16th July 2013

(The first three hyperlinks below go to three sections of video.  Thanks go to John Brace).

Here’s a strange development.  This occurred at last night’s full Wirral Council meeting, where I bailed out early in disgust.  In fact, I have to say I was lucky to make it through the initial prayers.  The words dished up (from Isiah) were worthy in themselves, but the setting, with Wirral’s councillors seated in mock reverence, transformed the prayers into a darkly ironic, bludgeoning smack-in-the-mouth to all good faith, dignified observers packing the public gallery.

Apparently, leaving early meant I also missed some councillors getting all heated, or at least feigning anger, before hurling accusations at each other.  But such is the extent of prior staging, and the careful protection and advancement of hidden, cross-party ££shared interests, you can never be sure how authentic these fisticuffs are.

Not only this, as mayhem broke out around him, the deputy mayor, Far Right Councillor Foulkes (who it seems hadn’t been briefed beforehand) was observed to turn a strange beetroot colour…  or so I’m told.  I haven’t found the film of this phenomenon yet.  But if you’re reading this, find a comfy chair.  Stock up on popcorn.  Watch this space.  A link will soon be provided.

I know movies were made, so may I take this opportunity to thank our dedicated movie makers, bloggers and campaigners for their solid, reliable contribution to the public record.  A record which our crazed council zealots have absolutely no control over – which can only be a good thing.

Two members of the public, whistleblower Martin Morton (16:30) and whistleblower Nigel Hobro (10:15) had sat calmly beneath the Mayor’s dias and publicly addressed council leader Phil Davies early on, at close range, with direct questions.  These were both quite deliberately dodged by the evasive leader of the abusive council, with not a whimper from the lapdogs in attendance OR the opposition.

Also on the agenda was a motion from the Tory opposition:

1.  WHISTLE-BLOWING

Proposed by Councillor Jeff Green

Seconded by Councillor Lesley Rennie

(1) Council notes that on the 19 June 2013 the CQC published an independent

report into its registration and oversight of University Hospitals Morecambe Bay

NHS Foundation Trust where up to 16 baby deaths and 2 maternal deaths

could be attributed to poor quality of care. A significant part of this report

focussed on the ‘11 questions’ raised by Care Quality Commission (CQC)

whistle-blower Kay Sheldon.

(2) Mrs. Sheldon, a non-executive Board Member of the CQC, had previously

given evidence to the Francis Inquiry concerning high mortality rates at Mid

Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Within her evidence Kay Sheldon states

that the final straw for her to contact the inquiry was that she had been trying to

raise concerns for quite sometime and the Chair of the CQC had been trying to

undermine Mrs. Sheldon by suggesting she was mentally unstable.

(3) Council further notes the recent publication from the National Audit Office

“Confidentiality clause and special severance payments” where the Head of the

Audit Office stated “it is important that compromise agreements do not leave

staff feeling gagged or reward failure either of an employee or an organisation.”

(4) Council believes that Martin Morton would be able to draw parallels between

Mrs. Sheldon’s experiences at the CQC and his own experiences at Wirral

Borough Council where he blew the whistle on Wirral Borough Council that led

to the ordering of the AKA investigation and subsequent report which found that

the abnormal had become the norm.

(5) Martin has received no justice – his life has been ruined and both the AKA

report and Martin Smith reports vindicated him. Let us not forget that Martin

stood up for those vulnerable adults who couldn’t stand up for themselves and

was hounded out of his job for doing so. Council is therefore extremely

dissatisfied that, over two years on from the publication of the Martin Smith and

AKA reports, the Administration have been unable to find an acceptable

resolution with Martin Morton.

(6) Council is further disappointed to note that, along with the public, it has never

received an adequate explanation into the sequence of events that allowed two

senior members of staff implicated in the Martin Morton whistle-blow to leave,

under compromise agreements, less than 1 working day prior to the publication

of the AKA report and exactly what role the then leadership of the Council had

in that decision.

(7) Council therefore requests the Chief Executive to:

(a) brief the three party leaders about the current state of discussions with

Martin Morton and produce a timeline for resolution;

(b) conduct a review of all the circumstances surrounding the decision to

allow two senior members of staff implicated in the Martin Morton whistle-

blow to leave, under compromise agreements and present that review to

the three party leaders at the September Leaders’ Board prior to full

publication.

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As regards point (6) above, the Chief Executive came up with the following selective quotes in defence of the council and the two serially abusing senior officers …from a First Tier Information Tribunal decision.  Although nothing could be further from the truth, the clear implication here seems to be that a judge has spoken, found against me, and therefore exonerated all and sundry of all wrongdoing, and may even have provided a clean bill of health to Employees 13 and 22 in the Anna Klonowski full report – the two who’d been cynically hurried out of their employment a day before the release of the report, neatly dodging all accountability as they disappeared over the horizon, clutching £220,000 between them along with a clean bill of health.

The 250 page AKA report found they’d been involved in up to 9 years’ abuse of learning disabled adults, had spectacularly failed in their highly paid roles, and much, much more, but this arrived ONE DAY too late to catch them, thanks to the machinations of former CEO Jim Wilkie – now known as James, and a newly in place non-exec board member of the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. I emphasise the word…..

