Battle lines drawn as Wirral Council's budget day looms (From Wirral Globe)

Don't expect gutless, dysfunctional, compromised, crooked, spineless local elected / non-elected officials to put up a fight.

They don't know the meaning of the word "courageous". It's not in their dictionary.

They do their double-dealing using us and our council tax as guarantors - in pieces of silver.

They've squandered and lost millions upon millions of pounds of our council tax and ploughed further millions, hand over fist, into covering up / paying off blackmailing power abusers and abusers of disabled people.... and concealing the true extents of uncollected debts - all with the assistance of AKA and the LGA "Improvement" Board.

Now, along come deep central government cuts - the perfect foil for our local wasters to shift the blame across for their own crooked malpractice to anonymous Whitehall mandarins.

They have yellow streaks a mile wide - so expect climbdowns, double dealing, secret meetings with UNISON, and ultimately, services lost for ever and more staff sold down the river.

Burgess is our Skipper. The man with the form, and It's full steam ahead as we all "move forward" to the same old time-honoured betrayals of the past.

Did Wirral taxpayers have a say about a Council Tax increase in the `consultation` document?
If so, why turn down the Government grant? who knows, Councillor Davies, some of us might not be here in two years time, but meanwhile you are taking more of our hard earned money when there is no need.
Does the Consultaion document mean what it said in this respect? Ah but no, it was just a `tick boxes` exercise so not even meaningful. WE know.

A Labour Councilor was asked why the Labour Cabinet would turn down the offer available from central government.
Their answer because it comes from the Tories. Now isn't that intelligent, nothing to do with what would be good for the residents in Wirral, but the same old donkey Councilors re-action to oppose anything that comes from the opposition side, and guess what it works both sides.

Proving beyond doubt we must at all costs remove petty party politics from Local Government, all those who recently voted for any of the so called three main parties, see what you get.

Same old Same old crap that we have suffered under for the past 20 years with all the disgrace and scandal of the last 10.

Never ever vote for a political parasite Councilor who has given you nothing in return, when they have been in office for any length of time, must be the golden rule, Always pick a new face.

Sure, Labour has a majority of 37 to 29, when it comes to vote, therefore its more than likely labour winning on the day to implement huge cuts.

How about slashing Graham Burgess 6 figure salary by 30%, and the rest Super Directors by 25%. This would solve some of the problems, Wirral is facing.

Chief Executive, you need to lead from the front.

Thing is the £1.3m of Central government for council tax freeze is a LOAN! It needs to be repaid by 2016!
So whats the point getting more in debt!! Seriously itll just paper over the cracks! Its a political form of propaganda by the Tories in London!!

PaulCa wrote:
Don't expect gutless, dysfunctional, compromised, crooked, spineless local elected / non-elected officials to put up a fight. They don't know the meaning of the word "courageous". It's not in their dictionary. They do their double-dealing using us and our council tax as guarantors - in pieces of silver. They've squandered and lost millions upon millions of pounds of our council tax and ploughed further millions, hand over fist, into covering up / paying off blackmailing power abusers and abusers of disabled people.... and concealing the true extents of uncollected debts - all with the assistance of AKA and the LGA "Improvement" Board. Now, along come deep central government cuts - the perfect foil for our local wasters to shift the blame across for their own crooked malpractice to anonymous Whitehall mandarins. They have yellow streaks a mile wide - so expect climbdowns, double dealing, secret meetings with UNISON, and ultimately, services lost for ever and more staff sold down the river. Burgess is our Skipper. The man with the form, and It's full steam ahead as we all "move forward" to the same old time-honoured betrayals of the past.

Someone should get this engraved on a plaque and nail it to the doors of the town hall!

PaulCa wrote:
Don't expect gutless, dysfunctional, compromised, crooked, spineless local elected / non-elected officials to put up a fight.

They don't know the meaning of the word "courageous". It's not in their dictionary.

They do their double-dealing using us and our council tax as guarantors - in pieces of silver.

They've squandered and lost millions upon millions of pounds of our council tax and ploughed further millions, hand over fist, into covering up / paying off blackmailing power abusers and abusers of disabled people.... and concealing the true extents of uncollected debts - all with the assistance of AKA and the LGA "Improvement" Board.

Now, along come deep central government cuts - the perfect foil for our local wasters to shift the blame across for their own crooked malpractice to anonymous Whitehall mandarins.

They have yellow streaks a mile wide - so expect climbdowns, double dealing, secret meetings with UNISON, and ultimately, services lost for ever and more staff sold down the river.

