Wirral Council produced and supplied the following table in response to an FOI request.
As you can see, the names have been withheld and it contains no absolute confirmation that Maura Noone and Mike Fowler were issued with compromise agreements. We added their names in red because there is enough circumstantial evidence out there to confirm that they were muzzled inside these documents using routine gagging clauses, and that this occurred in January 2012.
The ‘production designer’ of this ‘Great Escape’ and he who made all this possible, former CEO James Wilkie retired with ‘ill health’ in June of the same year.
*Extremely* sharp-eyed readers will notice from the above table that Wirral Council lied, and failed to declare the compromise agreement issued to former senior officer Emma Degg, who was gagged* on 24th August 2013, thereby breaching Section 77 of the FOI Act.
There’s much more [uncovered for many years by the local and mainstream media] scandal on Twitter if you search the #Wirralgate hashtag.
*The Employee and the Council confirm that they will keep the terms of this Agreement confidential, save where such disclosure is to HM Revenue & Customs, required by law or (where necessary or appropriate) to the Employee’s spouse / immediate family or legal or professional advisers, provided that they agree to keep the information confidential.
The Council and in particular the Council’s senior officers including HR and the Council’s Chief Executive (Graham Burgess) also confirm that they will keep the terms of this Agreement and the issues which led to the claim confidential to themselves, relevant Council senior officers and legal or professional advisers provided they agree to keep the information confidential and are able to do so lawfully.
Yes readers, you’re way ahead of us again…
…if Wirral Council routinely, confidently ignored statutory law and lied through their teeth about Emma’s compromise agreement, then we can safely assume they’re likely to have lied through their teeth again about Jimbo’s.
Well, we can’t accuse Tory Councillor Ian Lewis of “not being in step with the rest of the team” can we? Not on this occasion. When given the chance to clobber a cow’s arse with a banjo, i.e. to acknowledge that in 2012 the Labour party he opposes allowed two proven abusers of disabled people to dodge disciplinary action and walk into well paid jobs, one of which gave rise to a safeguarding emergency in Reading… what does he do?
He walks by on the other side.
Wirral Council Labour members will be hugely pleased and relieved to see Ian standing strong, shoulder to shoulder, and holding the fort with them.
Here’s an email we sent to Councillor Lewis yesterday: From: Paul Cardin Date: Sun, Jun 17, 2018 at 6:46 PM Subject: Safeguarding emergency in Reading To: ianlewis@wirral.gov.uk Cc: lesleyrennie@wirral.gov.uk, paulhayes@wirral.gov.uk
Hi Ian,
Are you planning to speak up / issue a public statement / act in the public interest on this?
Some Wirral Council Tory members are culpable,
Many thanks,
Paul Cardin
To which he responded today:
From: Lewis, Ian (Councillor)<ianlewis@wirral.gov.uk> Date: Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 2:31 PM Subject: RE: Safeguarding emergency in Reading To: Paul Cardin
Hello Paul
I won’t be making any comments about situations that I am not fully aware of at Reading Council.
If you have any evidence that councillors in Wirral are ‘culpable’, you should contact the Monitoring Officer , Mr Philip McCourt.
Cllr. Ian Lewis
Having already copied Ian intothis earlier email, out of courtesy to him as party leader, he’s been provided enough information already to know full well what occurred at Wirral Council in the lead up to the departure of two abusers in January 2012, AND what is unfolding now at Reading Council as a direct result, and will therefore be in no position to continue pleading ignorance.
In fact, we know he tunes into this blog from time to time to tap into what’s going on in the real world, so the following is just for you, Ian.
It’s all the links we’ve put up over the last two weeks or so, where you will find a wealth of information about this particular Wirral Council failure, directly involving two of your colleagues, Councillor Lesley Rennie and Councillor Paul Hayes, and two of your ex-colleagues who’ve now lost their council seats, ex-Councillor Sheila Clarke and ex-Councillor Peter Kearney.
Also explored is the broader failure of the Information Commissioner and a First Tier Information Tribunal judge called Chris Hughes, all of whom failed disastrously to spot a safeguarding disaster in the making.
Here you go Ian. We’ve put lots of time in here over the last six years to make your job of representing the Wirral public so much easier… all unpaid, and done out of a desire to see Wirral become a better place to live and prosper. Can you assist us in this aim?
We’ve been taking some time to dig back over the period of 2011 through to early 2012 and have unearthed some very uncomfortable reading for two local authorities who’ve recently decided to block us on Twitter, these being Reading Council (@ReadingCouncil), and before them, Wirral Council (@WirralCouncil)
If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you’ll be aware that between them they set about cooking up an almost perfect recipe for disaster that has now gone full circle as thousands of vulnerable adults in the Reading area queue up to be potentially abused by a former Wirral senior officer, a proven abuser who escaped any sanction for her sins, was protected, gagged and given a clean bill of health.
It’s a horrendous mix of calculated and reckless, isn’t it?
The reason that this came about was because in January 2012 the then CEO of Wirral Council was desperate to ensure that he didn’t get dropped into the poo poo by any vindictive person getting disciplined as a result of a looming independent report into a Social Services scandal. As the day of reckoning approached, there were two potential candidates lining up for this role in the shape of Maura Noone and Mike Fowler.
So before he retired on ill health and with a fat pay-off of £111,000 not long after this episode, he took care to ensure that their palms were greased with £220,000 and that they and Wirral Council itself were gagged inside what were then known as “compromise agreements”.
Their purpose can be manifold, but you can almost guarantee that where senior officers are concerned, they receive them after threatening to fall foul of either statutory law or becoming a danger to the issuing body’s reputation. So if you’re a panicking CEO, you reach for these babies to shut the bastards up and to protect yourself from any spiteful comeback …using council tax payers’ cash to grease the path and help you along.
Anyway, onto the next subject …this absolutely epic FOI request. The following section is the entire contents of this query, which we made to Wirral Council via the excellentWhatDoTheyKnowwebsite on 11th January 2012. Yes, SIX years ago. This disaster really has been brewing that long.
We stuck to the task and finally got the answer – or part of it – in November of the same year, 10 months later.
If you’ve been following this story, you will already appreciate what we were telling Wirral Council back then, that they were headed for a fall, that if they failed to act in the public interest and punish these two abusers, that if they continued to protect them, they would be storing up trouble that would come back and bite not just them, but other unknown employers and more importantly, unknown numbers of innocent, vulnerable people in the future.
So what did they do? Nothing.
The Council failed, the courts failed and the Information Commissioner’s Office failed. We got a hattrick of dead beat organisations that placed the interests of these two abusers ahead of vulnerable citizens. All done in their manic desire to close ranks, tick boxes, cover each other’s arses and be as goddamn obtuse and unfeeling as only the most toxic, closed off, out of touch, blue sky thinking bureaucrats can be.
Above is a link to a news story published this week in the Wirral Globe, which reports the departure “by mutual consent” of two senior officers, presumably involved at the very least, in disabled abuse.
This story relates to the findings within the AKA (Anna Klonowski) report, and the learning disabled abuse which was admitted to by the Council in this document (see 7.1):
Please provide all information you have which is connected to the departure of the above two senior members of staff. This will relate to meetings, hearings, discussions, and may be stored in the form of recorded minutes, verbatim and non-verbatim notes, emails, letters, memos, aide memoirs, whether electronically or manually.
