programme as a certain success. "We have achieved a significant goal," she said "We have ensured that a very large amount of money has been committed to a vast range of projects in Merseyside, and many of those projects are either already in train, or completed." "These include training projects, community projects both large and small, job and business creation, and major development projects around Merseyside," she said.
(Again, we have a Liverpool Daily Post and Echo reporter indulging in the art of the favourable emotive spin. I wonder if Flo Clucas did hail the first six year programme a success using the enthusiasm the journalist tries to portray in his one sided article? The question always asked by sceptical community activists is, "What projects were they and how many projects was there? Comments Mike Lane)?
Examples of key schemes funded by Objective One cash include the £90m Queen Square renovation in the Liverpool City Centre, key scheme includes the Swallow Hotel, JB Sports, a restaurant and pub, business and community developments in the Speke-Garston area, the Knowsley Partnership, the soon to be started Ocean Plaza leisure development in Southport, and the Laird Foundation in the Wirral area.
(The above facilities employ around three hundred people who are earning not much more than the minimum wage. This is in spite of the Liverpool City Council’s assurance that they, using Objective One funding, are committed to creating a more prosperous life for the residents of Merseyside. Comments Mike Lane).
Councillor Clucas added: "We have ensured that additional investment has flowed into Merseyside and now we are about to see even more funds flow into the region as we prepare for the second programme of European Objective One funding. "What we have done today is ensure that all the remaining available cash can be spent over the next two years. The deadline for agreeing projects will continue to deliver activity and jobs and will continue to impact positively on the regeneration of Merseyside for the coming two years. This means that we have yet to see the full impact of the first round of Objective One money, but what we have seen already is hugely encouraging."
(The fact still remains that the elusive 25,000 jobs by the end of 1999 has not been reached, 16,429 is 8,571 jobs short of 25,000. Comments Mike Lane).
(A former Merseyside MEP Ken Stewart said: (Liverpool Echo 27/7/95) "It is hoped that 25,000 jobs will have come by the end of 1999. However, concerns have been expressed about what kind of jobs are being created; Merseyside looks like ending up with the best trained dole queues in Europe - unless more is done to create real jobs and help business." Comment Mike Lane).
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The projects:
They say that there are many projects on the drawing board and that much money has been committed to them, but except for the city centre and the Speke-Garston Partnership, there hasn't been an abundance of major projects. This is certainly a fact in the rest of the 37 poor Pathway Partnership areas; yet the fifth part of Objective One: £524 million (according to GONW in their tiny guide) was supposed to be targeted at the Pathway Partnership areas, home to over 500,000 people.
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Community participation:
When Merseyside was awarded this money it was expected by the European Commission that there would be extensive community participation in the programmes administration. This has not happened. How can community helpers and activists have any meaningful involvement when they don't know what is going on, or how the programmes administration is structured? In my opinion the present community participation methodology is not conducive with bringing about a bottom up approach. The outreach workers who work for the Pathway Partnerships and for the many other regeneration partnerships do not impart onto the community a participation methodology that is empowering, but rather a participation methodology that contains within it’s centre a neo-liberal ideology that instead of empowering the community subjugates and oppresses it causing the community to become domesticated. This is done so that outside vested interests can surreptitiously impose its hidden agendas onto the largely unsuspecting community. As a result of this the community does not create its own environment but is cajoled and indoctrinated into accepting an environment that is imposed upon it. In essence the community and its leaders become active participant in their own subjugation. (This issue will be covered in more depth in other documents).
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The review into community participation:
The lack of community participation can be further confirmed by a report. that was undertaken by Paul Kyprianou. This report and research is based on a research degree that was undertaken at the University of Liverpool. MR Kyprianou was also a co-opted member of Liverpool Community Rights. The report was first presented at "Community Matters in Europe" Conference in March 1997. Copies of this report can be obtained from Liverpool Community Rights. Although this report was completed in 1997 matter in relation to community participation have not improved.
The review concluded with:
· There is a lack of information about what is happening from the point of view of the community
· Previous regeneration initiatives have failed to create partnerships with effective community participation
· More than Three-quarters of the local people did not know that their neighbourhood was in a partnership area.
· Most community activists felt that local people's ability to influence what happened was limited
· Overall there was a lack of confidence that the Partnerships would make a significant difference to creating jobs or improving the area.
· The most important issue identified by key people was housing followed by
Unemployment
Developing and sustaining community involvement in partnerships requires not only time and resources but a commitment to democratic principals. This will remain a challenge to all those involved.
A couple of years after this report Paul Kyprianou did another report, which contained a very favourable spin and a sterling review of the Objective One Programme. This favourable report was expected by many community activists who do not trust Paul Kyprianou. It’s common practice for middle class consultants, researchers, and newspaper journalists to complete initial bad reports then follow them up at a later date with a good report. This tactic is commonly used, and it’s primary purpose is to further their career prospects. When it is noticed by senior regeneration administrators and council officers that people like Paul Kyprianou are, what is termed in the regeneration game as “safe”, they use them again in other regeneration programmes. For instance, Paul Kyprianou, who now runs a consultancy firm, was recently invited into the £62m Liverpool Kensington New Deal for Communities (NDC) area (this NDC area covers 4,200 houses and business premises) to do research into what is known as the five “Citizens Panels”. These panels were put together by the NDC regeneration administrator’s consultants and, by using stealth, imposed onto the NDC community. They are grossly under-attended, have no powers of decision-making, and only serve to confuse the wider NDC community. In my opinion they are being used as a public relation stunt to make it look like the community are heavily involved when in reality there are only a hand full of people making the major decision.
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The Pathway Partnership newspapers and the most favourable spin:
One of the ways in which the Pathway Partnerships try to portray the image they are involving the community is by stating they distribute a quarterly newspaper around their designated area. What they don't say is they post these extremely sanitised papers to only a very small proportion of the area they cover, in some cases less than a quarter.
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An example of the lack of community participation:
It was recently reported in the Liverpool Echo (Oct 18/1999) that community leaders in Merseyside's Kirby area have written to the Prime Minister Tony Blair claiming their voice on a multi-million pound funding package is being ignored. When £12.5m of Single Regeneration Budget SRB cash was awarded this year residents of Northwood where told they would have a say in how it was spent to improve their quality of life. But in a letter to Downing Street Chris Ashton, chairman of the areas resident's association has claimed their views are being overlooked.
£12.5 million isn't much when one takes into account the fact that, as already mentioned £524 million was supposed to have been available. This £12 .5 million SRB funding can be used by the community to draw down a further £24 million Objective One European Regional Development Funding (ERDF) and European Social Funding (ESF). This particular case is only an example of the way in which community activists are being kept out of the Objective One project. Lack of community participation is happening on a much wider scale right across Merseyside's 38 pauperised communities. It also to some extent verifies the fact that a well- established gravy train has now developed. Comments Mike Lane).
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WHICH ACADEMICS ARE TELLING THE TRUTH? ARE CERTAIN CAREERIST MIDDLE CLASS ACADEMICS PROLONGING THE MISERIES OF THE POOR AND SOCIALLY EXCLUDED?
The issue of regeneration on Merseyside Great Britain covers many subjects, but the issue of community participation and empowerment is being conveniently down graded by many of Liverpool’s elitist elements and this is in spite of the fact that central government ministers are promoting the empowerment of our communities. This business, local government and central government elitists are also secure and safe in the knowledge that certain safe careerist academics are promoting the most favourable spin in relation to the above issues in their research projects on regeneration.
At this present time there are quite a lot of academics heavily involved in issues pertaining to the regeneration of Merseyside, Liverpool and many other poor communities throughout the UK. One of the main academics (who is funded by some government body or other, probably Government Office) involved with regeneration and New deal for Communities (NDC) is Professor Paul Lawless. Professor Lawless can be reached at Sheffield Harlem University. His phone number is 0114-225-5555. This man is head of a team of lecturers who span the whole country, for instance he knows lecturers in Liverpool such as Michael Parkinson and his team, who are situated in Urban Affairs at John Moor’s University and Richard Meagan, who has received funding from a government body known as ESRC to partake in a 3 year research programme. This research formed part of the ESRC’s ‘Cities, Competitiveness and Cohesion’ Research Programme. It was a ‘free-standing project’ based around investigation of an actual regeneration initiative being carried out on Merseyside as part of the city-region’s social and economic conversion plan under Objective One of the European Union’s Structural Funds. This initiative - known as ‘Pathways to Integration’ – was one of five priorities in the Objective One single programming document and was explicitly targeted at issues of social and economic (Richard Meegan Summery of full report). Meegan’s final research summery was favorable and very supportive of the way in which Pathway’s has evolved and is operated. Richard Meagan research can be viewed on the ESRC’s web site: http://www.regard.ac.uk/cgi-bin/regardng/showReports.pl?ref=L130251044 he can also be reached at the Department of Geography, which is situated in Liverpool University.