↓

…Trust.

Have a read:

Here is a link to Judge Hughes’ decision, dated 2nd May 2013

And coming up, on public display for the first time is all the information and evidence I submitted prior to the above court hearing.  Sharp-eyed readers will instantly notice how Judge Hughes’ court assistants have been careful to edit the appellant’s (that’s me) contributions right down.  They can now be seen to occupy just a few lines within the final judgment…

Nice.

The following information was sent in support of my case on 23rd December 2012

Here’s the explanation of a disgraceful sequence of events:

I believe a foreseeable, avoidable and threatening situation has arisen, whereby the Information Commissioner has wrongly placed the personal privacy of two former senior employees of a public authority above the future welfare and wellbeing of any number of learning disabled, disabled or similarly vulnerable people.

The Information Commissioner’s use of its own internal processes to enable this threat, to endorse it and to allow it to proceed with official backing may succeed in causing damage to the public good and to the good of society.

In order to provide background, this situation has come about because the public authority under question, through fear of exposing its own top level failure, did not discipline or make accountable the two employees concerned both during and since their involvement at the heart of protracted financial abuse of learning disabled tenants, lasting several years.  I believe this amounted to maladministration and misconduct in public office i.e. criminal conduct.  The abuse featured the unlawful deduction of at least £700,000 from the bank accounts of at least 16, but an unspecified greater number of tenants of Supported Living Accommodation on Wirral.  Despite the clear and damning findings of an external investigation, the authority has chosen to keep many of the abusing officers’ names anonymous (and still does), effectively shunning transparency and making it impossible for the public and public regulators to gain an insight into exactly what occurred and who were the parties responsible.

Given the circumstances of this case, the sums of disabled tenants’ money involved, and the seriousness and protracted nature of the learning disabled abuse (which had been publicly admitted to by the Chief Executive Officer overseeing these officers’ departure (see attached document – 23 12 12 – Wirral Council admission to learning disabled abuse – 7.1.pdf (see paragraph 7.1))), I believe there is and always has been a pressing social need for the personal data (which details the reasons for / circumstances of the two officers’ departure from the public authority) to be released globally to the wider public – which would make disclosure of the information fair in any event.

The ICO’s withholding of the personal data and its reliance upon preserving the ‘personal privacy’ of two officers widely regarded as abusers does not satisfy any pressing public need, and is a serious error of judgment on the part of the Information Commissioner.  Two persons’ personal privacy may be secured, but a far greater number of vulnerable persons’ welfare and wellbeing will be placed in jeopardy.

Despite being informed of all the circumstances behind this case, and the fact that the public authority quotes the officers’ future employment prospects as paramount, the ICO decision preserves a dangerous status quo, one which flows from maladministration and misconduct in public office, and which represents a clear and present threat to vulnerable people should either or both of the two officers become employed again in a senior responsible future role in the care sector, either private or public.  The only thing preventing the situation from travelling its full course is the whim of one or two employers, who will not be made aware of any historical abuse issue because the full details have been concealed and their existence embargoed within compromise agreements with gagging clauses.

The actions of both the authority concerned and the ICO amount to failure to alert the necessary authorities to dangerous, criminal conduct and enabling further abuse to occur.

The ICO has been slipshod in its summary of the issues, particularly in describing the actions of the local authority as ‘mistakes or errors’.  This is a misrepresentation of the facts and the seriousness of the criminal conduct which occurred.  A whistleblower advised the authority of serious failure very early on, but was forced from his job in response.  This resulted in a separate external investigation into bullying and harassment.  The unlawful charging of learning disabled tenants continued once the whistleblower was out of the way.  This could be interpreted as deliberate, calculated and negligent – a situation which appeared to be found and verified within the Anna Klonowski Associates external investigation into Corporate Governance.

The ICO has downplayed the seriousness of the years of abuse and failure that occurred on Wirral, whilst promoting and emphasising the importance of ‘personal privacy’.

The ICO has not passed an opinion on the authority’s continuing practice of redacting names within the ‘full’ AKA report (attached).  Although the council has publicly admitted to the abuse of learning disabled tenants, this practice has protected anonymous senior officers either still working at the council or now departed with large pay offs.  With no apparent desire to advise the council on the safety of following such a course, the ICO has missed an opportunity to act in the public interest by seeking to let in some light and open up the council’s workings to a greater degree of transparency – in the interests of the public and the good of society.

I also believe that the legitimate interests of members of the public [in transparency] outweigh the prejudice to the rights, freedoms or legitimate interests of the two former employees to the extent that the information concerns the use of public funds.

This is an abject failure by the regulator and potentially severely detrimental to the future good of society.

Note: I am not appealing against any of the ICO’s findings regarding the Council’s timeliness and its failure to respond within the time limits specified within the FOIA.

This link goes to a section of footage of the full council meeting – thank you to Michael Ryan.  The issues discussed cover the above tribunal issues, and more relating to the council’s deliberate destruction of whistleblower Martin Morton’s career, and the relentless bullying and mobbing that he suffered upon raising serious concerns with his managers – these were later vindicated in full – but the council’s calculated and targeted victimisation went unpunished.

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