Please confirm and provide details of the existence of any payments made to the two members of staff in relation to their departure, collectively or individually. This will include precise amounts, the method of payment and the budget from which the payment was derived.
Please confirm details of the existence of any “compromise agreements” signed by the two members of staff. This will include confirmation of any ‘gagging clauses’ and whether a positive / neutral / negative reference was provided regarding potential future employment.
Please provide the names and addresses of all organisations / bodies involved in providing legal advice to the two departing officers. Please also provide details of meetings which occurred including times, dates and matters discussed.
Please confirm the details of any disciplinary charges either planned or levelled against the two officers in relation to the failures which brought about their departure from the Council.
If either or both of the two officers were provided with a “clean bill of health” regarding their time served at the council, please provide a copy of this / these document(s).
Please redact documents as you see fit, and remove the names of two departing officers in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act”
With regard to the previous FoI request, please amend paragraph 4. to read:
Please confirm and provide details of the existence of any payments / awards / rewards / bonuses made to the two members of staff in relation to their departure or their prior employment, collectively or individually, given as part of a “leaving package”. This will include precise amounts, the method of payment / award / reward / bonus and the budget from which the payment / award / reward / bonus was derived.
Yours faithfully,
Paul Cardin
Lyon, Rosemary A., Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council
I am writing to give you notice under Section 17 (2) (b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, that the Council considers that the exemption contained in Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, may apply to your request, but that the Council has not yet reached a decision under Section 2 (b) of the Act as to whether an exemption will apply, having regard to the public interest test, and in those circumstances, the Council requires additional time beyond the initial 20 working days.
The exemption in Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides that:
Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if:
(a) it constitutes personal data which do not fall within (1) and
(b) either the first or second condition is satisfied.
The first condition, is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene
(i) any of the data protection principles.
I have had regard to the Information Commissioner’s Office Guidance concerning time limits (Good Practice Guidance No 4). I consider that the public interest considerations are exceptionally complex and in those circumstances that the estimate of time required for the Council to make a decision on your request is 14 days from today, namely by 22 February 2012.
I am disappointed with your response, however thank you for explaining the situation and I look forward to receiving your full response within the next 14 days, namely by 22nd February.
May I remind you that I DID specify that any documents supplied could be redacted? This was done in order to protect the identities and the expectations of protection under the DPA that the two officers would expect (regardless of the likelihood that they had both been involved in learning disabled abuse over a protracted period of up to 9 years),
This is outrageous. This is public money and we have a right to know just how much public servants are paid. We know their salaries and thus should be entitled to know how much they get paid off.
Further to the above matter, please note that I am now dealing with your request for information.
I note that Rosemary Lyon confirmed that a decision would be provided to you today. Unfortunately that will not be possible. In order that the public interest test can be considered fully, I will require a further short period of time to complete my assessment and evaluation of the complexities arising in relation to the public interest test in this matter.
Accordingly, I confirm that a response will be provided to you on or before Friday, 2 March.
I apologise for the delay in providing a response to your request for information.
Surely it should not be a problem getting this info ? After all the new Leader wants openness and transparency. In fact he himself is asking the same questions being asked here.
You presume that the officers are working with the Leader of the Council. They work for him… but not necessarily with him.
You may be interested in the leaked email exchange about the library report where Bill Norman seems not to be forward in sharing information with Mr Green. Mr Green seems understandably rather irate.
I placed a call with Mr Tour today to check on progress with this request.
I was informed that he was “in a meeting”. I left my number for him to call me back with any news, but he failed to return the call.
Time’s now up on this request and I will be placing an appeal with the Information Commissioner, along with extensive background details in support of the appeal. I believe there is a compelling public interest element in this case – one that presses for early and detailed disclosure. I do not agree that there are ‘complexities’.
I believe Wirral Council are once again completely out of order, dragging their feet in a situation where it now seems increasingly likely that two abusive senior officers, instead of being faced with gross misconduct charges, may have been handsomely rewarded and shielded for their part in up to 9 years of systematic learning disabled abuse.
The local public place trust in their public servants to act fairly, displaying moral fibre and in defence of the public interest.
We are yet to witness any accountability where these two officers are concerned.
It’s a shame I didn’t know about this the day before yesterday, as Surjit Tour crept in late and sat next to my wife. He did make two apologies for being fifteen minutes late though. http://johnbrace.com/2012/03/20/licensin… . Personally I don’t like the way councillors are so creepy towards him, but as he’s the head of Legal and Member (Member = in the main councillor) I suppose that’s why! You’d probably get more sense out of AKA, AKA’s lawyers or the LGA, have you considered making the FOI request to those as from what I remember government contractors are covered by the FOI legislation. It really does smack of a cover up though because the local elections are on the horizon…. as long as the officers can hold out to 29th March they can “kick it into the long grass”…
If you could remind him that he is responsible for 14 outstanding internal reviews, and of the multitude which have gone to internal review due to lateness he is still yet to explain why any of them were not answered on time.
His performance is much like his timeliness to his meetings.
I see the new regime of transparency is in full swing. Maybe this could be brought up at the meeting with senior officers on thursday, where they are to be reminded that they are public servants.
Since your organisation fell silent on this request, the Information Commissioner’s Office was urged to send you the following letter on 13th April 2012, almost a month ago:
The ICO gave you a generous 10 days to respond. I gave you much longer. It warned you of the consequences of not co-operating, or not responding adequately, without good reason, to perfectly valid public requests. However once again the request has fallen upon stony ground.
This has resulted in my having to notify the ICO again today, in order for them to take it to the next stage. I have appraised the ICO fully on the shameful history to these events and a decision notice may be issued very shortly, which will almost certainly not find in favour of Wirral Council; indeed the matter may be taken to the First Tier Tribunal. If this is the case, I will be pursuing it personally as I and many other local people believe it is time for a light to be shone into some very murky recesses.
A huge public interest has built up around this case. Indeed, if you type the following 2 word phrase into Google, “Departure Officers”, this particular request comes out TOP, ahead of all other items with those particular words.
It is now incumbent upon those at the top of this council, who still appear to be failing, to allow the local public to see whether true accountability is in fact being deliberately circumvented.
This kind of evasive behaviour would in fact be consistent with the depressing findings laid out within both the Martin Smith and Anna Klonowski reports – in brief, a bullying council where the abnormal had become normal.
I thought it only courteous to notify you of the latest developments,
I placed a call with Mr Tour again at 3:15 pm today to check on progress with this request, and to impart some new information to him.
I was informed that he was “on the phone”. I left my number for him to call me back, but he failed to return the call.
I called back at 3:50 telling the lady it was urgent, and I was told he was “still in a meeting”. I said he wasn’t in a meeting before, he was on the phone. Rather unhelpfully, she then told me she hadn’t had the chance to pass any message to Mr Tour.
The situation has now become rather more urgent – in fact a dangerous (if entirely predictable) situation is developing.
