14th May 2015
I’ve been questioned in the past for being overly-critical and not reporting any positive developments regarding my local council.
Well, let’s put these concerns to bed by publishing the above; a list of the names of all Wirral Council Heads of Service, a description of their positions, their email addresses and most importantly, their direct telephone numbers.
Here’s how I got the information:
Dear @WirralCouncil – An #FOI request. List of phone numbers please for CEO, all Directors, Heads of Paid Service. Thanks, Paul Cardin
— Wirral In It 2gether (@Wirral_In_It) April 23, 2015
Never forget, these people are public servants, and by definition are there to serve you. You pay their salaries.
I was disappointed a few weeks back to be told on the phone by a council officer, “We’re not allowed to give out the phone numbers of senior staff.”
I found this puzzling because senior officers and Heads of Service are the people who make all the important policy decisions which affect us. They should be readily answerable for those decisions should they deserve praise, and if and when they go wrong. They should not be issuing global obstacles to access which enable them to hide away somewhere in the shadows, dodging their paymasters.
Please make good use of these contact numbers and let us know how you get on.
15th May 2015
Here’s what happened when I phoned 0151 606 2004 (what was assumed to be the contact number for Mark Smith, Head of Environment and Regulation) today. Basically, I was hoodwinked, my FOI request was not addressed and I was given shit… or to put it more politely, a long list of ‘options’, none of which was a direct link to Mark Smith.
https://soundcloud.com/paul-cardin/wirral-council-list-of-options
Thanks go to www.johnbrace.com for pointing this possibility out to me (see comments below).
I’ll now have to use up lots of time going through all the other numbers to see if this has been a calculated move by Wirral Council – to fob the public off and confound them with a generous helping of misrepresentation, deceit and bullshit.
Or maybe it was an innocent ‘mistake’?
We shall see.
18th May 2015
After receiving some advice on the accuracy of the above list of numbers from a very helpful lady at the council, and finding another number was ‘not recognised’ I quickly realised I’d need to go back to the FOI section and get it checked.
Here’s an email I sent on 18th May:
From: Paul C
Sent: 18 May 2015 21:53
To: InfoMgr, FinDMT
Subject: FW: FOI request for direct telephone numbers
Hi Information Manager,
I spoke with a male colleague of yours today, who asked me to send in my copy of names and direct phone numbers that I’d recently received from yourselves.
This is being done for your attention, and in order for somebody to check through the list (as arranged), make changes as required, then verify that the information is correct.
There are already a couple of errors that I’ve spotted, as follows:
Christine Hyams 691 8950 – number not recognised
Mark Smith 606 2004 – not a direct number. This gives a telephone answering message with several irrelevant options, none of which is a direct number to Mark Smith.
I’d be very grateful if you could acknowledge receipt, check the above list and please return an accurate one asap,
Many thanks,
Paul Cardin
A response arrived, availing themselves of another 20 days’ grace, the next day:
From: O’Hare, Tracy J. [mailto:tracyohare@wirral.gov.uk] On Behalf Of InfoMgr, FinDMT
Sent: 19 May 2015 09:24
To: Paul C
Cc: InfoMgr, FinDMT
Subject: RE: FOI 921729 – Paul Cardin – FOI request for direct telephone numbers
Good Morning
Thank you for your recent request made under the Freedom of Information Act, which has been received by Wirral Borough Council.
The Council can confirm this request was received by the foi team .
Your enquiry is with the relevant Council department(s) and we will aim to issue a substantive response within the statutory timeframe FOI act (2000), 20 working days from the receipt of your request or as soon as we can before this.
Kind regards
Tracy O’Hare
FOI Co-ordinator
Information and Central Services
Wallasey Town Hall
Brighton Street
Wallasey
Wirral
CH44 8ED
Tel:0151 691 8397
n.b. Kevin Adderley and Emma Degg have now departed the council.
Wirral In It Together 
The 606 2004 number is for Streetscene, not a direct dial number for Mark Smith.
LikeLike
Thanks John. I’ll follow that up.
LikeLike
‘We are not allowed to disclose their phone numbers’! And this one very simple example illustrates perfectly the thinking of bloody them toward us. They don’t want to talk to us and they don’t want their time being taken up fielding any contact with the general public who might want to discuss something that’s of importance to them.
Detached, arrogant and full of their own self importance they’ve completely lost sight of why they are there sat in their seats overseeing the fruits of our labours and the huge wad of money that we provide to fund this dysfunctional arrangement.
If they were so bloody passionate and driven by their unquenchable yearning to be passionate in their service toward us, you’d think that they’d grab hold of every single bloody opportunity to have a natter with the ratepayers on the rotten bloody phone and instruct the switchboard, ‘if the public want to talk to me, give them my telephone number so that I can talk passionately about how thrilled I am to be given the golden opportunity to talk directly to them.’
An FOI to get this information! Good bloody grief and they wonder why so many people have taken to their keyboards demanding to know things because on a previous occasion they’ve politely phoned or written a letter only to be told, ‘you are not entitled to know that’.
It’s truly a desperately depressing state of affairs when you can’t get a bloody phone number and speak to some red rosy cheeked connoisseur of fine red wine who’s become fat and bloated after being gifted a job title that one can barely understand and who thinks ‘I don’t want to talk to the public’.
LikeLike
I’m getting some unexpected, positive results from placing this FOI.
This post is getting several hits daily and is now near the top of Page 1 of Google when you enter, “Wirral Council Phone Number”.
Obviously, I don’t want the situation to worsen on Wirral, but as…
o the windowdressing of councillors, senior officers, UNISON goes into overdrive
o services continue to nosedive at the ‘most improved council’
o more and more frustrated members of the public go in search of the council’s phone number
o honest members of staff get fed up with living a lie
…this post may well reach top billing throughout the world.
That’s what I’d call a ‘result’. Impartial events like these can’t be questioned. And it’s also testimony to the stream of lies and half-truths we’re being fed by the council on a constant, ongoing basis.
We shall see :))))
LikeLike
Pingback: Cause and Effect versus Spin and Bluster | Wirral In It Together
Reblogged this on L8in.
LikeLike
We’ve just moved to Wirral from the Fens, and are quite horrified at the council’s uncaring, inaccessible approach to us, the taxpayers. You cannot ever talk to anyone at the council without at least a 30 minute wait! We pay these people to work for us, so what is the matter with them, and why don’t more people protest? In Spalding, where we used to live, you can phone the council any time during normal office hours and speak to human beings who will do their best to help you. This was a Conservative council. I would have thought Wirral, being Labour, would have been even keener to listen to their public, but no, they don’t want to have anything to do with us, just take our money and keep shtum! Literally!
LikeLike
Pingback: The Comments of Bobby47 to this blog. Part #7 | Wirral In It Together