Burgess is our Skipper. The man with the form, and It's full steam ahead as we all "move forward" to the same old time-honoured betrayals of the past.

100% agree. 66 keep their jobs while the workers don't.

Hello,

Sense and reason calling......

You are all having a go at the labour party, and quoting the Libs and Tories on how this should be done correctly and with little harm........... THEY ARE THE ONES DEMANDING THE £109m CUTS!!!

All the councillors who are backing these cuts should have a look at the video on You Tube titled Moreton Centre and then tell me that these cuts are necessary! How dare any of you vote to cut a day centre when you are funding golf courses, bowling greens and any other leisure activities not to mention what you squander!!

I do hope people protest strongly over the cuts Wirral Council are about to make. It may be too late but better late than ever.

Sadly it would appear ruling Council Members will have it their own way. All Councillor Davies will continue to do is blame Cameron/Osborne and the rest of the Con/LibDem coalition government.

Let us not forget much of the budget deficit problems have been "made in Wirral". Rather than sort things out at the time everything was carefully "brushed under the carpet" but now everything has been brought to a head.

We, the residents of this borough, will pay the price for all this one off toxic debt and as far as I can determine we still don't know the true extent of all these cuts backs.

So tell me, who feels like volunteering to run some local government services in the future for free, not even for expenses? I don't.

Running the Council using the currently constituted cabinet system is turning out to be undemocratic as most council members don't really take part in the important decision making processes anyway.

And finally, if this Labour run council doesn't change its mind at the final hour later on tonight, to add insult to injury yet again the vulnerable and disabled will be let down again with the closure of Disabled Adult Training Centres around the borough.

I find in a great shame much of the public over time has given up pleading with Wirral Council to operate openly, honestly and in a transparent manner. Regretfully key decision makers are still reluctant to be fully accountable and responsible for their own actions. That's probably why so many people are now simply apathetic towards the council. This should not be the case. It isn't good for democracy in the long run.

So what has changed ........ nothing. They will not even admit its down to bad decision making over the years.

So come on CEO Mr Burgess at least start to make a better difference than so far to date. You of all people can see where the big mistakes have been made over the last 10 years or so, so please, no more cover ups, i.e. DASS/Michael Morton, Cheshire Lines Building debacle, etc., etc.

Have courage, councillors! It may be a brand new experience for you, actually having to justify the way you use our money; but take heart from knowing that we powerless plebs have just as much faith in you as we have in the veracity of stories by the Brothers Grimm.

Mind you, let's not lose sight of the true villains of this particular piece. The last New Labour government, who spent money like there was no tomorrow, KNOWING that the chickens were likely to come home to roost on someone else's watch, and the current Tory-led government which can barely contain its glee as all its birthdays come at once and it exploits the perfect conditions for taking a scythe to the living standards of the poor and the jobs of the wretched working class.

It will be interesting to find out how much of the councillors' expenses, wages and food budget will be cut by.

I've just returned home from attending the Wirral Council budget meeting which started at 6:15pm this evening at the Town Hall, Wallasey. Atter sitting in the public gallery for 2.5 hours plus I had to leave because I couldn't stand listening to the quality of debate any longer.

Wirral Council is in a dreadful fiscal crisis and yet what I witnessed reminded me that all the key decisions have been taken "behind closed doors" anyway so there was no point listening any longer to the party politicking that was going on in the council chamber.

I sam just a little upset they are prepared to close Adult Day Centres for some vulnerable people in the borough when they are supposed to be protecting those people from any cut backs to their services. It doesn't make sense.

Also the quality of debate was absymal and one wonders how on earth some members even have the ability to judge what is in the best interest of the people they seek to represent.

It seems to me most members are adept at praising themselves and purposely spounting party political propaganda rather than discussing the nitty gritty of what is best given the circumstances.

All members are paid nearly £10k a year in allowances simply because they are councillors. You'd really think that perhaps collectively they could have volunteered to take a 20% cut in there allowances this year in particular to demonstrate how committed they all are to the people of Wirral. But, oh no, that gesture isn't even on their radar.

Is it any wonder why a large number of the Wirral borough public are simply too apathetic to bother to find out exactly what is going on at Wallasey Town Hall.

We the people of Wirral deserve an awful lot more. I suppose though we've all to be interested in what really is going on otherwise we only have ourselves to blame.

So yet again our local politicians are quite content to confuse the rest of us living in the borough and so gradually local government will just deteriorate even further I'm afraid to say.

I wish they would stop wasting the resources they still command. If you don't believe me just keep reading the Wirral Globe for yet more "check and balancing" revelations.

I am tired simply trying to understand what really motivates them because I can't believe the borough's finances are in such a mess.

