Liverpool Mayor Arrested

[Sheilbh]

Central government sending in Commissioners to run Liverpool

The dysfunction etc does feel like the inevitable result of the electoral system plus one party politics. Labour have about 75 of the 100 seats on the council (and typically win 50-60% of the vote) so there's no meaningful opposition and all politics takes place within the Labour group. Corruption and intimidation etc doesn't seem like a massive surprise when one party dominates for a long time.

Commissioners to help run 'dysfunctional' Liverpool council
Unprecedented move comes after inspectors found 'serious breakdown of governance' at council


Liverpool city council's main administrative offices at the Cunard Building. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
Josh Halliday North of England correspondent
Wed 24 Mar 2021 14.19 GMT

Liverpool should be brought under the joint control of government commissioners in an unprecedented move after inspectors found multiple failures and a "serious breakdown of governance" at the council, the communities secretary has said.

Robert Jenrick said an emergency inspection had painted a "deeply concerning picture of mismanagement," an "environment of intimidation" and a "dysfunctional culture" at one of the biggest councils in Britain.

He said government commissioners would be sent to "exercise certain and limited" functions of Liverpool city council for at least three years under a plan that will prove controversial just six weeks before the local elections.

Steve Reed, the shadow communities and local government secretary, said he accepted the report in full and that Labour supported the government's plan to reform the council. He said the report had raised "grave and serious concerns" and "severe institutional weaknesses" at the Labour-run authority.

It is thought to be the first time the Westminster government has directly intervened in the day-to-day running of a city the size of Liverpool and is politically incendiary because Merseyside is one of the staunchest Labour cities in Britain.

The region sends 14 Labour MPs to Westminster. A Liverpool seat last had a Convervative MP 38 Tory years ago. The last Conservative councillor lost his seat 23 years ago.

Jenrick's decision followed a damning report into parts of the council by Max Caller, a local government consultant who carried out an emergency inspection on behalf of the government. The report was ordered following the arrests of five men, including the Labour mayor, Joe Anderson, last December.

Anderson was arrested as part of Merseyside police's Operation Aloft, an ongoing investigation into building and development contracts in Liverpool that led to the arrests of 12 people. He denies all wrongdoing.

Commissioners were sent in to take over the running of councils in Northampton in 2018, Rotherham in 2015 and Tower Hamlets in 2014 but none of them was on the scale of Liverpool, a city of half a million people.

[Valmy]

Corruption and intimidation etc doesn't seem like a massive surprise when one party dominates for a long time.

Really? because it is a rare municipality in the US that is truly competitive between Republicans and Democrats. One party can dominate for decades 

[Sheilbh]

Really? because it is a rare municipality in the US that is truly competitive between Republicans and Democrats. One party can dominate for decades 

I know and American municipal politics is a by-word the world over for scrupulousness and good governance

This is one of those things I have no evidence for but am convinced is true: local government is the most corrupt layer of government. Local newspapers dying all over the world so no-one's paying attention. Lots of decisions about property and construction with abundant opportunities for dealing with contractors and sub-contractors etc.

I'm sure I've said it but lots of the allegations in Liverpool relate to the "New Chinatown Project" which just sounds like something from a TV series - a fictional scheme involving the mob or corrupt councillors

Edit: Some further details from the inspector's report

Jenrick's decision followed a damning report on parts of the council by Max Caller, a local government consultant who carried out an emergency inspection on behalf of the government. The report was ordered after the arrests of five men, including the Labour mayor, Joe Anderson, last December.

Anderson was arrested as part of Merseyside police's Operation Aloft, an ongoing investigation into building and development contracts in Liverpool that led to the arrests of 12 people. He denies all wrongdoing.

Jenrick said the report had identified multiple failures in its regeneration and planning department, including the "awarding of dubious contracts" and a "worrying lack of record-keeping" in which some documents were dumped in skips and others created retrospectively.

He said: "As a whole, the report is unequivocal: Liverpool city council has failed in numerous respects to comply with its best value duties. It concludes that the council consistently failed to meet its statutory and managerial responsibilities and that the pervasive culture appeared to be rule avoidance."

Jenrick said there had been a lack of scrutiny and a "continued failure to correctly value land and assets, meaning taxpayers frequently lost out".

"When selling land, the report states that Liverpool city council's best interests were not on the agenda," he said.

The inspectors found an environment of intimidation in which "the only way to survive was to do what was requested without asking too many questions", he told MPs.

Liverpool city council is expected to accept Jenrick's proposals, meaning government commissioners would be drafted in imminently. The number of councillors in Liverpool will also be reduced from 90, 72 of whom represent Labour. The election cycle will also be changed, moving to whole-council elections every four years.