One of the anonymous departed officers has begun “advertising his/her wares” on the LinkedIn website, however nowhere within his/her profile is there any reference to alleged abuse or the Chief Executive Officer’s admission to the abuse of learning disabled people, engaged in by Wirral Council (see 7.1):
Neither is there any reference to his/her departure from Wirral in highly controversial circumstances and “by mutual consent”, with the timing (just before release of the Anna Klonowski report) and the strong added suspicion of his/her receiving a large pay off.
I have now asked the ICO to escalate this request, because without the Council providing all the NECESSARY information in the legitimate and now urgent public interest, there COULD be a potential danger to vulnerable or disabled members of the public should this officer be unwittingly appointed in a senior role by a different Council, public body or service provider in the care sector in the near future.
We are yet to witness any accountability – not just where these two officers are concerned, but on a much wider basis, for any officer or member connected to the learning disabled abusive practices admitted to by the Chief Executive of Wirral Council.
This situation is now starting to get out of control and may be getting dangerous. I am hopeful that the ICO can apply enough pressure onto Wirral Council to convince them of the need to act and to act now.
There is a dangerous situation developing in my borough, which has been created by the failure of a council to apply disciplinary sanctions and make senior officers fully accountable following learning disabled abuse, and an ensuing failure to release vital information around this in the legitimate public interest, and in the interests of transparency.
One of two senior officers who left this council through “mutual consent”, potentially paid off, and almost certainly under a compromise agreement with a ‘gagging clause’ is now looking for work on the LinkedIn website.
(link removed to protect identity of individual)
Although the council’s CEO has admitted to learning disabled abuse; see 7.1:
…there has been zero accountability to follow. Moreover, it looks as though the above two departing officers have been rewarded and had their activities effectively concealed.
I tried to notify the Council’s Monitoring Officer today of this danger, but without success. I have very briefly notified Tim Kelsey at @tkelsey1 of this on Twitter today,
“Accordingly, I confirm that a response will be provided to you on or before Friday, 2 March”
Hmmm… it hardly instills confidence in the Borough’s legal dept if it takes them this long to decide whether an exemption under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 can be applied.
It’s outrageous that there has been no further explanation for the delay in this case, and like you say extremely worring that either of these people could potentially be employed in a senior position of trust with responsibility for vulnerable adults again.
Rang again early afternoon to speak to Surjit Tour. “In a meeting” was the answer. Left my number again and asked them to ask him to call me back. Nothing. Rang again at 12:40 pm. “Not in his office” was the answer. But she assured me that Mr Tour will call me back.
Mr Tour called me back at 1:50 pm. I told him about the dangerous situation which had come about, that I was aware of his own involvement in it, that it was foreseeable, and that I felt action was needed to prevent the two officers who had left the council in January being taken on unwittingly in a senior role, which may have responsibility attached to it for the welfare of vulnerable / disabled people.
He disagreed that it was a ‘dangerous situation’.
I remarked that the public have yet to see any accountability for proven abuse and bullying. Mr Tour regards these as ‘allegations’. I said they’d been proven following two detailed investigations. He said this was only ‘my opinion’.
I told him that I’d received an email from Mike Thomas (local District Auditor) promising to look into the situation and see ‘whether there are any issues to consider’ or ‘action to take’.
Thank you for your email and the attachments. Have you received any further response from the Council with regard to your request under the Freedom of Information Act, or is the attached the latest position?
Yours sincerely
Michael Thomas District Auditor
And my response – 11:28 / 29/5/12:
Dear Mr Thomas,
No – they haven’t responded to me. But I contacted and spoke to Surjit Tour in a phone call yesterday, after months of trying.
Worryingly, he does not agree that the current situation, that of a former employee, potentially implicated in learning disabled abuse, being at liberty to take up a similar role elsewhere, is threatening or dangerous. [when asked why this process had taken so long] He said the council had ‘been busy’. However, nowhere within the Freedom of Information Act is any allowance made for the size of a data controller’s workload, or its ability to efficiently use its available resources.
He informed me that he would be responding to me ‘by the end of this week’, and to the ICO, following an urgent letter they sent to the council over 6 weeks ago.
The Chief Executive, who was in place when these two officers departed, has been off ill since February 2012 and has now applied for early retirement. The same course was followed by his predecessor (Steve Maddox).
The application will be heard on 7th June 2012. See following Wirral Globe article:
If he does leave, which is now almost certain, he and the two Social Services officers who avoided censure will be completely beyond accountability for the role played in these events.
The public interest appears to have been effectively sidelined.
Thanks for the invite. I’ll do my best to attend. Here is a link to John Brace’s website, which indicates the details of a Conservative amendment, put forward to the Employment and Appointments Committee called on 7th June 2012 to consider the application for early retirement lodged by the now ex-Chief Executive Officer Jim Wilkie. We can see from the detail, that the two senior officers did in fact sign compromise agreements, however on behalf of the compelling public interest I will continue to press the council for a full declaration on ALL points of the above FoI request:
After urgently notifying him almost a month ago, I received a direct message from @Tkelsey1 (Tim Kelsey) on Twitter this morning, basically telling me I’m barking up the wrong tree. He said I need to take this FoI request to the Head of The Care Quality Commission.
I will do this, but I imagine I’ll be passed around the houses, possibly referred to the ICO, or maybe to the Cabinet Office’s transparency and Open Data guru, Tim Kelsey.
A month on, the threat remains either ignored or deliberately unaddressed.
“Ever decreasing circles”……who is accountable then? Well done on sticking with it! Its not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog GGGGGrrrrr!
Tour, Surjit, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council
Dear Mr Cardin,
Further to our telephone conversation in relation to this matter, I have set out below the Council’s response to your Freedom of Information request.
I apologise for the delay in responding to you.
My response relates to your request for information contained in your email of 11 January 2012. The request was as follows:
Above is a link to a news story published this week in the Wirral Globe, which reports the departure “by mutual consent” of two senior officers, presumably involved at the very least, in disabled abuse.
This story relates to the findings within the AKA (Anna Klonowski) report, and the learning disabled abuse which was admitted to by the Council in this document (see 7.1):
Please provide all information you have which is connected to the departure of the above two senior members of staff. This will relate to meetings, hearings, discussions, and may be stored in the form of recorded minutes, verbatim and non-verbatim notes, emails, letters, memos, aide memoirs, whether electronically or manually.
Please confirm and provide details of the existence of any payments made to the two members of staff in relation to their departure, collectively or individually. This will include precise amounts, the method of payment and the budget from which the payment was derived.
Please confirm details of the existence of any “compromise agreements” signed by the two members of staff. This will include confirmation of any ‘gagging clauses’ and whether a positive /neutral / negative reference was provided regarding potential future employment.
Please provide the names and addresses of all organisations /bodies involved in providing legal advice to the two departing officers. Please also provide details of meetings which occurred including times, dates and matters discussed.
Please confirm the details of any disciplinary charges either planned or leveled against the two officers in relation to the failures which brought about their departure from the Council.
If either or both of the two officers were provided with a “clean bill of health” regarding their time served at the council, please provide a copy of this / these document(s).
Please redact documents as you see fit, and remove the names of two departing officers in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act
You amended this request on 11 January asking that paragraph 4 be amended to the following:
Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,
With regard to the previous FoI request, please amend paragraph 4. to read: Please confirm and provide details of the existence of any payments/ awards / rewards / bonuses made to the two members of staff in relation to their departure or their prior employment, collectively or individually, given as part of a “leaving package”. This will include precise amounts, the method of payment / award / reward /bonus and the budget from which the payment / award / reward /bonus was derived.