Who will be responsible? Who will be accountable? It's about time all 66 members decided that point at the very least.

I don't want to depress you further MDRyUK, but we were all regally shafted by the Local Government ACT 2000, which welcomed in Soviet style "circular arrangements" in all of our town halls.

Some individuals, often ex-CEOs of councils, saw a chance to enrich themselves and quickly retired on a fat pension and went into highly-paid consultancy work.

One of their number was Don Latham - a Christian man and published author of "Being Unmistakably Christian at Work". Google him.

Back in 2002 he visited Wirral and led a so-called Independent Remuneration Panel, which was instructed to set a fair allowance for councillors. Who instructed them? A "Local Democracy Working Party", made up of.............

.......councillors themselves.

So lots of favours and back scratching went on. Don did "unmistakably Christian" deals and our only involvement as a public, was to not be consulted on it, but to dig deep, stump up and fork out an up to 36% pay rise for all 66.

At the same time, council staff had to scrap for a miserable and rather un-Christian 3% - despite the involvement of the then Bishop of Birkenhead, .

Still, it all proved worthwhile in the long run didn't it, paying the going rate, because er........

......look at the excellent service we've had over the last 10 years.

Hello... MDRyUK? Are you still there? Here's your link, if you can bring yourself to read it................

http://tinyurl.com/a
m39d4m

PaulCa wrote:
I don't want to depress you further MDRyUK, but we were all regally shafted by the Local Government ACT 2000, which welcomed in Soviet style "circular arrangements" in all of our town halls.

Some individuals, often ex-CEOs of councils, saw a chance to enrich themselves and quickly retired on a fat pension and went into highly-paid consultancy work.

One of their number was Don Latham - a Christian man and published author of "Being Unmistakably Christian at Work". Google him.

Back in 2002 he visited Wirral and led a so-called Independent Remuneration Panel, which was instructed to set a fair allowance for councillors. Who instructed them? A "Local Democracy Working Party", made up of.............

.......councillors themselves.

So lots of favours and back scratching went on. Don did "unmistakably Christian" deals and our only involvement as a public, was to not be consulted on it, but to dig deep, stump up and fork out an up to 36% pay rise for all 66.

At the same time, council staff had to scrap for a miserable and rather un-Christian 3% - despite the involvement of the then Bishop of Birkenhead, .

Still, it all proved worthwhile in the long run didn't it, paying the going rate, because er........

......look at the excellent service we've had over the last 10 years.

Hello... MDRyUK? Are you still there? Here's your link, if you can bring yourself to read it................

http://tinyurl.com/a

m39d4m

I believe you! I've been researching this for quite some time now and am careful not to reveal all online.

People in the know can figure out who I am, No one special. It really upsets me some of these people working in local government seem to have lost their moral compass, especially after the Martin Morton affair.

Admittedly these people serve their own interest but the crisis at the Town Hall hasn't simply developed overnight. All of the members currently serving at Wirral Council were acutely aware of the crisis they had to face but time and time again decided to do too little too late.

I suppose if they'd been running a business they would have been faced with bankruptcy a long time ago. Fact I am afraid, not fiction.

Let us all not forget I think I'm around about right in quote Graham Burgess is the fifth CEO Wirral Council has had on board in around the last two years.

So what does that say about the decision makers at the Town Hall?

It would appear everybody involved has some incredibly thick skins.

At these times I always refer to a common saying: you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Yes I know a lot more but can't share everything online through the Wirral Globe.

All the best to you.

I felt sorry for the day care supporters who turned up last night and had to sit through 3 hours of claptrap and pointless political point scoring. Labour, in particular, are in denial about their negligence in allowing the finances of the council to rot and seem incapable of apologising for that. The opposition from the Tories is abysmal and doesn't extend much beyond blaming Gordon Brown. There were a few isolated good points from some of the Lib Dems but that aside it is truly depressing to witness "local democracy" in action in Wirral. Hard to see any light at the end of this tunnel.

Sarah73 wrote:
It will be interesting to find out how much of the councillors' expenses, wages and food budget will be cut by.

A big fat zero, last night the Counicl was challenged to cut numbers, reduce expenses and significantly cut Special Allowances. The issue will not even be debated as the Leader of the Council simply rubbished the idea and the Tories kept silent knowing Labour would reject the idea. So residents, service users and staff all take a hit and only a handful of Cllrs dare suggest they feel some of the pain!

You must have a very sad life if got the time to attend these meetings

You must have a very sad life if got the time to attend these meetings

You must have a very sad life if got the time to attend these meetings