The most damning report (1994-1999):
In 1994-1999 Dr Philip Boland, a working class academic at Cardiff University, undertook a research project as part of his doctorate into the European Objective One programme. Although his study only covered Knowsley, which is one of the five boroughs of Merseyside, things are just as badly run, if not worse, in Liverpool. In fact Dr Boland's latest paper “A critique of Merseyside and Objective One status” covers the whole region, including Liverpool which, obviously, has city status.
Dr Boland’s extensive research has been largely ignored by Merseyside's media, Government Office for the North West Region, senior council leaders, senior council officers and the major players. It would seek that a lid is being kept on Boland’s work and it is not seeing the light of day especially in the media. This would give further authentication to the fact that the city 's main papers and radio stations are involved in a conspiracy of silence when it comes to the subject of criticising the Objective One programme or regeneration in general.
It’s also interesting to note that the careerist Richard Meegan wrote in one of his European Planning Study papers Vol. 9. No. 2,2001 titled Tackling Social Exclusion: The role of Social Capital in Urban Regeneration on Merseyside, From Mistrust to Trust? That quote: One observer (Boland 1999) has painted a particularly bleak view of the Pathways process in another Merseyside local authority, Knowsley. He claims that Pathways is mired in confrontational politics and the inflexibility of the Knowsley Borough council’s institutional capacity, which seeks to control community groups and is less than sincere in advocating ‘participation’. However, this representation, we believe, needs qualifying. As the author himself acknowledges, it was a snapshot of the process at an early point of Pathways learning curve, at the point where mistrust between participants was clearly in ascendancy. Dr Boland has denied this observation by Richard Meegan. Dr Boland told me that he stands by everything he wrote in his reports on the behaviour of Knowsley Council and the way in which community participation is frustrated by council officers and regeneration administrators. It is also common knowledge amongst critical community activists that community participation and empowerment has not improved, but has deteriorated, especially now that most of the second round of Objective One funding has been diverted into the Liverpool City Centre.
In my opinion Richard Meegan was chosen and given funding and centre stage, because he is a safe academic who will pander to the expectations of Liverpool’s City Centre elitist government bodies (local and central government) and certain elitist business organizations. Richard Meegan and other academics, especially postmodernist academics, refuse to accept that new and radical methodology is needed if the issue of community empowerment is to be taken seriously. Unless academics take seriously the teachings of people like Paulo Freire and Henry A. Giroux the subject of empowering communities will make no definite headway.
Dr Phillip Boland, web site: http://www.cf.ac.uk/cplan/staff/boland_p.html
There are other academics who are just as capable as the above mentioned elitist postmodernist academics, but I believe these mainly working class academics are being deliberately censored and kept out of the regeneration picture because they promote democratic process and critical dialogue. Dr Boland’s research papers are attached at the end of this document. On careful observation the reader will see how the Dr Boland research papers differ from the research undertaken by Richard Meegan.
In my opinion the above lecturers, other than Dr Bowland, are at least to some extent, post modernist in the way they think and are supporters of a system that promoted neoliberalism and actually supports the present oppressive community participation and empowerment methodology that is being imposed on most regeneration communities throughout the UK. This participation methodology does not empower poor communities, but rather, suppresses, subjugates and domesticates them, primarily to facilitate the intervention of outside vested interests so that these elitist bodies can by using stealth impose their agenda onto the unsuspecting community. These lecturers seem to be oblivious to the voice of diversity and critical dialogue, although they will claim to the contrary. Most of these academics are careerists who will pander to the expectations of elitist central and local government bodies. New and innovative ways of empowering communities, ways that grasp to their centre democratic practice are a threat and anathema to these elitist elements, locally and nationally. Libertarian academics such as Paulo Freire, Henry A. Giroux, Professor Ira Shor and others who advocate open democratic community participation and empowerment are being blatantly ignored in favour of a post modernist repressive neoliberal approach.
What has been allowed to evolve here, with no critical intervention or accountability, is a very serious set of affairs that has been set into motion by the Liverpool City Council’s Community Participation Unit and Government Office high ranking civil servants.
In conclusion on closer observation it becomes quite obvious that there is a lot more involved in what is going on with the issues pertaining to the regeneration of Merseyside and the supposed empowerment of poor excluded people who live in poor communities that have been earmarked for regeneration using central government Single Regeneration Budget and European Objective One funding sources. It would seem that there was is definite hidden agenda when it comes to the issue of community participation and empowerment.
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Poverty:
It was recently reported in the Liverpool Echo: "Poverty-stricken Merseyside is bottom of the league." (Echo Oct 1999). The article goes on to say how Merseyside was labelled the poorest region in Britain today in a household survey. Bootle came bottom of the league with families surviving on an average income of £8,200 per year. It is joined in the bottom 20 by nine of the Merseyside post codes including Edgehill and Birkenhead.
The Wealth of the Nation survey by the market research group CACI revealed that more than 80% of households in Merseyside's poorest areas get by on less than £13,000 a year. Liverpool City Lib-Dem leader Mike Storey, however, remains positive. He said, "It is no surprise that Merseyside is in this position but that is why we attracted Objective One funding. We are being positive and the indicators are very good. there is defiantly a market here."
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Threat to European cash:
It was reported in the Liverpool echo on Monday the 22 of November 1999 that Merseyside's European cash lifeline could be slashed after government hints that it might try to duck agreed spending targets. The region has been promised a package worth £2bn after receiving European Objective One status. But Merseyside European MP Chris Davies fears the government is putting the package at risk by failing to match European spending pound for pound. This is despite ministers approving a five year spending plan when it was submitted to Brussels earlier this year.
In a letter to Mr Davies, regions minister Beverly Hughes claims government approval was only given so as not to delay the presentation of the submission. She hints that the proportion of European money spent on grants should be increased - lowering the amount of cash put forward by the government.
Mr Davies now fears the government could risk seeing the package reduced - by more than half. He said: "The protocol is quite clear. Europe provides £844 million, the government contributes £844 million, and the private sector provides the rest. But the government seems to be trying to avoid paying its share. I demanded a simple yes or no answer from the government but I have still failed to get one. People must draw their own conclusions from that. We are at risk of having our package cut from £2 billion to less than half that."
Merseyside qualifies for Objective One status because it wealth is less than 75% of the European average.
(This is another commonly used tactic by the cities media. Most people who are in the know about what is happening in Merseyside know that the media always use a scare tactic like the storey above. This is what is known as a “rouse”, primarily done so as to divert the attention of the people away from other important issues. Comment Mike Lane).
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The Pathway Partnerships and the Central Partnership Team:
When Objective One status was granted to Merseyside's five boroughs. 38 Pathway Partnerships were set up to cover 38 of the most deprived areas of the region. There are 11 Partnerships in Liverpool with a further 27 in the other 4 boroughs. Most of these Partnership are located in a building within the area that they serve. The level of staff depends on how big the area is. These Partnerships have been accused of being the well paid, self appointed voice of the community, and they are not averse to excluding anyone, who is construed by them to be in anyway controversial. They are also in constant contact with the distrusted council officers.
Shortly after the new Lib-Dem council came to power in 1998 the 11 Pathway Partnerships in Liverpool were reduced to 6. This meant that each partnership covered a much wider area.
The Central Partnership Team:
Liverpool and each of the other boroughs have what is called a Central Partnership Team, who are located within each council. These teams are responsible for co-ordinating between the council and the Partnership areas. Liverpool's team is located in the Central Policy unit at Millennium House.
(As has already been stated in 1999 or 2000 the “Central Partnership Team” ceased to exist and the people who worked there where moved to other regeneration initiatives).
Secrecy
A culture of secrecy has evolved amongst these teams, especially relating to the accessing of Objective One funds and the successful completion of projects. One often wonders if these people know, or even care about what is going on in the 38 designated poor areas.
Changing documentation and area descriptions:
One of the most astonishing things relating to the Liverpool Central Partnership Team is how they changed the Granby/Toxteth area description/profile. This area is home to a large proportion of Liverpool's ethnic community and is one of the most deprived areas in Liverpool. This is also the area were the notorious Toxteth riots took place in the 1980's. A recent article in the Liverpool Echo (oct 1999) states that things in the area have actually become much worse since the riots.
The Liverpool Partnership's Annual Report:
In the councils “Liverpool Local Partnerships Annual Report for 1998” they clearly changed the description from the description that was written in the original report, which was presented to the European Commission.
Below is a more precise outline.
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Pathway Partnership area descriptions:
Area descriptions of the 11 Liverpool Partnerships are contained in the Annual Report starting with the Dingle and providing a brief description of each area. I have the original official Partnership description document that was used by the people who compiled the Partnership Annual Report. Nine Partnerships were described exactly as in the original document, except for the North Liverpool Partnership and the Toxteth Granby Partnership. Below is the descriptions of the Toxteth/Granby Partnership.