I have had regard to the Codes of Practice on the discharge of the obligations of public authorities under the Act and to relevant Guidance issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (‘ICO’).
I have had due regard to both Section 1 of the Act which provides a general right of access to information, and the assumption in favour of disclosure of information.
I am writing to give you notice under Section 17(2)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, that the Council considers that the exemption contained in Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, applies to your request.
The exemption in Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides that:
Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if:
(a) it constitutes personal data which do not fall within (1); and
(b) either the first or second condition is satisfied.
The first condition, is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene:
(i) any of the data protection principles.
I consider that the first data protection principle would be contravened. The first data protection principle provides as follows :- (Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 1998):
Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless—
E+W+S+N.I.
(a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and
(b) …
I consider that none of the conditions in Schedule 2 would be met, particularly the sixth condition, which provides that:
The processing is necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests pursued by the data controller or by the third party or parties to whom the data are disclosed, except where the processing is unwarranted in any particular case by reason of prejudice to the rights and freedoms or legitimate interests of the data subject.
The unfairness arises, in my view, because the nature of the information sought includes personal information that if disclosed could prejudice the individuals in question, particularly the legitimate employment prospects and opportunities that the individuals may wish to pursue. Irrespective of the circumstances surrounding this matter, the individuals have legal rights and interests (given the provisions of the legislation referred to above) that the Council must consider and have particular regard to. I consider such matters to outweigh the legitimate interests pursued by third parties. This exemption under Section 40(2) of the 2000 Act is an absolute exemption and not subject to the public interest test.
Accordingly, I am unable to disclose the information requested for the reasons set out above.
You have the right under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to ask for an internal review in respect of the refusal of your request and of the use of the exemptions under Sections 41 and 22 of the Act. Any request for an internal review should be sent to Mr Bill Norman, Director of Law, HR and Asset Management, Wirral Borough Council, Town Hall, Brighton Street, Wallasey, CH44 8ED, email [email address]
If you are dissatisfied with the Council’s response you also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner, whose address is the Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF
This response does not answer specific parts of your request but applies a blanket response rather than looking to answer its composite parts.
I think relying on the data protection act to deny answering the bulk of your points is a blunt tool and does not apply to the many of the individual parts of the request.
Structuring the request into its parts may yield better results or passing it back to the ICO to get an appropriate response.
The wait of 26 weeks for it to be bluntly refused is outrageous.
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council’s handling of my FOI request ‘DASS – Recent Departure of Two Senior Officers’.
I disagree with and challenge your attempt to engage Section 40(2) of the Act for the following reasons:
I don’t believe that any of the information I have requested risks either identifying the two individuals or prejudicing / damaging their employment rights or future prospects. My request remains the same and I therefore ask that you review it as it stands.
May I remind you that I specifically asked you in January to redact any information which might risk identifying the two officers, such as names. This was done to avoid you trying to engage Section 40(2).
You appear to have placed the employment rights of two senior officers who are widely believed to have been deeply involved in carrying out years of abuse of learning disabled people above the rights of disabled people themselves.
There is a growing risk here, since one of the officers began seeking another job via the LinkedIn website, that vulnerable people may be placed at risk of abuse if a new employer unwittingly takes on one of these people (both are highly qualified individuals).
When accountability for these two officers was bypassed by Wirral Council, and we’ve since had it confirmed by Councillor Jeff Green that compromise agreements with gagging clauses were issued and signed, anybody could have regarded this kind of threatening outcome as forseeable and avoidable. However this danger doesn’t seem to have occurred to Wirral Council. Indeed every action on the part of the Council in relation to this situation seems to have encouraged or even enabled, unwittingly or not, the risk of further abuse to appear once again.
Now that they’ve both been gagged, I regard the risk of one of these people becoming employed where they are at liberty to abuse as a likely one, and far more compelling and in need of addressing than your overriding wish to protect their job prospects. Indeed I find it difficult to comprehend the ongoing loyalty and protection you are prepared to extend to a couple of ex employees. I am also baffled as to why their employment fortunes are placed ahead of the safety and wellbeing of any number of vulnerable / disabled people who may be placed at risk due to a resounding failure to protect them.
There is now a very disappointing response in from the Information Commissioner’s Office. My current conclusion is that employees’ privacy trumps the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable / disabled / elderly people:
12th July 2012
Case Reference Number FS50438500
Dear Mr Cardin
I am writing to you concerning 2 complaints which you have made to the Information Commissioner regarding Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council.
FS50416628 – Your request for information on the records of senior officer’s personal interests which are held by the council
FS50438500 – Your request for information on two senior council officers Council who left their posts by mutual consent following the findings of the AKA report
Both of these cases have now been allocated to me to investigate.
As regards FS50416628 I have written a decision notice which is currently with the signatory for consideration.
As regards FS50438500 I note from the wdtk website that the council has now responded to your request, albeit by repeating its initial response to you of February 2012.
Having looked at this request I have to say that I do not believe that you will be able to obtain this information from the council. If your assumptions are correct then the information relates to potential disciplinary matters. At the least it relates to employment matters relating to the two individuals, and how it came about that they left their positions with the council. This is, for the most part, a private matter between the council and the individuals’ concerned. I will explain further.
I have noted that concerns have been raised about the possibility of compromise agreements being paid out by the council. You have also suggested that the timing of the individuals’ departure has left questions about their reasons for leaving their posts and whether this relates to the Anna Klonowski Report findings. I note that questions surrounding their departure have also been asked in the media.
You have said to the council that you are happy for it to anonymise the information before disclosing it to you. It seems likely however that a motivated individual could obtain that information by various means should they decide to do so. My initial research also suggests that it is fairly widely assumed who the two individuals are and that these assumptions are available on the internet. I also note your further comment to the council that one of the individuals concerned has now advertised on “Linked in”. Clearly therefore you already know, or have assumed who this person is, and so any redaction of identity alone would not be sufficient to anonymise the information (presuming that your assumption is correct). Given this I do not believe that the council can anonymise the information by merely redacting the names or the job roles of the individuals concerned.
This means that the information would be personal data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 and that the data protection principles would apply to the disclosure which you are asking the council to make.
Where personal data is under consideration the first data protection principle requires that the disclosure of the information is ‘fair and lawful’. In general this relates to whether the individual would expect information about them to be disclosed. In the case of a disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act this would be an expectation that information about them might be disclosed to ‘any member of the public’. This is because a disclosure under the Act is considered to be global rather than just to the applicant. When making this decision the Commissioner can consider whether any of the other circumstances of the case would make a disclosure of the information fair.
The Commissioner therefore needs to consider whether the individuals would expect that detailed information about the circumstances which led them to leaving their positions within the council would be disclosed to any member of the public. If that is not the case I must consider whether the circumstances of the case would make that fair in any event.
