YEP! We’ve received the Grant Thornton response to our August 2016 qualifying objection, which arrived a couple of weeks back signed by their Director John Gregory. Attached to his email was a 13-page Decision and Statement of (alleged) Reasons.
We’d originally asked for a public interest report to be drawn up and for a High Court acknowledgment of Wirral Council’s failings to be produced. These were perfectly reasonable requests given the long and abject history of failure. A failure which had been replicated right across the country by hundreds of councils ‘during the good times’. Ha.
There then followed some to’ing and fro’ing. The decision had been stamped with an unsightly “Commercial in Confidence”; an attempt at trashing the valuable concept of openness and transparency.
We wanted to publish it. They wanted to conceal it, claiming it was a letter to us (and not the Wirral Public) and therefore ‘not intended for publication’.
The ‘auditor’ position appeared to be;
“Why would the public want to know about a measly £295 million debt that doesn’t run out until the 200th anniversary of Everton Football Club, occurring in 2078”?
Our final, weary contribution to this particular email exchange was:
Gregory checked with his bessies at the council, saying it was their decision. They reluctantly gave the go-ahead a few days ago and he then claimed that all along it was in fact he who was allowing us to proceed:
We won’t spoil this by telling you what the decision was. You’ll need to download it by clicking below and then reading it!
If you’re on Facebook, you can follow this link to an event we publicised which came and went the other day. While you’re there, if you’re a Facebook member, please join our group, “Wirral In It Together”:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1274670506231265/permalink/1276623036036012/
Unlike the council, their ‘auditors’ and the local ‘newspapers’, we thought it vital as many Wirral Council tax payers as possible should know in great detail about what’s been done in their name and behind a veil of secrecy ever since the captured Wirral Globe and Liverpool Echo (Wirral edition) gave up reporting on the subject yonks back.
Our qualifying objection was lodged over four years ago on the 10th August 2016.
Mr Gregory, his predecessor Robin Baker and Wirral Council, in the form of Councillor Adrian Jones – former chair of the ‘Audit’ & Risk ‘Management’ Committee – had been feeding us shite, fobbing us off and dragging their heels.
We still don’t know what the reasons are for such a long delay. As you can see here, the mealy-mouthed motherf*ckers haven’t got the bottle to tell us.
‘A number of different factors’ our pert, shapely, beautiful, bouncing, hirsute backside.
And to sink the boot in even further, tight arse has given us just 21 days to appeal. What a miserable kick in the teeth.
Well, Gregory’s Girl, if you’re reading this, you’re confident we won’t be appealing, aren’t ya mate?
And why’s that?
Because the plebs never appeal, even if they’re retired from the toxic rat race, like what we are. Citizens – including us – can’t just breeze down the bank and secure a remortgage to free up the cash. We also can’t afford to appoint an expensive team of legal executives, poised to drop everything, take up the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play to fight ‘auditor’ greed and council criminality.
Can we?
This is how the system has been set up. To enable practised, elected and unelected psycho / sociopaths to function in a safe space, to build their wealth and strengthen their empires, with us miserable swine frozen out. All with the purpose of making any fight back impossible, whilst crushing the man in the street, or should that be gutter?
Oh no, dismal failure is the guaranteed destination of any disgruntled but spirited type, like what we are, who knows they’re being fleeced and poisoned yet seeks to resist paying up and opening their gaping maw to swallow the drip-fed council / ‘auditor’ medicine.
In the past, we had the Audit Commission, a public body with national reach, and also some measure of accountability. But what have we got now? Shit. That’s what. Shit.
Since the Tories scrapped the AC and handed the role of alleged “regulation” on a silver platter to their bent private company mates, every last vestige of public oversight has been put to the sword.
Moreover, there is no longer any incentive for these fuckers to carry out the job of pinpointing dishonesty, theft, corruption or making public servants answerable.
Why? Because councils pay six figure annual stipends to the twats. Up and down the country this figure goes into the billions. In return councils get protection and the crooked books get balanced. It’s a fucking legalised RACKET folks.
Oh, to hell with it…
…we’re outta here.
Peace out.