Official description of Partnership :
Description Profile as presented in the recent Liverpool Local Partnership Annual Report :-
Toxteth/Granby community. Population 15.354 people (official report)
The Granby Toxteth Partnership covers five neighbourhoods: Granby, Princes Park, Thackeray, Lodge Lane and canning. based in the inner city , it has a mixture of old and new housing, educational establishments, the Royal Liverpool Woman's Hospital and community based organisations in an area which is seen positively by it's residents as being convenient, multiculture and friendly.
The above description is not the original description that is contained in the original Pathway Partnership Area Description document. There has been an omission from the original document.
The original description states :
PL2B - Toxteth/Granby community. Population 15.354 people (official report)
The area is effected by continually declining job opportunities and prospects, particularly to young people. Levels of education attainment are low. There is also a growing perception of racism adversely affecting the lives of the majority of residents which has resulted in an inward looking attitude for a great many people. The area continues to suffer from physical blight, even though new housing stock has been built and a number of environmental improvements have been made. The area has a lack of green space, poor street lighting, a growing drug dependency problem and is in an increasing depressed state.
As you can see the situation in the Granby Toxteth area is not very promising. It would seem by the obvious omission from the original statement that the City Council are deliberately misleading the people of Liverpool, especially when it comes to the problems that are being experienced in the Toxteth Granby area.
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Institutional Racism:
The black community of Toxteth/Granby have always felt that the Liverpool City Council suffers from institutional racism, and as such has deliberately discriminated against them.
Liverpool Echo articles about the area:
An article written in the Liverpool Echo (June 1997) stated that Granby Street in the heart of Toxteth faces a bleak future under plans to regenerate the area, it was claimed at a public inquiry. Shops including one in the same family for almost a century face being bulldozed so the Granby Triangle can be redeveloped in a comprehensive way. On the last day of the public inquiry into compulsory purchase order, the street traders claimed the council had ignored them because they were black.
Maria O'Reilly, of the Liverpool Law Centre, told the inquiry how one white council officer from the council's property services section had said to a local estate agent that he would not inspect shops on Granby Street "because he did not fancy it." Another council officer commenting on hard to let housing in the street referred to bullet holes in windows. Mrs O'Rielly told inquiry inspector Derek Rumford that the references pointed to a lack of respect to the black trader of Granby Street.
Article:
Another article written in the Liverpool Echo (1998) states Council chiefs in Liverpool to day denied victimising black groups bidding for funding cash. Cllr Richard Marbrow, Chairman of the Councils Community Education Committee said this allegation was completely untrue.
His committee yesterday debated the future of £345.000 funding for the Charles Wooton College (Charles Wooton was a black Liverpool Citizen who died as a result of racism) in Upper Parliament Street, Toxteth.
The funding for the next year will depend on an independent inspection of the college opened in 1974 to provide training for the black community.
Steve Smith, a former management committee member, and former chairman of the Liverpool black Caucus, told the committee, "There seems to be a black purge going on." But Cllr Marrow said, "All organisations receiving money from the Council must comply with grant aid conditions. (Liverpool Echo Thursday September 24th 1998 )
Most recent article:
There have been many articles written about the Toxteth/Granby area, the most recent, a full page article (Echo Oct 5 1999). The article is too large to print in this report. It was written to promote the Channel 4 documentary "Untold Riot" which was to be shown that same evening. The documentary covered the 1981 Toxteth riots and for the first time those involved on all sides tell how years of racism, oppression and high unemployment came to a head. It also tells how a series of incidents escalated into such a vicious break down of law and order that it brought the city to its knees and sent Margaret Thatcher's government into turmoil. The Echo article ends with a harrowing conclusion. Makers of "Untold Riots" claim their findings show that while much has changed in the ensuing 18 years, much still remains the same. The worst is its brewing again. The principal of Liverpool Community College and one time community worker Wally Brown agrees, although he believes that the chances of an 81-style disturbance ever recurring are slight. Not because conditions have improved, but because he feels the police are much more organised and willing to listen. "But," he adds, "if you had taken a camera around prior to the riots, say to Granby Street, and then you did the same now, Its actually worse now than it was then.. The actual opportunities in the community are less now in real terms and the job situation hasn't improved." "The conditions which set the scene for what happened then are still there and when society excludes people, it needn't be surprised if they kick back."
The other 37 pauperised areas:
The Toxteth/Granby area is in a bad way, but lets not avert our attention from the fact that there are another 37 pauperised areas in Merseyside, were mass unemployment, low paid jobs, poverty, deprivation, social exclusion, are a way of life for the unfortunate residents who live in these areas.
Has anything of any significance been accomplished in these areas?
When one reads the Partnership Annual Report one has to look for what is not being said rather than what is being said. It is quite obvious from the report that very little is being done within the 11 Liverpool Partnerships to alleviate the problems of the poor in their communities.
As I have already mentioned the Annual Partnership Report only covers the 11 Partnerships in the borough of Liverpool My guide covered all 5 boroughs of Merseyside, and was much more informative.
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The many agencies:
During the compilation of the guide I wrote countless letters to all the different agencies contained in the guide to try and ascertain their progress and achievements. I did this purely for my own interest. As a result I was able to build a comprehensive picture appertaining to the various agencies progress. I documented this and sent the information to various political and community leaders in Merseyside and throughout the country. I have a catalogue of letters from MP's, MEP's, Liverpool City councillors, council leaders and famous journalists.
The false favourable image:
During the compilation of the guide I was sometimes amazed at the way in which the administration of Objective One was being portrayed to the people of Merseyside. The City Council and its Central Partnership Team seem obsessed with portraying a most favourable image, when in reality they are actually faced with a multitude of problems. The money from Driver 5-1 is not reaching the Partnerships in the way that it was intended to.
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The Democracy Commission:
Over the last couple of years Liverpool has been experiencing some of the worst turn outs at local elections in the country. Liverpool’s leaders seem to believe this has something to do with the lack of democracy and the unaccountability of the elected members. As a result of this they decided to create, with the full backing of Central Government's front bench, a self appointed Democracy Commission. This commission was only appointed on a temporary basis and reached to the end of it intended purpose in December 1999. The person who was responsible for running this commission is a man called John Egan, (former Liverpool Council employee and sympathiser with the council officers) who was seconded from his job as a New Labour regional officer.
(At this present time May 2002 John Egan runs a consultancy firm and works for public agencies such as Liverpool Vision. Vision are responsible for City Centre regeneration).
The Democracy Commission's leader:
The chair of the Democracy Commission was James Ross chairman of Littlewood's shopping chain. The famous Moores family own the Littlewoods shopping chain. It was reported in the Liverpool Echo (June 1997) that some of the family's 32 members who control all the shares in the Liverpool based stores were angry that they were not consulted by Mr Ross over a £550 million bid for its stores division. Mr Ross rejected the approach, made through City Venture Capital Group CVC Capital Partners, claiming it was inadequate. He decided to retain the 130 strong store chain with plans to redevelop and sell off some of the stores.
The Moores family:
The founders of the Littlewoods organisation the Moores family are the second richest people in the North West with an estimated fortune of £1.5 billion. (Echo 1999).
Social engineering:
It’s interesting to note that John Moore’s University, named after the Moores family, is active in the issue of community participation methodology. One can take a BA (Hon) in Applied Community Studies at John Moore’s University and on closer observation of the degree syllabus one who is conversant with the teachings of libertarian academics such as Paulo Freire, Ira Shor and Henry Giroux one soon realises that this BA (Hon) in Applied Community Studies has contained within it’s ethos a neoliberal ideology and social engineering.
Influential:
The members of the Democracy Commission are quite influential and will have an important say in what happens in Liverpool's future, and for that matter the future of the whole region of Merseyside.
The North West Regional Development Agency:
James Ross is also a board member of the North West Regional Development Agency. It was reported in the Liverpool Business Week (Dec 5 1999) that James Ross voiced his concern, as a regional businessman and board member of the North West Development Agency, to Tony Blair that too many business initiatives are spoiling the regeneration broth of the province. And Ross speaking at the business breakfast at the Albert Dock in Liverpool, asked what the prime minister is going to do about it. A week later, enter another Department of Trade and industry initiative to help with the competitiveness of the North West firms and bring jobs and prosperity. The new innovation team in question will be installed at Ross's self same NWDA, and is charged with "concentrating on supporting the development of world class clusters of specialist companies including those involved in bio-medical, e-commerce chemicals and aerospace sectors." But will there be time in the support world's diary once the lunches and seminars of all the other local quangos-have had their day for yet another group to sit down.
The elected mayor and his cabinet:
The commission is largely responsible for bringing about moves to install an elected mayor who will then appoint a cabinet of his own choice (a form of cabinet is now in existence) to run the city . Its interesting to note that the Local Government Improvement's Task Force, in its damning report, expressed concerns at the way in which the council's present administration (without thinking it through sufficiently) changed the structure of political management with a cabinet. I also have 3 hours of video footage that the commission put together. This footage is supposed be available on the Democracy Commissions Web Site. The video footage covers meetings with Professor Gerry Stoker, (expert on elected mayors and member of the Local Government Network) certain city leaders and senior council officers.