The first thing to consider is that, in general, employers are under an implied duty of confidence to keep personal information on their personnel confidential. Assuming that your presumptions are correct, this information may relate to the individuals disciplinary history or records. The First-tier Tribunal has provided strong guidance in relation to the disclosure of employees’ disciplinary files. In many cases in the past they have found that it would be unfair to disclose such information. For instance I would draw your attention to the Tribunals decision in Waugh v ICO & Doncaster College (EA/2008/0038) available at
Similarly, in Lord Dunboyne v IC (EA/2011/0261 & EA/2011/0303) the Tribunal stated that:
“The Tribunal has – and will continue to – recognise the strong expectation of staff members that disciplinary matters are personal and to be kept private.”
This is of course working to an assumption which you raised that their reasons for leaving relate directly to the findings in the Anna Klonowski Report. That is not a proven fact however and you recognise this within your request for information. The alternative is that the individuals left for entirely other, unrelated reasons. If that is the case there appears to be a lesser argument for the employees’ expectations of privacy to be overridden. A disclosure of the information under those circumstances would therefore be even less likely to be ‘fair’.
Presuming that your assumption is correct, the wider issues surrounding this case can be taken into account in balancing whether a disclosure of the information would be fair. In some circumstances the legitimate interests of the public in having access to particular information can make a disclosure fair in spite of an individual’s general expectations that that information would not be disclosed. The arguments for this do need to be strong however due to the strong counter arguments supporting the privacy of the individuals.
It is suggested that these individuals are relatively senior council officers. This can also be taken into account in the balance. In essence, where a senior officer is concerned they should have a greater expectation that a disclosure of information about their actions may be necessary in order for the authority to be transparent and accountable to the public. This extends to any severance payments that the council made to them given that this would be paid from public funds. These are not of themselves overriding factors however and the decision still needs to be balanced and based upon all of the circumstances of the case.
However I must also bear in mind that the information that you requested does not specifically relate to the council’s actions or inactions which led to the Anna Klonowski report findings. You have asked for detailed information about the individuals leaving their posts. The information therefore relates more to the private lives of those individuals rather than to the council’s accountability.
Details of the council’s response and the actions it has taken following the report would attract a much stronger public interest argument towards disclosure. The release of the Anna Klonowski report has to some extent already opened the council’s actions to scrutiny, however there is a public interest in the disclosure of the actions it has taken in response to that report so that the public can be reassured that this will not occur again. The issue is where this impinges on personal privacy.
Although the council needs to be transparent and accountable for its actions, it also needs to comply with its legal obligations as regards the privacy of the individuals concerned. The information you have asked for goes to the heart of the individuals’ personnel matters with their employer. In effect, your request was widely drawn and encompasses the entire personnel process which led to the individuals’ leaving their posts at the council. As a result, any disclosure would be much more intrusive into the private lives of the individuals concerned.
I note your argument that one of the individuals concerned now appears to be advertising on Linked In’ however this not an issue which we are able to consider as relevant to the disclosure of the information that you have asked for in this case.
Balancing the above, I do not believe that a strong enough case can be made for the disclosure of the information to be ‘fair’ to the individuals concerned. In the terms of the Data Protection Act, the legitimate interests of the public in having access to that information do not override the fact that a disclosure would be an unwarranted intrusion into their private lives and affairs.
I realise that you will be disappointed that you are not able to obtain all of the information which you have asked for. Whilst I accept that if your analysis is correct there are certainly legitimate public interest arguments for some information to be disclosed, there are however also very strong arguments for information relating to an individual’s performance, personal privacy and their personal, private dealings with their employer which counterbalance, and override these interests in this case.
Having said this, there may be a stronger case for the council to disclose any severance payments which it has made. The Accounts and Audit (Amendment No. 2) (England) Regulations 2009 require local authorities to publish severance payments for staff earning over £50,000, and in respect of those earning over £150,000, to publish both the amount and the name of the individual. I have therefore written to the council and asked it to let me know whether it is obliged by these regulations to publish any amounts paid to the individuals as severance payments, and if so, when it intends to make this information available. I will write to you again regarding this once I have received the council’s response.
Yours sincerely
[name of public servant removed] Senior Case Officer
Thank you for speaking to me on the telephone this morning.
Following our discussion I am writing to confirm that, as requested, I will continue with our investigation and produce a decision notice on this case.
I hope that this is helpful to you.
Yours sincerely
[name of public servant removed] Senior Case Officer
It may be that both the officers that you requested the information about.. have been having a look on your LinkedIn profile. Maybe you could ask them direct?
“It may be that both the officers that you requested the information about.. have been having a look on your LinkedIn profile. Maybe you could ask them direct?”
The officers as two individuals are under no obligation to respond as they aren’t covered by the FOIA legislation as they’ve left the employment of Wirral Council.
The issue was brought up by the Tories during the former Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service’s early retirement.
Following email received from the ICO case officer:
30th August 2012
Case Reference Number FS50438500
Dear Mr Cardin
Thank you for your email. I have been waiting for a copy of the withheld information from Wirral Council. I received a response on 21 August 2012 and am therefore currently drafting a decision notice on your complaint.
I hope that this is helpful to you.
Yours sincerely
Senior Case Officer
….Wirral Council had him waiting around a month. I’m hopeful there may be a decision notice on this, arriving next week.
I’ve received this email from the ICO, dated 19th September 2012:
Case Reference Number FS50438500
Dear Mr Cardin
Thank you for your emails regarding your complaint about Wirral Council. I’m sorry I missed your call today.
As an update, I have just completed the draft of your decision notice today. From this point the notice will go into a validation process which can sometimes take a number of weeks. Notices can sometimes be issued faster than this however it is dependent upon the workload of the signatory, the complexity of the notice and whether the notice needs to go through a review by the Commissioner’s policy department. It is therefore possible that the notice will be issued shortly however I am not able to specifically confirm that that will be the case.
I’m sorry that you have not received the notice earlier than this however decision notices are legal documents and therefore require careful thought and analysis. They can therefore take some time to complete as we need to be sure that we are fully aware of all the facts and that we apply the law carefully to those facts.
As regards the response to your earlier emails we try to respond to all requests for updates on complaints within 14 days. I hope that this is helpful to you.
I have been a victim of WBC corruption – the senior 2 officers mentioned have had a murky past, working for DASS. Their delaying tactics, to suppress the truth coming out & reaching the public, is well known and understood. They try thier best to preserve their insular policy to keep their suspicious dealings and conduct within.
” They try thier best to preserve their insular policy to keep their suspicious dealings and conduct within” and away from their line managers, their managers, the politicians, the press and the public.
InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council
Thank you for your further correspondence below, further to this Wirral Council can confirm the following information in respect of your enquiry.
The Positions and salaries of the senior officers referred to, Head of Support Services Finance Department and Assistant Director, Head of Wellbeing department of adult social services.
Both their salaries were 73,352
I trust you find the information of use and I have copied the ICO in on this reply, kind regards.
I never asked for the positions and I never asked for the salaries of these two alleged abusers. Please re-read what has gone before and provide the information I have requested.
What’s important here is that no other vulnerable and disabled people become victims to abuse. Your ability to answer this request may play a small part in preventing this from occurring again,
Re-read the request and you’ll find you later amended the request and changed paragraph 4 to request the information (some of which) they’ve now released.
Interesting use of language and interpretation of request! Defies belief! Well done on tenacity!
