Wirral Council's 'ineffective' standards committee faces the axe (From Wirral Globe)

A Council that has no standards doesn’t need a Standards Committee.

Acting director of law Surjit Tour reports that the "filtering process" she has put in place has ensured that only legitimate and valid complaints against councillors were investigated.

So the acting director of law, a paid official in an interim post who is accountable to councillors, is now the arbiter of what constitutes a legitimate and valid complaint against those same councillors?

No wonder the incidence of complaints has fallen!

Another triumph for democratic accountability on Wirral!

When Jeff Green says...

"Rather than pretending it's an effective watchdog, we should just be honest and say it hasn't worked and we might as well get rid of it''

....Was he just referring to the Standards Committee or the entire Council?

The Nazis clamped down on their independent judiciary. But Wirral Council look like they're going one step further, and abolishing their own IN HOUSE version.....

Hmmm. The brakes don't work on my car. Let's remove the pedal and cut the pipes.

PaulCa wrote:
The Nazis clamped down on their independent judiciary. But Wirral Council look like they're going one step further, and abolishing their own IN HOUSE version.....

Hmmm. The brakes don't work on my car. Let's remove the pedal and cut the pipes.

Perhaps you could by a bus that takes 66 useless plonkers

It's a sad day for councillors,I wonder how much the Chair will lose in allowances by this committee being dissolved.
We will never know because you have to trawl through so many web pages to find out how much they receive .

I must say this development doesn’t surprise me. What does this mean effectively? I don’t know but will be investigating and hope the Wirral Globe reporters continue doing a good job by bringing topics like this to the public attention here on the grand peninsula of ours.

I remember fairly recently my local Wirral Council councillor reminding me that many council members have a very “bunker” type mentality when it comes to the decision making process. An awful lot of decisions are taken behind closed doors by “the few” and this has much to do with the cabinet method of governance; combined with traditional (or may be untraditional …. not sure?) party politicking which is a speciality of Wirral council members certainly over the past 10 – 15 years lets say, and you have a recipe for disaster and I am afraid to say unaccountability and irresponsibility on a scale not so obvious to the casual onlooker. Mix in a lot of public apathy towards local government on Wirral at the moment and that doesn’t help either - not good in terms of democracy.

So, my opinion for what it’s worth is we should be encouraging ordinary people to become more interested in what really is going on at Wallasey Town Hall. We must all try to be vigilant and ask our local councillors to justify their actions and explain to us how they are involved in the decision making processes currently in place.

In some ways it’s immaterial whether the Council has a committee process dealing with public complaints against individual councillors. That’s a bit like the analogy of “turkey’s voting for Christmas” often quoted. If you ever need to complain about a councillor over something you feel is a serious matter (possibly individual conduct in public office for example) there’s nothing stopping the process of writing to: (1) the member himself/herself, (2) Leader of his/her Party Group, (3) Leader of the Council, (4) the Mayor of Wirral BC, (5) Chief Executive Officer of Wirral Council, (6) your local Member of Parliament, (7) Editor of the Wirral Globe local newspaper….. not necessarily all at once dare I say; also after ensuring your complaint is legitimate and not liable to be considered vexatious.

Remember council members represent us and should serve our interests – the people of this borough – not the other way around. Remember too …… “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Need I say any more?

I had to check the date after reading this article, i thought it was an April Fool Joke !!

Standards ? What standards ?

I despair I really do ....

What a joke.

A standards committee that have not done anything useful whilst the council have done what ever they wanted for years.

So it is a complete waste of money.

So get rid of them and save some money.

How this council can waste money.

Only if we could get rid of them.

Lets not forget all the actions of this council.

Eventually things must change.

Stupid lies and cover ups will stop.


66 wasters still in power.
A###ols.

The so called Standards Committee have been remarkably successful if history is anything to go by, they have reached the lowest possible standard of any Local Government Authority in the entire British Isle.

One can only presume as this present committee is under the wing of the present incumbent of legal issues within Wirral Borough Council, which speaks volumes about previous information and advice emanating from the Council Legal Department, and of course the subsequent actions and agreements that have been made in recent times.

And not one of the hard working 60 something elected Councillors for the most part could find or spot any discrepancies or anomalies occurring for the past 20 years or more, and in particular the last 10 years of abject incompetence as a democratic entity, so gaining the Wirral a reputation of the worst managed and governed local authority in the entire country, hell of an achievement that is.

Makes on feel very proud to have supported such a bunch of parasites in a very lavish life style, and received absolutely zilch in return.