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The Local Government Chronicle:
It was recently reported in the Local Government Chronicle, quote: The biggest single source of ammunition for the critics appears to be former deputy leader Derek Hatton. Executive member for life-long learning Paul Clein (one of the 10 elitist councillors on the cabinet. Clein resigned in May 2002 claiming he was stabbed in the back by Lib Dem leader Mike Storey in relation to some issue or other) says: "What if someone like Derek Hatton got a landslide victory and got elected for the four year-term? It would leave us up a bloody gum tree." Mr Clein believes the Democracy Commission is a "political fix" and a mayor will increase the opportunity for "shabby deals" in a "remarkably uncorrupt system." But the newly elected Labour leader and Blairite Gideon Ben-Tovim insists "this is yesterday's storey. A council which has been so quick to modernise (it took four months) is one to watch." (LGC Oct 22 1999). Its well known that Mr Ben-Tovim is a Blairite, that's why he was chosen to replace former leader Frank Prendergast.
(Labour leader Gideon Ben-Tovim was beaten in the 2002 election for party leader by councillor Joe Anderson, who two years previous resigned from the board of the council led agency “Rope Walks” which is presently under investigation for fraud by the European fraud squad OLAF).
Elitist members of the Democracy Commission are:
Chair - James Ross (Chairman of Littlewoods and mouthpiece of the Moore’s family)
Vice Chair - Roger Phillips (BBC Radio Merseyside)
Rt Revd James Jones (The Bishop of Liverpool)
Lord David Alton (the foundation of Citizenship and Honorary Professor of Citizenship. Based at John Moors University).
Phil Redmond millionaire (Chairman Mersey TV) Who's programmes gives an awful portrayal of Liverpool, with psychopathic gangsters, incest, lying, you name Phil will portrays it on his Brookside sit-com. Some people fear that the right wing Redmond will use his programme to brainwash the people of Liverpool.
Claire Dove (Director, Blackburn House, Woman's Technology and Education Centre)
Professor Michael Parkinson (Director, European Institute for Urban Affairs)
Dr Protasia Torkington (Hope University College)
John Grifith (Editor, Liverpool Echo)
Liam Black (Chief executive of the Furniture Resource Centre. A Community Based Project funded by Objective One and public funding. The staff of this project don’t earn much more than the minimum wage, yet Mr Black earn well over £35,000 per year)
Jane Kennedy former government whip and now a minister (Member of Parliament, Liverpool Wavetree) former NUPE union official, witch hunter of the left in the 1980s and super Blair's babe.
Sir Trevor Jones (Former Lib Dem Leader of Liverpool City Council and extreme right winger and supporter of an elected mayor also leader of the Lib-Dems during the infamous Toxteth Riots of the eighties)
Sir Malcom Thornton (Former Member of Parliament for Crosby and Garston)
David Wade Smith (Director, Wade Smith LTD)
Professor Dennis Kavanagh (Professor of Politics Liverpool University)
Did you know?
Its interesting to note that the self appointed Democracy Commission received financial and in kind support from:
· Radio Merseyside
· The Liverpool Echo
· Mersey Television
Mersey Television is owned by millionaire and local icon Phil Redmond. I wonder if the subject of a n elected mayor will appear (favourably) in his Brookside sit-com scripts?
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The Echo survey:
According to the Liverpool Echo (July 9/1999) a survey was carried out for the Liverpool Democracy Commission (Echo editor is a member of the Democracy Commission) who are considering the possibility of Liverpool becoming the first city outside of London to have an elected mayor.
The art of subterfuge!
The reporter who wrote the article cleverly quotes, more than 400 people took part in the survey. The words more than make it look like a great deal more than 400 people took part, when more than 400 is not over five hundred, so it could have been 401 people. In fact when the final report was finished it was stated in appendix 5 of the report that 402 people living in 10 of the city 's wards took part in a face to face doorstep interview.
It's insignificant:
This figure 400 pails off in to insignificance when one takes into account the fact that 474,000 people live in Liverpool. How can 400 people be used as a credible method to assertain a truthful and credible disclosure of what the people of Liverpool want? It was quite obvious that the Echo would come out on the side of the Democracy Commission by coming to the conclusion that 63% of the 400 people supported an elected mayor. I must confess, I am not a wizard at mathematics, but isn't 63% of 400 about 226 people? Not much is it? Yet these are the facts that the Liverpool Echo gleefully trumpeted to the politically uneducated people of Liverpool. Who's side is the Liverpool Echo on? Talk about the art of subterfuge and the favourable spin. It beggars belief. (Press cutting available).
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BBCchat show host Roger Phillips
BBC Radio Merseyside's chat show host Roger Phillips, (former Chair of the Democracy Commission). Much has been said about Roger and his public relation and consultation activities. Rumour has it that Roger holds allegiances to New Labour, although his friend John Egan (former New Labour regional officer, former secretary of the Democracy Commission and expert in the art of public relations and who now works for Liverpool Vission) denies this. Roger is often in and out of the Liverpool Echo and was a colleague of John Griffith (former editor of the Liverpool Echo) on the now defunct Democracy Commission. In my opinion Roger Phillips has been using BBC Radio Merseyside as a political and public relations platform.
He has appeared on at least three promotional videotape promoting stock transfers from the Liverpool City Council to private sector housing associations. On one of these videos he appeared alongside New Labour MP Marie Eagle urging the people of the Speke/Garston area of Liverpool (another deprived Partnership area) to vote yes to council house stock transfers from public ownership to the private sector. (More about this further on). Speke/Garston has a population of 24,000 people. If you go to these areas you will see that the people have to live in appalling conditions. Poverty and social deprivation are rife, yet the Liverpool City Council has painted a completely different picture. Bellow is the area description.
Its interesting to note that on the 25th of November 2000 BBC Radio Merseyside's chat show host Roger Phillips interviewed New Labour's local government minister Beverly Hughes on her and his favourite subject an elected mayor. As expected she was well versed and put across her agenda in the most convincing manner. Of course Roger Phillips who is a member of the Democracy Commission questioned her in a way, which could have given his listeners the impression that an elected Mayor was a big step forward.
On the same day as the interview the New Labour government conveniently passed a local government bill that would in effect give them the right to overrule our democratically elected councillors and push through a cleverly contrived referendum, using only 5% of Liverpool’s population to trigger it off. This will give Trinity's Liverpool Echo and Radio Merseyside (both of whom are in the pockets of New Labour) ample time to brainwash the people of Liverpool with the bizarre recommendations of the Democracy Commission's 14 power elitist members. And of course these recommendations are the ones that are more favourable to Tony Blair and his front bench band of control freak modernises. (Eventually in 2000 the Liverpool City Council told Central Government to get lost and the elected mayor issue was put to sleep).
Speke/Garston
The area is 10 kms south east of the city centre, 1034 hectares along 6 km of the Mersey. The area is home to 24,000 people (18,000 in the Pathway area) in two communities. It is the engine room of the city with the largest concentration of manufacturing industry plus Liverpool Airport and Garston Docks and is a major growth pole for the Merseyside region.
Regeneration funding:
Hundreds of millions of Objective One regeneration money has been pumped in to Speke/Garston area via the Speak Garston Partnership. Yet the people who live in the area can see no real benefit to their community. Most of the jobs that have been created with this money are low paid. Most community activists are critical of this Pathway Partnership, many of them have long since turned their backs on it.
What should really be said about the above area:
The above description does not give the reader the correct picture of what this area is like. For instance there are problems connected with teenage crime and misbehaviour. The area is also remote from the city centre. In effect the area is a dreadful place for people to live and the unemployment problems are chronic. If you visit the Speke area you will see that landscape contractors have planted dense rows of trees adjacent to the main outer road that takes you into Speke. Many concerned community activists say this has been designed so that when these trees actually grow higher they will hide the council estate from prospective business people who are driving into the area.
Roger upsets the Fireman's Union:
Not content with appearing on a video alongside the young MP Maria Eagle about stock transfers. Roger Phillips was also involved in the making of a video that has been attacked by the Fireman's Union as a propaganda video. On the 22 Dec 1999 it was reported in the Liverpool Echo that quote: Fire chiefs were attacked today for spending £37,000 on producing a "propaganda" video. It is part of a campaign which could lead to the scrapping of round the-clock cover at Formby fire station.
The free fire safety video fronted by radio star Roger Phillips has been delivered to 13,000 homes in the area. The cover says Mr Phillips "investigates" the Formby free from fire campaign and puts the questions YOU are asking to Merseyside's chief fire officer Malcolm Saunders.
Union leaders today branded the video as an expensive propaganda tool paid for by the public to promote the Brigade's controversial plans to axe full night cover at the station. But brigade bosses said the video was part of a consultation exercise over the plans to replace 24 hour staffing with increased fire safety work.