Dan Carden, the MP whose Liverpool Walton seat is the safest Labour constituency in the UK with a 75% majority, said the city needed to see "real change" and "robust safeguards to guarantee transparency and accountability". However, he said residents were concerned the move represented a "takeover by Whitehall".

Jenrick said the local elections would go ahead on 6 May and that those politicians would then inform government about the best steps forward for the council.

He said if the government did decide to appoint commissioners it would be to "stand behind" the elected representatives, "not to tell them what to do but to guide and support them".

He added: "We have given them the authority to act, should they need to, given the seriousness of some of the allegations but it is not our hope or expectation that those powers would be exercised."

Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said the city deserved a well-run council with "stronger, more transparent governance procedures".

She added: "I'm a very proud scouser but listening to the secretary of state read the contents of the very damning report makes me angry, as it will the whole city when the report is made public."

There was immediately pressure on some Labour councillors to resign. Richard Kemp, the Liberal Democrat councillor and candidate for mayor, called for the resignation of all councillors connected to its scandal-hit regeneration, planning and property departments.

He said: "This is a sad day for our city, which the people of Liverpool do not deserve."

Liverpool's acting mayor, Wendy Simon, and its chief executive, Tony Reeves, who joined the council in 2018 and is praised in the Caller report, said: "This is a difficult day for our organisation and we take the report findings extremely seriously.

"The inspector's report has highlighted several failings, but there is a collective commitment from both councillors and officers to learn from these mistakes.

"We would like to reassure all residents and businesses that we will take action to address all of the issues highlighted. We know we need to rebuild your trust."

Commissioners were sent in to take over the running of councils in Northampton in 2018, Rotherham in 2015 and Tower Hamlets in 2014 but none of them was on the scale of Liverpool, a city of half a million people.

In his report, Caller examined more than 65 property transactions at the council and concluded that "corporate blindness" had failed to pick up on serious failings in governance. He likened the council to the historian Robert Conquest's third law of politics: "The behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies."

The council's regeneration department was described as having a "bullying culture", where officers were visited at their desk and told to follow instructions – apparently on behalf of the mayor – and that "people who did not comply did not last".

The report said many senior councillors flouted the code of conduct by not declaring gifts or hospitality on a register of interests. It noted that these registers were only updated from December, when the inspection was announced. The council's ethics and standards committee last met in January 2012.

Anderson said Liverpool had been transformed under his leadership into a "northern powerhouse". He added that he continued to cooperate with the police and denied the offences he is facing: "Today's headlines do not reflect the dramatic success that we have generated over the last 11 years. With success brings jealousy and I want to digest fully today's report before commenting on specific details."

In addition the inspectors said they had a number of people who were making allegations (and providing documentary evidence) but would only do so as whistleblowers or if given anonymity because they'd been intimidated

[Sheilbh]

Details from the report - as Jen Williams of the Manchester Evening News points out Liverpool City Council's always been a bit of a "well at least we're not that dysfunctional" for other bits of local government. But there's part of this that applies to other areas - big majority, a desperate need to show local action/results, underfunded system, little national attention. She doesn't note - but I would - that the local press also weren't that impressive. The Liverpool Echo is pretty bad at providing critical coverage of any of the local institutions (Liverpool city council, Liverpool football club, Everton football club etc):

'You did what you were told': Inside Liverpool City Council's collapse into scandal
Arrests, intimidation, dubious contracts and squandered millions - how England's 10th biggest local authority failed the people it was supposed to serve
Colin Drury
North of England Correspondent
@colin__drury
1 day ago

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

In an interview given in 2020, Joe Anderson, the then mayor of Liverpool, was asked what the biggest misconception about him was.

"Things like the brown envelope comments," he told the Trailblazer website. "I live in a terrace house in Old Swan... I'm a scouser that wants the best for his people."

This week, the city council which he led for a decade until December was found to be mired in scandal so rotten it will now be partially taken over by government commissioners.

In an eviscerating report following a three-month investigation, inspectors described an authority where "dubious" contracts were regularly handed out, key records were routinely destroyed and staff who dared voice concerns – or even ask questions – were intimidated. "Those who did not comply," the report states, "did not last".

Among major issues highlighted were senior councillors benefiting financially from funding decisions, a scrutiny process described as "sketchy", and the handing of at least one major contract to a direct family member in breach of all regulations. Insiders suggest as much as £100m of public money may have been squandered.

"It could hardly be more damning," says Jonathan Tonge, professor of politics at Liverpool University. "You could hardly get a more excoriating report. It is page after page of the most shameful stuff."

Now, with Anderson himself under police investigation following his arrest on suspicion of bribery in December, the civic soul-searching is beginning: how could England's 10th biggest authority – one that serves a metropolis of half a million people – fail so badly?

Part of the answer to that, it now seems, may lie in nothing more obscure than a couple of city centre flyovers.