Corrin, Jane, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council
Good Morning,
With regard to your complaint with the ICO, please find below the information the Council can disclose to you; this relates to the 2 payments made by the Council.
There was a total payment made in each case which was severance pay + notice + 3 months pay.
Head of Support Services Finance Department
109,496.45 which compromised:
74,276.52 (Severance)
16,881.93 (equivalent of 12 weeks notice)
18,338.00 (3 months salary)
Assistant Director, Head of Wellbeing DASS
111, 042.95 which compromosed
75,823.95 (Severance)
16,881 (equivalent of 12 weeks notice)
18,338 (3 months salary)
The Council remains of the opinion that other information requested is exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the FOIA as it contains Personal Data. The council considers that it would be unfair on the individuals concerned to disclose this personal data and therefore would be in breach of the 1st principle of the DPA 1998.
OMG ~ I had to squeeze that out of my public servants didn’t I? Wirral Council’s failure to discipline these two, and Wirral Council’s enabling of further abuse (by concealing and protecting the damning details inside a legal document) means these two people, if employed in the care sector again, remain a threat to any number of vulnerable and disabled people.
So to summarise… the two officers (who the majority of Wirral residents know the name of) were initially suspended, then cleared of any wrong doing and allowed to return to work, then found to be guilty after all and paid off with £220k of OUR money, and given free reign to do the same elsewhere?
Yes. And Council Leader Phil Davies chaired the meeting which absolved them of responsibility for abuse of learning disabled people following a sham investigation initially. He also voted to allow the council leader Wilkie, who presided over all this to depart with a big pay off in June this year – after making public proclamations about ‘getting to the bottom of all this’ – which he never ever did.
Is it the employees involved leaving you have a problem with Paul Cardin or the fact that they were given a “golden goodbye”?
One could make a public interest argument that it’s better to have different people than keep the same people making the same mistakes? After all better to pay a few thousands now to show them the door than £millions later?
As explained previously the names of the DASS employees have been made public and some of Wirral Council is embarrassed by the whole matter. Let’s face it Cllr Foulkes is no longer Leader as a result of how this went and some Labour councillors got less in allowances as a result!
These two people were management. They are no longer employees at Wirral Council, yet you seem to want Wirral Council to reveal information they’ll fight tooth and nail not to reveal. You know as well as I do they will take this all the way to ICO and then drag their heels some more.
No, Wirral Council plays the FOI game too well, only accountability anyone will ever get is either a public inquiry or court cases or both and by court cases I mean criminal ones and civil ones… but I’ve meddled enough.
This is unaddressed abuse, enabled for the future within a legal document. Loud and clear.
The difference between you and me Scarlet Pimp is I’m not so easily pleased.
I don’t regard “embarrassment” or a change of leader or the deduction of a trifling amount of small change from some councillors as a reckoning. Far from it.
This was disgusting, outlandish, atrocious and contemptible abuse, carried on in a calculated manner over many years, backed up by bullying and harassment. You know all the sordid details.
I have absolutely no political ambitions, so I tend to fire straight from the hip. Whereas some campaigns are suspect, because they’re partly ‘on message’, somewhat compromised, not wanting to rock the boat too much, not wanting to damage the status quo, and by extension their own future prospects. Such powderpuff antics tend to pull their punches and settle for a whole lot less.
Carry on Paul, You seek accountability and evidence of lessons learned….and Wirral are still fish wrestling! I admire your tenacity and really cant understand the “draw a line” attitude. People who were bullied cant just draw a line that easily! There was corruption here which was eye watering and accountability must result. All best wishes Dee
They seek him here they seek him there They seek the S P everywhere Mr. Cardin who is this Scarlett pimpernal If he thinks Wirral Adult SS were evil and rotten years ago, then wait for the outing of Wirral Childrens SS of today 2012. These people are worst then ever, all our children of Wirral could soon be suffering and become victims of their vile corruption cover-ups and incompetence. This is about vunerable childrens actual lives Paul not just abuse. Let Scarlett investigate and comment on the real evil that is Wirral SS of 2012 not years ago. You all might have stopped the abuse of adults whilst unwittingly missing the Children’s plight of today. They need your help NOW!!!!!!
****NOTE*** As forecast by John Hannigan, Wirral Council Children’s Services later plunged into the mire, went through a public scandal, underwent a serious case review which was rendered SECRET, and was inspected by OFSTED and deemed INADEQUATE. A number of senior officers and councillors were forced to fall on their swords.
“The difference between you and me Scarlet Pimp is I’m not so easily pleased. ”
Well put it this way, when you’ve seen violence used against your family and you’ve been made a political prisoner on trumped up allegations (and seen the same done to close family) you may realise that the prejudice towards those with a disability is so deeply entrenched in the public sector on Merseyside that it’s difficult to know where to start to change it.
“I don’t regard “embarrassment” or a change of leader or the deduction of a trifling amount of small change from some councillors as a reckoning. Far from it. ”
Leaders set the culture of an organisation, a culture developed amongst the political class that allowed this to happen on a rationale I find hard to put into writing. Even after some councillors were retrained they carried on with abuses of power and showing their prejudices as clear as day in plain sight. Some display attitudes at times that are so old-fashioned I wonder if I’ve gone back in time.
“This was disgusting, outlandish, atrocious and contemptible abuse, carried on in a calculated manner over many years, backed up by bullying and harassment. You know all the sordid details. ”
Sadly, due to the way I’ve been treated (which is in no way meant to minimise the way others have been treated), I seem to be heading inexorably down a path that leads to somewhat problematic personal consequences.
“I have absolutely no political ambitions, so I tend to fire straight from the hip. Whereas some campaigns are suspect, because they’re partly ‘on message’, somewhat compromised, not wanting to rock the boat too much, not wanting to damage the status quo, and by extension their own future prospects. Such powderpuff antics tend to pull their punches and settle for a whole lot less.”
Such ideological crusades you are entitled to persue if you so wish, but I went “off message” a long, long time ago, maybe the message to me even got lost in the post. As to powderpuff antics, I haven’t used powderpuff since my days on the stage at the Glenda Jackson theatre, but then this whole sorry saga does have its share of drama queens, who have done their best to shed crocodile tears and blame others when the finger of blame is pointed at them.
Here is a link to an article, setting out what I feel is the background and true motivation behind Wirral Council’s very poor response times.
Notably, there are just 2 people dedicated to Freedom of Information and Data at this council (one professional and one admin assistant) – which says it all really.
Both were heavily involved in disabled abuse which occurred at Wirral Council over a period of many years. Their eventual, protected departure arrived in January 2012, just days before the release of a damning independent report, which would have called for their heads if they hadn’t been allowed to bail out by complicit CEO James Wilkie.
Here’s a clip from Private Eye in November 2012. It took us TEN long months to eventually squeeze this information out of Wirral Council – this being the precise amount of public money that the abusers shared as part of their generous leaving package – a total of £220,000.
Following this scandal and others in Highways and Social Services, as part of the mopping up operation, more public money was rewarded to the abusive senior officers involved, who were suspended on full pay before being forced out of their jobs. These were individuals who were senior enough to “know where the bodies were buried” and therefore couldn’t be allowed to finger their own directors, complicit councillors or the CEO. So the Wirral council tax payers’ deep pockets were raided again and again in order to protect the top crooks. The total amount squandered went higher and higher, eventually breaking through £1 million ………….before climbing still further.