As part of the switch, the brigade plans to offer free smoke alarms and fire safety advice. Roger Phillips said: "I don't have a particular view on the arguments about the fire station. I talked to people in Formby and there were very few who thought the changing of the manning arrangements were a good idea."
If the night shift is closed down 14 firemen will be moved to other fire stations. But ultimately 14 jobs will be lost, because when these fireman retire they will not be replaced.
Bellow are the contents of a leaflet I handed to all Liverpool's 99 councillors at a full council meeting:
The absurdity of it all
Did you read Lord David Altons (Professor of Citizenship at John Moores University) full page article in the Liverpool Echo on the 1st of February 1999? The article concerned the publication of his new book, Citizens Virtues. I wonder if the people of Liverpool know that the editor of the same paper sits alongside him on the new self appointed Democracy Commission? Stranger still is the fact that BBC Radio Merseyside's talk show host Roger Phillips (Vice Chair of the same Democracy Commission) that stalwart and personification of perfect moral and ethical excellence, should be involved in, and chaired the Radio Merseyside debate (held on 21 January 1999) on Liverpool's future and the possibility of a forthcoming mayory. And who said the BBC was politically impartial when they appointed their new Director (estimated salary £768,000) Greg Dyke? who incidentally was an active member of New Labour and whose claim to fame is inventing Roland Rat. It seems to me that this Radio Merseyside debate had at least certain political connotations. But lets not veer off into conspiracy theory; lets not erode the virtues of objectivity. Is there an ongoing asserted somewhat premeditated effort on behalf of our cities media and virtuoso dignitaries to bring about these happenings, which always appear to uncannily coincide with each other? I could not fail to notice that New Labour MP and government whip Jane Kennedy (recently promoted to minister, and also a member of the so called Democracy Commission) was present at the same debate.
Whose really in charge?
Could people really be blamed if they were to conclude that there was a strong possibility of the existence of a self appointed, middle class, power-elitist clique (outside the scrutiny of the elected councillors) in Liverpool?, who seem to think they can make decisions concerning the populations future, and for that matter the future of their city .
Its all so complicated
As for the elected mayor and whatever European city our leaders use as a model to put him in charge of, the people of Liverpool don't really know what's involved, but having the local media in their hands New Labour are bound to promote a one side view, especially when it draws nearer to a referendum.
Too much power in the hands of the few
It shocks me to think what power this single elected mayor and his cabinet will have, especially now that the elected councillors may be drastically downsized. Are the people of this country being conditioned to except the unacceptable? have they witnessed so much shocking behaviour that they have now become unshockable? No wonder they do not bother to vote anymore. Do our leaders elude themselves? Do they for one minute think that working class community and political activist don't know that they, along with other powerful people in Liverpool, want to drastically down-size the elected councillors and eventually replace them with a handful of brainwashed middle class automatons. It's not for me to remind our leaders that according to the Local Government Improvement Programme task force report on Liverpool it was stated quote. The team are concerned that the implications of major changes are not being thought through sufficiently. For example, the move to a changed structure of political management with a cabinet has been agreed for implementation on May the 18th 1999.
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Who cares about the poor?
I often wonder if our leaders really know what is happening in Liverpool? Do they for instance know that according to the Liverpool City Council's Anti Poverty Unit two thirds of Liverpool's population and over half of Merseyside population as a whole are living either in or on the fringes of poverty? These very figures were presented to the European Commission when Merseyside applied for Objective One funding, £635million with another £844 million to come in the year 2,000. Do they also know that Merseyside gross domestic product is now 3% lower than when we received the first round of Objective One funding, or do they really care? It's interesting to note that our sanitized local media hardly ever report these facts. It's also interesting to note that when Merseyside received this money these sad and dreadful depravation factors were quickly demoted and conveniently thrown into the abyss of silence by our illustrious, ever suffering at the hands of the elected councillors, mainly middle class, high salaried, unaccountable, incompetent council officers
Social unrest:
If central government and our middle class city leaders continue in their blindness pertaining to the terrible depravation and social exclusion factors that exist within our major cities they will create a recipe for future social unrest.
No hope and no way out:
I wonder if our illustrious leaders would come on a tour with me around Liverpool's deprived council estates and see with their own eyes the terrible condition that the residents have to live in? Witness the marauding teenagers who ride around on mountain bikes looking for parked vehicles to brake into. Socially excluded teenagers who stand on street corners shouting abuse at middle aged men and women, who dare not retaliate for fear of reprisals and intimidation. It would be interesting to see how these teenagers would react if Lord David Alton tried to bestow the virtues of good citizenship on them.
Its simple just eradicate poverty:
Lord Alton quoted in his Echo article figures about excessive criminality amongst our teenagers (is this surprising when they are being forced to live in such poverty and social exclusion) but he didn't give a clear answer of what should be done. It's fine to talk about good citizenship, but being a person who actually lives amongst these pauperised teenagers I can only say one thing to Lord Alton give us enough money to live on and eradicate poverty. He knows as well as I do that the eradication of poverty is possible. But is he like the rest of his middle class counterparts? Does he see things from a middle class perspective? Is he constitutionally incapable of seeing things as they actually are? Sadly our city leaders have become so far removed from what's actually happening in our pauperised communities that they are quite beyond reasoning with.
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The Tribune Newspaper:
The deputy editor of the Tribune newspaper John Bleven wrote the following article on the 11th of June 1999. He died suddenly of a heart attack shortly after writing the article The Tribune represents the voice of the dwindling left in New Labour. It’s also interesting to note that George Orwell the prolific writer on social injustice and poverty was once the editor of this same paper.
Only weeks before Mr Bleven (who was from Liverpool) died, Alex Mc Fadden Chairman of the TUC for the North of England and Chairman of the Merseyside Socialist Labour Party had invited Mr Bleven to speak about the bellow subject at the SLP's monthly meeting, which was held at the Bluecoat Chambers in the Liverpool City Centre.
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An elected mayor and cabinet:
Quote from the Tribune: It is essential to ask where the real power would lie in such a system. Would councillors outside the Cabinet become simply lobby fodder? The creation of a Cabinet would leave too much of the real power in the hands of too Few. It would make some more equal to others. Those members allowed into the inner sanctum would be turned into an elite. Not many people know about the New Local Government Network, a body close to the Labour leadership, which is currently receiving heavy flack for suggesting that the Government should impose directly elected mayors on major urban areas without first holding a referendum. The network was set up in 1996 by founder members including Labour peer Steve Bassam, Professor Gerry Stoker (expert on Mayorships and recently interviewed by the Liverpool Democracy Commission) and North Tyneside council leader Rita Stringfellow, who stood unsuccessfully in last years elections for Labour's National Executive Committee. Its executive members include Labour's former local government head, Abeigail Melville, who is a Lambeth councillor, is on Labour's panel of candidates for the Greater London Assembly and works as a political consultant for lobbying firm LLM.
Denies Reed, director of Local Government Information Unit, in a letter to the Local Government Chronicle, pointed out that among the networks proposals is a suggestion that local governments no longer needs to raise money, own assets or borrow directly. "Who on earth does the New Local Government Network represent?” asked Mr Reed. "When will the network poll its supporters to discover how many share these eccentric and reductionist views?"
In a related development, Mr Sullivan has joined with Make Votes Count, Unison assistant general secretary Keith Sonnet, Liverpool Liberal Democrat council leader Mike Storey and other leading local government figures in calling for a debate on introducing proportional representation for local elections.
Tribune has already documented the links between Make Votes Count and LLM, which has been hired by the organisation "to offer advice on media relations.
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The Democracy Commission's final report and recommendations:
After nine months of investigation and deliberation John Egan, along with the help of many people, produced a final report based on the findings of the commission. This report was very professional, but on careful scrutiny the report contains recommendations that are more favourable to New Labours front bench modernises. These final recommendations were put together by the Democracy Commission's 14 elitist members and a report was presented to the New Labour Government in London on Monday the 8th of November 1999.
The Citizens Jury
If you read the report, which has been skilfully compiled, you will see on page 72 appendix 4 a Citizen Jury was created. Their task was to forecast and describe a model of how the city 's political structure should look in the future. Each member of the jury was given a briefing pack which described how the Government is suggesting that councils, following discussions with the public, modernise their political management structures. This means that the way Liverpool City Council and other public bodies currently run may have to change, ready for the 21st Century. Some suggestions have included having a directly elected mayor for councils as they do in America, or having a cabinet system, where senior councillors make all the decisions and other councillors 'scrutinise' the decisions they've made. It was the Jurors job to listen to evidence about these issues, ask questions, talk about it and finally reach conclusions on how these political structures could be changed for the better.
The appendix goes on to describe the jurors preferred modal of mayorship and gives their recommendations.
The Citizen's Jury recommendations:
· A directly elected mayor.
