A secret report in closed session at the Employment and Appointments Committee held on 23rd November gave details of the pay off of 33 senior managers leaving the authority by the end of December under the current terms of the Early Voluntary Retirement & Severance scheme and also 23 other managers who will be leaving next year.
The report was only shared with Labour members of the committee an hour before the meeting, it contained no details on how front line services will be maintained after staff leave. It is also galling to note the preferential treatment of senior staff over lower grades.
Not only that, the Tory led Council has applied to borrow £9.5million to fund the redundancies, given the Leader of the council Cllr Jeff Green’s recent criticism the amount of money borrowed to build much loved facilities such as schools, this seems a bit rich.

Wirral’s Tory-LibDem administration has steamrollered through some changes to the management arrangements of the Council. At Cabinet on the 14th October they tabled a late report which proposed setting up what in effect is a Chief Executive’s Department under Interim Chief Executive, Jim Wilkie. Part of this report proposed that three already highly paid Heads of Service be given £7,000 a year extra to take on additional responsibilities. At a time when staff are being encouraged to apply for voluntary redundancy because of the Council’s financial crisis I believe that this is an appalling move and sends a really bad message to staff. Steve Foulkes, Labour Group Leader, highlighted the fact that whilst three senior managers are getting a £7,000 per year pay rise, other staff, who may have to take on more responsibilities to plug gaps left by people who are allowed to leave, will be given no pay increase. This recommendation was then rushed through the full Council meeting on the 18th October.

The Anti-Social Behaviour Team has organised a week-long programme of events and activities from the 25th to 29th October to tackle anti-social behaviour and promote respect, branded as Respect Wirral 2010.

The activities which are being supported by a range of agencies including Merseyside Police, social landlords and local community groups, include high visibility patrols, advice surgeries, enforcement activity, environmental audits, clean-up operations and environmental improvements.

As part of this on Tuesday 26th October between 6pm and 11pm, an advice surgery for the public will take place on the Team’s Respect Bus [Read more...]

Earlier this week a group of local residents attended an auction in Manchester where Overchurch Woods was being auctioned, where they were successful in securing the woods for the benefit of the Community. The background to this was credible information that travellers were actively interested in buying the woods.

The woods which as well as being a site of Special Biological Interest is also [Read more...]