Even after they’d been caught out unlawfully charging learning disabled people for their Supported Living accommodation over a period of NINE years, the council deliberately downplayed the extent of the financial abuse and offered peanuts in reimbursement. Three times they tried to get away with offering much smaller amounts and only succeeded in compounding their abuse.
A selection of Wirral Council pay offs (not exhaustive):
David Green, Highways – £103,000
Bill Norman, Law – £146,000
Ian Coleman, Finance – £86,000
David Taylor Smith, Finance £68,000
David Garry, Audit – £46,000
John Webb, DASS – £152,000
Steve Maddocks, CEO – £157,000
James Wilkie, CEO – £111,000
Ian Brand – £68,000
Geoff Paterson – £72,000
Jim Lester – £72,000
Bob Beresford – £71,000
And finally… a Wirral Globe article from ten months after Fowler and Noone had fled:
A safeguarding emergency in Reading – the story so far……….. 1 An emergency safeguarding message has been left with our representative on Wirral Council, Seacombe Councillor Adrian Jones – 4th June 2018 2 The causal link between a Wirral Council … Continue reading →
Here are the three earlier blog posts re: the dangerous situation in Reading. It should be noted that the CEO of Reading Council has “adopted radio silence” and has been in touch to say he will not be making any public statements, nor will he be corresponding with the writer of this blog.
Below is a submission to the First Tier Information Tribunal we made in 2013
The original FOI decision notice we were appealing had in our opinion made many glaring errors. The Information Commissioner had only succeeded in facilitating and encouraging the dangerous situation that has now arisen at Reading Council i.e. an EMERGENCY SAFEGUARDING THREAT to thousands of vulnerable citizens served by the council’s Adult Social Care Department.
This department is now led by one-time Wirral Social Services Assistant Director, Maura Noone, who was never disciplined for her key part in a disgraceful, abusive episode.
Instead she was allowed to leave by CEO James Wilkie days before the release of a crucial report which would have implicated her.
She was then quickly gagged inside a compromise agreement, paid off with £110,000 in public money, and given a positive work reference before being shown the door.
Here is our submission to the tribunal in full…
The judge, Chris Hughes, ignored my points and found against us.
Here is a link to the original blog post written about Noone / Fowler which covers the original FOI request that was made in 2012, how Wirral Council’s disability discrimination was found, and much more:
And here is a link to the ICO website and the decision notice we were appealing. In light of the most recent developments, which were predicted and cautioned about in the above submission to the court, readers will be able to clearly see where the regulator, despite his obvious expertise, systematically failed to appreciate the depth and seriousness of Wirral Council’s failure, describing it as ‘mistakes and errors’.
Not only this, but the very real threat to public safety, which was foreseeable back then and has now come to pass.
Despite the warnings that were clearly spelled out to them, the dangerous situation which has arisen now in Reading is a result of these top officials closing ranks, covering their ears, protecting each other’s backs, blindly ticking boxes, issuing torrents of copious weasel words for public consumption, and ultimately……
…..failing in their statutory duty (all over again) to protect vulnerable citizens.
From: Paul Cardin Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2018, 14:25 Subject: Re: Safeguarding matter [OFFICIAL] To: Lovelock, Jo (Councillor) <Jo.Lovelock@reading.gov.uk> Cc: <georgedavies@wirral.gov.uk>, <paulhayes@wirral.gov.uk>, <lesleyrennie@wirral.gov.uk>, <ianlewis@wirral.gov.uk>, <stevefoulkes@wirral.gov.uk>, Davies, Phil L. (Councillor) <phildavies@wirral.gov.uk>, Robinson, Eric <ericrobinson@wirral.gov.uk>, Jones, Adrian ER. (Councillor) <adrianjones@wirral.gov.uk>, <peter.sloman@reading.gov.uk>, Amy Bryan <amy.bryan@reading.gov.uk>
Good afternoon Councillor Lovelock,
Thank you for your very quick response to my email and for advising you would be informing the Member for Adult Social Care, Councillor Jones, and the CEO, Peter Sloman.
I would be very grateful if you, Councillor Tony Jones or the CEO could update me on what measures you will be putting in place in response to Wirral Council’s 2011 failure and the resultant safeguarding emergency which has arisen in Reading.
I’m sure you would agree the information I provided is clear. It is very easy to trace these events, to track through and to attribute responsibility not just to the abusive senior officers involved, but to the Wirral Council senior officers and members who colluded to protect themselves, the council, the abusers and failed to foresee the consequences of their negligence.
One crucial event which I did not include in the original email was this:
In January 2011, the then Wirral Council CEO – James Wilkie – made a decision to allow the disability abusers Maura Noone and Mike Fowler to leave the council just days before the release of the Anna Klonowski report. James Wilkie knew that such was the justified level of public anger at the time, had they remained in position, and in light of the damning report, they would have been forced to face accountability for their roles in the abuse.
It seems in permitting the pair to leave, Mr Wilkie circumvented all accountability and shielded the two abusers, whilst protecting Wirral Council’s badly tarnished reputation.
This failure was at the root of the current safeguarding emergency in Reading.
Here is a link to a Wirral Council public document which makes clear reference to the council’s involvement in the long-term abuse of learning disabled people. See 7.1:
As you can appreciate, this stated pledge to address the abuse arrived nine months after the abusers had departed – too late.
Despite this collective admission by Wirral Councillors and senior officers, no senior employee or member was ever made directly accountable for the abuse, the bullying, the incompetence, nor for the cover up and the protection of those responsible.
Instead Noone and Fowler were shielded from any disciplinary process, gagged inside compromise agreements and rewarded in large amounts of public money by CEO James Wilkie, Monitoring Officer Bill Norman and the members listed in my original email. At some point, positive employer references will have been provided to the departed employees. These activities compounded the problem and amounted to clear abuses of position and power.
Furthermore, this calculated conduct of seven plus years ago directly gave rise to the safeguarding emergency you currently have on your desk,
Thank you for copying me into this – I know Tony Jones will be taking this up and I will discuss with the CX tomorrow.
Jo Lovelock
****CORRECTION****
Wirral CEO James Wilkie’s decision to allow Maura Noone and Mike Fowler to depart was made in January ….2012.
Wirral Council’s public “pledge” to address its own abuse of disabled people came in October 2011.
UPDATE
An email response has just come in from Reading Council’s Chief Executive, Peter Sloman: From: Sloman, Peter<Peter.Sloman@reading.gov.uk> Date: Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 3:09 PM Subject: RE: Safeguarding matter [OFFICIAL] To: Paul Cardin
“Lovelock, Jo (Councillor)” <Jo.Lovelock@reading.gov.uk> Cc: “georgedavies@wirral.gov.uk” <georgedavies@wirral.gov.uk>, “paulhayes@wirral.gov.uk” <paulhayes@wirral.gov.uk>, “lesleyrennie@wirral.gov.uk” <lesleyrennie@wirral.gov.uk>, “ianlewis@wirral.gov.uk” <ianlewis@wirral.gov.uk>, “stevefoulkes@wirral.gov.uk” <stevefoulkes@wirral.gov.uk>, “Davies, Phil L. (Councillor)” <phildavies@wirral.gov.uk>, “Robinson, Eric” <ericrobinson@wirral.gov.uk>, “Jones, Adrian ER. (Councillor)” <adrianjones@wirral.gov.uk>, “Bryan, Amy” <Amy.Bryan@reading.gov.uk>
Dear Paul Cardin,
Thank you for sending me a copy of this. Reading Borough Council will not be making any public statements regarding this matter for legal reasons and will not correspond with you on the matter.