· That a referendum for a directly elected mayor can be triggered by just one percent (as opposed to the Government's preferred five percent) of an areas population.
· Area committees be established in all 33 wards in Liverpool.
· A cabinet of 12 members the maximum of which should be ten 'political' councillors and at least two of whom should be 'citizens' councillors.
· The ten 'political' councillors would be full time paid for by the council.
· The two 'citizens' councillors would receive remuneration from the area committees
· Full council, rather than the directly elected mayor would appoint cabinet members.
The Council
· The full council will be made up of a maximum of 66 'poetical' councillors and 33 'citizens' councillors.
The above number of councillors was recommended as a maximum but it was considered that it may be appropriate for fewer members overall. I wonder if the Democracy Commission had some involvement in persuading the Citizens Jury to include this recommendation in their verdict? Its interesting to note that conveniently situated in the back few pages (appendix 7) of the final report it is stated (in minuscule hard to read text) that the Citizens Jury were supported by expert facilitators. This will further substantiate the fact that members of the Democracy Commission were controlling the Citizen's Jury's output and decision making.
· The full council's remit would be to vote on policy decisions and scrutinise the executive.
· It was proposed that area committees set out and undertake the selection process of 'citizens' councillors.
· 'Citizen councillors would have the same voting rights as 'political' councillors.
· An independent scrutiny committee.
· The committee should have strong powers, unlike the existing 'ombudsman' system.
· Local elections should take place every four years, with the 'political' councillors, the 'citizens' councillors and the mayor being elected at the same time.
Disappointments
The Citizens Jury were extremely disappointed that councillor Mike Storey, the leader of Liverpool City Council had to cancel giving evidence to the jury and that he was unable to attend at an alternative time. It was felt important that he should have given evidence.
Concern was also shown with regard to both the Liverpool Echo/Daily Post's quantitative survey and their coverage of the jury process. In relation to the former it was felt that the survey could have been skewed (one sided) due to editorial interference. (Editor of the Liverpool Echo John Grifith is a member of the Democracy Commission). Coverage of the jury's proceedings, during the course of the event, was felt to be inaccurate because they overemphasised the directly elected mayor modal.
Keen to be further involved
· The jurors are very keen to stress their desire to be both kept informed of the Commissions decisions and where possible further involved in the consultation process.
· It should be noted that the jurors felt that three days was not quite enough time to reach detailed recommendations. An extra day, it was felt would have helped them conclude with more substantial recommendations.
A veil of silence
As can be observed the Citizen's Jury verdict and recommendations are quite substantial and include 99 'political' and 'citizens' councillors, although reference was given to a possible reduction of councillors (this proposal was probably suggested to the jury by commission members) many of the present councillors feel that if Liverpool is to have a mayor and cabinet there should be 99 councillors rather than the 25 recommended by the Democracy Commission. Hardly anything has been mentioned in the Liverpool Echo about the Citizens Jury, its as if they never existed.
Demoted
One also has to inquire as to why the Citizen's Jury verdict and recommendations where demoted to page 72 and 73 of the 78 page report? No mention is made (except briefly on page 26) in the reports main text appertaining to the Citizen's Jury or its recommendations. Yet the first 11 pages of the report were devoted to the Democracy Commissions recommendations. In fact the Democracy Commission recommendations are mentioned throughout the reports entirety. Its quite obvious that the Citizen's Jury verdict and recommendation where not taken seriously. Was the Citizens Jury only set up as a PR exercise?
Who are the people who sat on the Citizens Jury?
One can not find out how many or who the people were that sat on the Citizens Jury, when asked, the Democracy Commission said, their identities are confidential and not available, yet in appendix 6 the names and addresses of commission witnesses who presented oral evidence at the commission's public hearing sessions were included. The witness’s home addresses were not included in the report, but their institutions and agencies were named. If the Citizen's Jury names are being withheld, why are all 63 of the whiteness to the commission being named?
The Democracy Commission's recommendations:
· An elected mayor. Term of office four years, with a salary of at least £100,000 per year.
· The mayor will have a cabinet/executive team of 10, all of whom he will appoint himself.
· Instead of the 99 councillors there will be 25 , all of whom must first undergo professional and personal development training i.e. 'Brainwashing.'
· 25 Neighbourhood Councils (talk shops) to be established with the usual trophies, handshakes and photos in the local press.
Of course there was a sea of information in the official report to back up these brief recommendations. When one takes a close look at the above recommendations it becomes quite evident that they are the recommendations that would be preferred by New Labours front bench modernises. They would involve fewer councillor, which would have invariably made it easier for Central Government to exert more control over the City Council, especially if the mayor is a Blairite, which he more than likely would have been. One only has to look at what happed in London in connection with the Ken Livingston fiasco and how Tony Blair is pulled out all the ace cards to stop Mr Livingston from becoming mayor. It becomes quite evident even to the casual observer that New Labour want control over local government. What better a way to exert control, simply get rid of most of the councillors and replace them with a hand full of sycophantic toddies.
The witnesses to the commission
As already mentioned the Democracy Commission's report contained in appendix 6 the names and organisations of 63 witnesses to the commission. These people presented evidence at the commissions public hearing session. Most of these people are careerists and have good jobs within the city centre or within their communities. Its well known amongst the ordinary folk that most of these people, as well as being New Labour members, are part of the problem in Liverpool. They are well entrenched within their particular jobs and will close ranks on anyone who tries to give a different point of view to theirs. It’s also well known amongst community activists and political activists that many of theses people are a law unto themselves. There is no accountability amongst them and they seem to be able to do as they wish. This is given more authenticity by the fact that the Democracy Commission will not give the names of the ordinary people who sat on the Citizens Jury. In effect these witnesses are people who like to have their names bandied about in official reports as it gives them more profile.
The Local Government Network:
Its interesting to note that the final Democracy Commission's report was printed by the LGN which has been connected with Make Votes Count.
The day after the report was presented to local government, and the Echo's response:
The Liverpool Echo reported on the 9th of November 1999 one day after the Democracy Commission's report was presented to Central Government:
· Liverpool will be on the verge of a town hall revolution if the Labour Party backs radical proposals for a shake -up in local government.
· London has already decided to elect its first ever mayor and Liverpool could be the second city in the UK to do likewise
· According to backers of the reforms, the move will project the city as a 21st century place to live (Here again we have the Liverpool Echo practising the art of emotive subterfuge. Who would want to live in Liverpool? Especially with the band of toadies that are running the show)
· The council chambers currently echoes to the shouts of 99 councillors. Most would go to make way for a streamlined chamber with 25 ward councillors and 10 citywide councillors.
· But, while the need for change is recognised there is, say some, a need for caution. Here we examine both sides.
Yes says John Griffith editor of the Liverpool Echo and member of the Democracy Commission.
Below is John Griffiths view:
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Every one knows the old saying 'if it aint broke, don't fix it.' And can anyone seriously argue that local democracy in this country has not broken down? Look at the voting figures in the local elections. Look at the level of interest and understanding. Look at the antiquated structures that range from council wards that nobody understands, to council chamber language seemingly designed to actually prevent anyone from outside the system to understand what is going on.
Consider, too, the evidence of a Liverpool Echo-backed market research project conducted to all the accepted statistical standards. (Only 402 people were involved in this survey). It showed 72% cannot even name their local councillor (what's so unique about this? Probably the same percentage of people could not name their local MP) while 63% would be in favour of an elected mayor in the city.
Why? I don't know. But what I do know, having spent nine months listening to people of Liverpool as a member of the Democracy Commission, is that there is widespread agreement that an elected mayor supported by fewer councillors (but these were not the recommendations of the Citizen Jury) and a system of neighbourhood councils would kick start a new level of interest and engagement in local government in Liverpool. They were among the main recommendations we made in our report published yesterday and they immediately prompted a spirited row (I was. involved in that row). Good. We want to encourage a widespread debate on our recommendations, and I am delighted to see it get underway. (Again there is no mention of the Citizen's Jury recommendations).
I hope the Liverpool Echo plays a full part in it, and pledge that our news coverage of the issue will not be influenced by my personnel views.
(Surely Mr Grifffith is aware of the fact that the Citizens Jury in appendix 4 of the report voiced their concerns in regard to, quote: Concerns were shown in regard to both the Liverpool Echo/Daily post quantitative survey and their coverage of the Citizens Jury process. In relation to the former it was felt that the survey could have been skewed (one sided) due to EDITORIAL INTERFERENCE! Coverage of the jury's proceedings during the course of the event was felt to be INACCURATE because they over emphasised the directly elected mayor modal. Comments Mike Lane).
In any event, if I understand the government's position properly, it would be impossible to introduce an elected mayor without a referendum giving the people a clear chance to pass their verdict on the idea. This is how it should be, which is why I hope we will all try to consider both sides of the argument with an open mind.
