Wirral council leader Cllr Steve Foulkes is fighting for his political life following calls from leaders of both opposition groups for him to be ousted over the fall-out from the highly critical Anna Klonowski report.

Earlier this week Tory leader Cllr Jeff Green called for Cllr Foulkes to step down over the way the report has been dealt with.

This has now been followed by a demand from Lib-Dem leader Cllr Tom Harney for Cllr Foulkes “to do the decent thing and resign.”

The two groups united in a vote would out-number the Labour administration by 37 to 29.

A Tory-led no confidence move last October failed when the Lib-Dems abstained from voting.

This time the signs are more ominous with Cllr Harney warning: “I am now in a position where I have no choice but to force the issue - I shall be putting down a motion of no confidence (at the council meeting on February 13) to seek Cllr Steve Foulkes’ removal from the office of leader of the council.

“I am disappointed in the response from the Labour leader to my call for him to consider his position.

“I had hoped that he would find it within himself to do the decent thing and resign.

"Instead we are hearing the same old promises of co-operation which have been reneged on in the past as he attempts to cling to his office; he does himself a disservice that he feels unable to accept responsibility for what has happened.

“It is inconceivable to me that, given the apparent scale of wrong-doing and the length of time over which this happened, the leader of the council did not know any of what was going on.

"But only he knows the answer to this question and it is up to him to tell us what he did know. If he knew, he should have acted.

"If he did not know, he was not doing his job properly. As leader of the council, he is ultimately responsible.”

Councillor Harney said he would also be following up on earlier calls for a full public inquiry, so that “all those concerned” could be publicly held to account, including former employees who had refused to co-operate with the AKA inquiry.

He said: “Only a full public inquiry has the necessary powers to compel witnesses to appear.”

Councillor Foulkes’s initial response to the call for him to “consider his position” was to urge all parties to work together to “put right what is wrong.”

He had said on Wednesday: “There’s no question that the issues raised in the report, and in the earlier Corporate Governance report are very serious and have to be addressed, which is why the Corporate Governance committee has been set up and why there is a detailed action plan in response to the recommendations in the AKA report coming to cabinet next week and to a special council on February 13.

“I don’t believe it is either responsible or helpful to descend into slanging matches over who is to blame, or to suggest that the council is on the verge of collapse, which is simply not true.

“The events discussed in the AKA report span several years and difference administrations involving all three political parties, with numerous reports and discussions in different forums and committees where issues could have been raised but weren’t until a much later date."

A new response from Labour is expected shortly.