This post features an email response to our local councillor, Adrian Jones, describing a causal link between a foreseeable, avoidable 2012 failure by Wirral Council and a safeguarding emergency happening right now.
Please read on…
From: Paul Cardin Date: Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 8:13 PM Subject: Re: Safeguarding matter To: “Jones, Adrian ER. (Councillor)” <adrianjones@wirral.gov.uk> Cc: “Davies, Phil L. (Councillor)” <phildavies@wirral.gov.uk>, georgedavies@wirral.gov.uk, paulhayes@wirral.gov.uk, lesleyrennie@wirral.gov.uk, ianlewis@wirral.gov.uk, stevefoulkes@wirral.gov.uk, “Robinson, Eric” <ericrobinson@wirral.gov.uk>, amy.bryan@reading.gov.uk, jo.lovelock@reading.gov.uk
Amended Email re: hidden names within Anna Klonowski Report
Dear Councillor Jones,
Many thanks for your quick response. This emergency safeguarding issue refers in part to the following story published in the Wirral Globe on 12th January 2012:
Thanks for your suggestion but I do not wish this matter to be dealt with ‘in confidence’ because my own identity is known, and the ongoing concealment of other named persons’ identities would not serve the public interest. This matter needs airing and I would appreciate yours and Wirral Council’s urgent assistance with that.
To be specific, over 6 years ago, on 30th January 2012, you attended as “responsible portfolio holder”a meeting of the Wirral Council Employment and Appointments Committee. This followed calls by senior politicians on Wirral for the senior officers involved to resign from their posts. These resignations did not occur.
Point 59 of this meeting’s agenda entitled“Senior Management Changes”covered the departure only days earlier of two senior Adult Social Services employees, Maura Noone and Mike Fowler.
Both senior DASS employees Maura Noone and Mike Fowler, although investigated independently and discovered to be parties to:
disabled abuse
unlawful deductions from Angela Eagle’s disabled constituents’ bank accounts totalling £736,756.97 over a nine-year period
bullying
dishonesty
incompetence
…initially had their identities protected within the report under the titles “Employee 22” (Noone), “Employee 13” (Fowler) and were never disciplined. The council was also found to have beeninvolved in disability discriminationby the then Chair of the Disabilities Committee of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Mike Smith.
The foreseeable and avoidable consequences could and should have been envisaged and circumvented at the time by yourself andthese attending councillors:
Cllr Phil Davies (Labour, Leader)
Cllr George Davies (Labour,Deputy Leader)
Cllr Steve Foulkes (former Leader, former Mayor)
Cllr Paul Heyes (presumably Paul Hayes, Conservative)
Cllr Peter Kearney (former Conservative)
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Sheila Clarke (former Conservative)
Exactly what discussions passed between councillors at the time will remain unknown. But it appears that the departure of both guilty parties was simply “noted” and no action was taken to remedy a future outcome which has now become a clear and present danger and could have extremely harmful consequences.
This emergency safeguarding matter is confined to Maura Noone, the Head of Social Care at Reading Borough Council, because the threat carried here is potentially more grave and could involve thousands of vulnerable Berkshire adults.
Please use your influence to intervene and take the appropriate steps by advising Reading Borough Council of yours and your fellow members’ longstanding failure to safeguard. This situation became compounded when then Director of Law / Monitoring Officer Bill Norman:
rewarded both employees with £110,000 each in public money
imposed gagging clauses inside compromise agreements which prevented both Wirral Council and the two employees from revealing the abuse, bullying, dishonesty, etc.
provided both employees with clean bills of health in the shape of positive references for future employment
disguised both employees’ names inside the Anna Klonowski report and thereby prevented the public and the media from discovering their identities
As the person raising this concern, please acknowledge my email today and keep me updated with progress.
Wirral Council – out on a limb – locking horns with central government once again. But worse, have they been breaking statutory law?
They’re backing their deregulated friends in the greedy private sector now, making life miserable for service users, and OUT-TORYING the TORIES.
As liar and right wing outsourcer Councillor Phil Davies “fixes” something that was never broken, we wave goodbye to Wirral’s Community Transport Service for vulnerable and disabled people.
Community Transport on Wirral may be in last chance saloon.
Word reaches His Lordship from a supremely well-informed source that the writing is on the wall for community transport services here on Wirral. These are the trained drivers, escorts and specially kitted out vehicles that transport disabled and vulnerable service users to their day centres, care homes, Special Educational Needs schools, etc. day in, day out, all year round.
And we don’t bring you this news lightly. We know it’s genuine because we’ve had the information checked and double-checked. It impacts Wirral Council, goes right to the heart of central government, to the top of the EU, and it’s a thorny issue being discussed right now at the top transport committees in the UK.
Here is a link to the Community Transport parliamentary debate of 10th May this year: https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/082b6e02-f4ba-46dd-a581-48202804c19f A change in EU law, Directive EC 1071/2009 to be specific, was…
In brief, the following is a recorded message, left with recently re-elected Councillor Adrian ER Jones of Seacombe ward…
Adrian Jones reassured the Wirral public many months ago that he is a supporter of Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn.
If his belief system has indeed gone through the dramatic transformation required to reflect this new set of values, then he will now regret his negligence in not acting to prevent potential abuse of vulnerable adults when sitting on the following Employment and Appointments Committee in January 2012:
With Adrian Jones named as the “Responsible Portfolio Holder” this committee meeting made a number of calculated deliberations at the time. These served to endorse the departure just days earlier of two senior Department of Adult Social Services abusers of disabled people, Maura Noone and Mike Fowler, who left Wirral Council with:
£110,000 each in public money
compromise agreements with gagging clauses to help in shielding their abuse
clean bills of health they could present to prospective future employers;
and no disciplinary action for their proven involvement in abuse of disabled people
If he regrets the dangerous situation that has now arisen due to his and other councillors’ abject failure on 12th January 2012, he will act upon our voice message, ring us back or email us and ask for further details of the non-specific emergency safeguarding message we referred to on his answer phone at 2:00 pm today.
STOP PRESS
Councillor Adrian Jones responded this evening with the following email:
From: Jones, Adrian ER. (Councillor)<adrianjones@wirral.gov.uk> Date: Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 8:11 PM Subject: Safeguarding matter To: Paul Cardin
Dear Mr Cardin,
I understand you wish to raise a safeguarding matter.
Please set out the full details, in confidence if appropriate.
Best wishes,
Adrian Jones
Councillor for Seacombe Ward, Wirral MBC, embracing:
John Brace left an annotation ()
Yes I’m following this one by email as of yesterday, as I have more info on it already. Next time I see Surjit Tour I’ll remind him.