(I find the above assertion quite comical when one takes into account the Liverpool Echo's past history of presenting the news. Its no secret that Liverpool Echo sales have fallen significantly over the years, one wonders if this is because they continually indulge the art of subterfuge? Maybe the people of Merseyside are not as ignorant as the Echo seems to think they are. Comments Mike Lane).
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Mr Griffith goes on to say: I know that many people argue that an elected mayor would have too much power, which could be open to abuse. But I believe the good sense of the voters, plus a system of open accountability and scrutiny would prevent that. Others point to what is happening in London and claim that the political parties would try and hijack the system.
My answer to this is. Let them try, and let the people of Liverpool have the final say in the ballot boxes. (And of course with a little help from the persuasive Liverpool Echo Comments Mike Lane).
After all, what is happening in London right now is that the question of who might rule our capital city, and what he or she might do, is coming out of the committee rooms and into the public arena. Isn't that how it should be in a democratic system?
Echo Editor is promoted:
Shortly after this article was printed John Griffith was promoted to Managing Director of the Huddersfield Examiner. (Some councillors say this was a demotion rather than a promotion). The Liverpool Echo serves a population of nearly 1.5 million people. The Huddersfield Examiner covers a population of only 119, 000 people.
No says Larry Neild local government reporter:
Below is Larry Neild's view:
Since the days of Queen Victoria, our local councillors have steadfastly attended to civic affairs through committees, sub committees and council meetings. Those meetings have reflected life in the city , the good times and the bad times, political sea saws, in fighting and intrigue. The carved benches of the council are steeped in history. But as we approach the 21st century, is it time to move on?
A Democracy Commission has recommended that Liverpool should have an elected mayor. We already have a Lord Mayor who acts as the civic head of this great city . We have a leader who is chosen by member of his own party. (except for Labour leader Gidieon Ben-Tovim who was selected in a different way). Those same party members can sack him or dispatch him to the back benches. It is a similar system to that at Westminster. We do not elect a prime minister, we elect members of parliament who choose the person to lead them.
An elected mayor for Liverpool would be a powerful man. Yes, man, because statistics from around the world show that very few women are elevated to the position such as elected mayor.
Polls show that the vast majority of people are in favour of such a job. But would people be as enthusiastic if they realised, for instance, that in France at least six elected mayors are either in prison or under investigation by fraud police for allegations of corruption? Would people be in favour if they considered the consequences of allowing a powerful supremo to hand top jobs to outsiders? It could lead to cronyism and nepotism. There would we are assured be checks and balances and scrutiny. But if we happened to have a 'bad' mayor, we would have to wait for four years to replace him.
The ruling Liberal Democrats have already started the process of change with a cabinet style executive committee and area committees to give more of a neighbourhood voice to local government. The party admits it is still on a learning curve, but already there are clear signs that modifications are needed. Cabinet members decide on policy, and it is hard for people at grass roots level to change that policy once it has been cast in stone.
The shake up in London is already a shambles, prompting some commentators to wonder whether Tony Blair will cool to the idea of elected mayor anywhere. The system of local government can be improved and can become more efficient, particularly with the wonders of new technology.
Liverpool was founded as a township by King John in 1207 and it was in the 1800s before the city had a Lord Mayor. So why not wait a while and observe what happens in London before taking the plunge.
(The above article by Larry Neild makes more sense than John Griffith's article. But still no mention is made of the Citizen's Jury recommendations. I find this very disturbing. When one takes into account the publicity that this issue has had and is still having, there is no mention of the Citizen's Jury recommendations whatsoever.
By chance I bumped in to Larry at the Liverpool Echo Office and asked him why nothing had been reported about the Citizen's Jury verdict in the Echo? He said maybe because it is a boring subject. Comments Mike Lane).
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The Bill:
Eleven days after the Democracy Commission's report was presented to local government it was reported in the Liverpool Echo 17 November 1999 that the government today paved the way for Liverpool to get an elected mayor. A Local Government reform bill was among a package of 28 bills included in to days Queens speech. It will allow Liverpool to have a referendum on the issue if it is proposed by the City Council or more than 5% of the local electorate present a petition to the government. This means that Liverpool could expect a referendum by as early as next year (2,000).
The city 's Labour leader Gidieon Ben-Tovim today demanded that such a referendum on a elected mayor should take place as soon as possible.'
(If you take a close look at the proceeding passage you will see that the journalist Keith Gladdis has deliberately been emotive in the way he has presented this passage, for instance the reader would assume that Mr Ben-Tovim ordered a referendum as the word demanded means, according to the dictionary, to ask as giving an order. This emotive portrayal of news is always prevalent in the Liverpool Echo, especially when it concerns an issue that they feel strongly about. The above statement will also give authenticity to the fact that the Echo, which for a long time supported the Liberal Democrats, is working hand in glove with BBC Radio Merseyside proclaiming the validity of the Democracy Commission together with its carefully conjured up proposals. This is partly because both are under the influence of New Labour. Trinity International Holdings, which owns the Echo recently bought the Daily Mirror, which provided full support for New Labour in the last general election. Comments Mike Lane).
What the proceeding Echo passage should have said was:
Of course the middle class, careerist, Blairite city 's Labour leader Gideon Ben -Tovim today demanded that such a referendum on a elected mayor should take place as soon as possible.'
The Echo article further went on to say: He, that is Mr Ben-Tovim, said: "I am delighted a local government bill has been included in the Queen's speech and (of course he would be) Liverpool must act quickly to benefit. The Liverpool Democracy Commission (the Democracy Commission's headquarters are situated in the Liverpool University where Mr Ben-Tovim works as a lecturer in sociology) has recommended the city gets an elected mayor and we should let the people decide as soon as possible. I will be calling a motion before the council to get the process moving as soon as possible."
The motion:
On the 24th of November at the full council meeting in the town hall only 25 of Liverpool’s 99 councillors voted "yes" for an elected mayor. The councillors that voted yes tried to sideline the debate by wasting as much time as possible, hoping they could force a quick vote near the end of the meeting when most of the councillors had gone home. It seems that Liverpool's New Labour Party will stoop to any tricks, even if it means forcing an elected mayor on to the people of Liverpool. Some opposition councillors feel that New Labour has designed a premeditated campaign of connivance so as to help New Labour councillors back into power through the back door. Mike Storey urged caution exclaiming that he was going to call back the Local Government Improvement Team to further look at the running of the City Council.
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The Local Government Task Force Report:
At the beginning of 1999 it was reported in the Liverpool Echo quote: Trouble-shooters have been called in to help Liverpool City Council improve its services. A team from the Local Government Association Improvement and Development Agency will begin work in Liverpool on the 8th March. The Echo article went to great lengths to make it look like the Task Force was casually invited in by council leader Mike Storey and the then chief executive Peter Bounds, when in effect the council was in a dreadful state and Mr Bounds and the former Labour administration were largely responsible for this. (No administration likes to admit they made a bad choice in picking their chief executive). This fact was further established by the Task Force's damning report and summery. The Task Force used my guide to help them. They sent a letter thanking me for the guide. (Echo articles available).
The old chief executive leaves in a blaze of glory:
The new Chief Executive replaced Peter Bounds, who took early retirement and left in a blaze of glory, with a golden handshake of £250,000. Council leader Mike Storey said, "He leaves the council in a much stronger and healthier state than when he arrived." (Echo Oct 1999). Well what can one say about this statement? Its as if our leaders are re-enacting a scene from Monty Pythons Flying Circus. Here we have a chief executive who along with council leader Mike Storey invited a team of troubleshooters into the city to sort out the problems connected with the city council. As already mentioned the team from the Local Government Association's Improvement and Development Agency produced a damning report on the way in which the council was being run. Yet Mike Storey has the nerve to lavish praise on the former Chief Executive who was largely responsible for it. It beggars belief.
The Local Government Task Force reports findings:
When one reads this report, which does not really give the whole truthful picture, one should be taken aback by the absolute incompetence connected with the Liverpool City Councils administration. Putting the elected members to one side; one marvels at the behaviour of the extremely high salaried council officers. Its quite obvious that this report was written in such a way as to give the impression that the elected members are the bad guys. Granted some of the elected members are awful, but the council officers certainly take some beating. The Task Force told Liverpool it had major weaknesses. They said a sea of change was needed if it was to have any hope of achieving the challenging modernising agenda set by the government.
The main concerns were:
· Weak or non-existent corporate management structures for key strategic issues due to chronic departmentalism, and an ineffective chief executive's management team.
· Excessive committees, task groups and working parties.
· Hostility and distrust between elected members and senior officers, and interference from members.
· Failure to produce effective corporate plans on major policy initiatives.
· Poor communications, especially internally.
· Poor quality, high cost services.
· Disengagement from local people's real needs and interests.
More power to the unaccountable council officers:
The new Liberal Democrats leader Mike Storey and his cabinet of 11 trusted yes men, have now given council officers the power to make major decisions without consulting the elected members. (Liverpool Echo 1999). This is bound to make the already unaccountable behaviour of the council officers much worse.
Incompetence and unaccountability:
If one carefully reads local press cuttings one will observe the extraordinary behaviour of the city 's administration. People have marvelled at the incompetence of our City Council, especially the council officers. Journalists have told me that there's nothing new about this, its happening in all our major city 's. I find this very hard to believe. Surely no city can have an administration as unaccountable and incompetent as Liverpool.
Scandal after scandal:
Nearly every month a scandal of one description or another is reported in the Liverpool Echo. The people of Liverpool are now quite unshockable. Even as I write this report another Liverpool council officer has been condemned by the elected members. (Echo Oct 28 1999). This time it concerns the secret plans to extend the Liverpool Football Club to create a 55,000 seater stadium. Apparently councillors want to know why ex-city chief executive Peter Bounds ordered plans to demolish terraced streets around the stadium to be prepared without telling them. Of course the new chief executive David Henshaw has ordered a major inquiry into the why the episode was handled. The article goes on to say how the former incompetent chief executive Peter Bounds and his council officers kept the plans secret. Of course the council officer Bob Pointing pleads his innocence, saying: "I have done nothing to be ashamed of. I do not like to work in secrecy but I was told it was a confidential report." How does the saying go? I was only acting on orders. Here is another example of the why in which the spineless council officers do as they are told, even if it is underhanded. Needless to say it will be covered up and no one will even be reprimanded.
The new Chief Executive:
The new Chief Executive David Henshaw, who will be earning £130,000 a year. Amazingly the Liverpool City Council's ruling Lib Dem leaders paid £75,000 to a London agency to search for a replacement for the former Chief Executive Peter Bounds, but the job was given to Knowsley Council boss Dave Henshaw. (Knowsley is a £1.30p 15 minutes bus drive from Liverpool). The minority opposition Liberal group wrote to the Ombudsman claiming that the £75,000 headhuters fee was an utter waste of money. (Echo 1999).
The sky's the limit for Liverpool's senior council officers:
Mr Henshaw (nicknamed the hatchet man from Knowsley) has now decided to pay senior officers £110,000 per year when he has restructured the council. (Echo 1999). He has stated that heads will roll amongst senior council officers, but everyone knows that most of the same old faces will still be around earning between £50 to £80,000 per year. Rumour has it that most of these people are freemasons and freemasons look after each other. Its rather perverse to watch how these people dole out fantastic salaries amongst each other, as though it were monopoly money, when two thirds of the households in Liverpool and over half of Merseyside as a whole, live either in poverty or on the margins of poverty. If there is a heaven on earth, surely these people are living in it.
The final show down:
The year came to a close with the final show down. The Daily Post reported on the 4th of December 1999 that: Six of the ten top executive officers in Liverpool City council have now quit. Three more announced that they had applied for early retirement and they are getting it.
The three latest are director of resources Phil Kelly, better known as the City Treasurer, housing chief Mike Maunder and assistant chief executive Allan Chape. Between them they have 50 years experience. The longest serving of the three Mr Chape, has worked for the council since 1968. Mr Kelly started in the treasury department in the 1980's and Mr Maunders joined in 1991. Their applications to leave under the early retirement scheme, announced last week, were agreed yesterday at a meeting of councillors.
Only a day before the above report political reporter Larry Neild wrote in the Liverpool Echo: Three bosses announced today that they are quitting their town hall jobs in Liverpool. And their departure package could cost the ratepayers £750,000 it was claimed this afternoon.
Earlier this week new chief executive David Henshaw announced a package aimed at giving all council employees over 50 the opportunity to go. A panel of councillors was set up just weeks ago to discuss and decide departure arrangements for top town hall bosses - and all six politicians were told that the details and figures were NOT to be revealed. But opposition councillors claim that the cost will amount to at least £750,000 - and could be even higher. One veteran Labour councillor commented: "It has already cost a similar amount for the early retirement of chief executive Peter Bounds, transportation director John Liddle and education director Frank Gogley. "This latest batch of early retirements at the top will cost at least the same amount. Each individual will get a golden hand shake, then the council will meet their pension contributions until the normal retirement age. One of the officers retiring Phil kelly, is only 50, which will mean that the council will pay their own contributions and Mr Kelly's until his normal retirement age.
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Anything goes:
It was reported in the Liverpool echo 11 Sep 1999 that a CITY schools boss who took early
retirement after a damning report is back again - as a consultant on a reputed £300 a day. The return of Anton Florek has left opposition councillors fuming and sparked a vote of no confidence from town hall workers. Mr Florek was one of the five heads of services within the education directorate, in charge of pupil and student services. Four of the five heads announced last month that they were to take early retirement rather than apply for new jobs in a shake up of the directorate. It follows a damning report by the education standards watchdog Ofsted and later a task force into Liverpool's education services. Director Frank Cogley was the first to quit followed weeks later by his four deputies.
Labours education spokesman Cllr Joe Anderson said: "I find it unbelievable that days after a senior officer leaves the authority on early retirement with a pension he should be back working as a consultant.
Cllr George Knibb, leader of Liverpool's Labour group, said: "Employing somebody for £300 a day as a consultant after they have left the council's employment is outrageous." Education welfare officers held an emergency union meeting to discuss the matter.
Council union spokesman Roy Gladon said: "The education welfare officers are absolutely innocent." Liberal Democrat Richard Marbrow, education select committee chairman said: "Mr Florek has been retained for a short period because there was some work that needed to be completed and he was the best person to finish that work. "it was for a very short period."
So firmly entrenched were these senior officers that it will eventually cost the council millions of pounds to get shut of them all. Its hard to believe that the above golden hand shakes were even allowed, but when it comes to council officers in Liverpool anything goes.
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The city 's elected members and MP's:
Liverpool has 99 elected members.
Merseyside has 16 MP's, 5 of which cover Liverpool. 2 of Liverpool's MP's hold ministerial position. Jane Kennedy and Peter Kilfoyle. Before they were MP's both of these people were union officials and witch hunter's of the left in the days of Militant. They were also former confidante's of Neil Kinock. Peter Kilfoyle’s book published in 2000 describes his activities during the Militant era.
Eric Heffer former MP:
The former left wing MP Eric Heffer, now deceased, wrote about the mid 1980s and early 1990s in his book 'Never A Yes Man:'
Bellow is an extract from his book:
When Eric Heffer decided to retire he was not happy with what happened, he said: "Unfortunately, all was not plain sailing. The regional officer of the Labour Party, Peter Kilfoyle, told me he intended to stand. Although unhappy about this, I said little at the time. But, after thinking it over, and coming to the realisation that it was unprecedented for a regional officer to stand for a seat, I raised it with the NEC. I am afraid this caused a furore. Peter Kilfoye's friends in the CLP thought I was interfering with the selection process. This was not so. I simply felt it unfair for a regional officer to use the advantage of that position to get a seat, especially one who has acted on behalf of the NEC to carry out the reorganisation and purges of the party membership on Merseyside. The NEC discussed my letter and agreed that the rules would have to be changed so it would not happen again. however, as no rules had been broken, they ruled that this time it was permissible. Kilfoyle was selected, but only just. As someone remarked, "He has received his sweets." His selection is a recipe for future conflict. My agent, Laura Kirton, backed Kilfoyle and has turned against the Militant supporters, many of whose ideas she supported in the past. It is all very sad but there was nothing I could do." ('Never A Yes Man' Eric Heffer 1991).
Political Policemen:
In the 1980's Peter Kilfoyle was referred to as one of Neil Kinnock's political policeman. Mr Kilfoyle was involved in attempts to remove Terry Fields the left wing MP for Broadgreen. Terry Fields was the only MP that drew a workers wage. The money that was left over from his MP's salary he gave away. Eventually Terry Fields was removed and former union official Jane Kennedy took his seat. It was written in the book “Liverpool A City That Dared To Fight” that the unacceptable face of the Labour Party was shown not by the left but by the actions of the right's appointed official in Liverpool, Peter Kilfoyle. He once walked into the District Labour Party office and ripped a phone from the wall, a sign of desperate and of brutal methods that the right wing were prepared to employ against the left.
Neil Kinnock once held an election rally in Kirkby. People said it was like trying to get out of Colditz. Labour party officials aided by lines of police turned away local party members. Peter Kilfoyle was on the door pointing out undesirables, with the comment, "He is one of the comrades." One blindman, the local leader of the blind and disabled was dragged across the road by at least six policemen for trying to get near the door. Yet even amongst the hand picked audience there were protests. After the meeting according to his biographer, Michael Leapman, Kinnock drove to the Derby Lodge at Huyton, the smartest hotel in the area, where he and his team from London were staying. He drank at the bar with Jack Straw and some of the key campaign workers. The next day he disclosed how, at the Derby Lodge, the night before, he had his first disappointing encounter with a Jacuzzi. Kinnock and his entourage were as remote from the working people of Knowsley Nort | |