The Churchill Way – a pair of brutalist 240-metre long road bridges – carried four lanes of traffic up and above Liverpool for almost 50 years until their much-welcomed demolition in 2019.

Now, two years on, they are at the centre of one of the most eyebrow-raising sections of the new report.

Specifically, it is said that, during their demolition, Amey – the company charged with the £6.75m job – was given a "direct instruction" by council officials to contract out part of the work to a small Liverpool venture called Safety Support Consultants.

While bosses at the infrastructure giant questioned this – SCC had "no published highways experience" – it ultimately did as it was told. Over a four month period, some £250,000 was paid out to the smaller firm for safety work.

Why is this significant? Because the director of SSC, it turned out, was none other than David Anderson, the 33-year-old son of the mayor.

"This action exposed the site teams to considerable health and safety risk," says the report, which was written by government inspector Max Caller. "It also increased the commercial risk to the council of budget overrun."

Any allegations of wrong doing have quickly been denied by both Anderson senior and junior.

In a statement released on Thursday, the latter described the 69-page report as "slanderous, unfounded, biased, tactical and politically motivated" as well as "factually incorrect".

Yet it was his company's involvement with the Churchill Way that perhaps first truly set alarm bells ringing about wider issues at the authority, insiders tell The Independent today.

By 2019, backbench councillors and officials were already becoming concerned about the way the regeneration, planning and highways departments were being run. Deputy mayor, Ann O'Byrne, had quit her role in May 2018 with a blistering attack: "The mayor isn't listening to the Labour group, wider party and, most importantly, to the people of Liverpool". Six months after Anderson himself was questioned by Lancashire Police in connection with a fraud inquiry.

Yet, up until the flyover demolition, there remained a widespread belief that, if the methods being deployed were unorthodox, they were not without their benefits. What the new report has judged to be "intimidation", many saw as the forthrightness required to get Liverpool moving. What it has called "dubious" contracts were widely considered a way of ensuring local companies got local jobs; that money came into the city and stayed here.

The old government maxim was regularly thrown about: what's right is what works. And on some level, it did work. According to Anderson himself, some £10bn was pumped into Liverpool during his tenure and 31,000 jobs were created.

"You have to remember Joe got things done," says one Labour backbench councillor today. "He promised to bring development and jobs and he did that, so when people heard about corners being cut, there was a willingness to give the benefit of the doubt and accept it was being done for the right reasons. Which I think, to some extent, it probably was."

But?

"But then SSC happened, and it was just one contract too many that was difficult to justify," comes the reply. "People looked at that and it didn't pass any kind of smell test."

Indeed, it was by no means the only dealing that failed to meet such standards, according to the Caller report.

In total, inspectors analysed 65 sample property transactions entered into by the council between 2015 and 2020. Not a single one was found to be entirely satisfactory. "When selling land," communities secretary Robert Jenrick told parliament after assessing the findings, "Liverpool City Council's best interests were not on the agenda."


Joe Anderson
(PA)

The report itself goes back no further than 2015 but arguably a more key date in all this was 2010 and what some have called Liverpool's Night of the Long Knives.

Within six months of Anderson sweeping to victory in that year's local elections, the council's chief executive Colin Hilton along with six or seven of its most senior directors and officers had either retired, moved on to other authorities or been asked to step down.

"It was a major clear out of the stables and, in effect, what ought to have been a neutral civil service was replaced by senior figures that were far closer to the politicians leading the authority than perhaps they should have been," says Tonge today.

Key among the replacements was new interim CEO David McElhinney, a man with a reputation as an enforcer so ruthless he had the nickname Mack The Knife. His appointment, the Liverpool Echo reported at the time, would "send shivers down the spines of staff".

A message, one insider says, soon started coming down the food: "You did what you were told or you started looking for a new job."

The problem was – and still is – that there was no real opposition to scrutinise such manoeuvres. Liverpool is all but a one-party state. Of 90 councillors here, some 72 are Labour. Every single one of the city's MPs is red.

"The Liberal Democrats are energetic, but they don't have the volume or resources to engage in full scrutiny," says Tonge. "There were a lot of Labour backbenchers who were brassed off with what was happening, but they have no mechanism to change things. Those that did speak out were marginalised. They were sent to political Siberia."

None of this was in anyway illegal, or even necessarily improper, it should be said. It is the same political power plays that go on everywhere.

But it does offer context as to how, from then on in, certain council departments were able to operate, as Caller's report notes, with minimal transparency.

Indeed, that opaqueness was only compounded in 2012 when the council shifted to a directly elected mayor system – a post which Anderson himself duly won in a city-wide election.

"It was a new system so there was confusion about who had what authority," says one backbench councillor. "The consequence was that there was significant overreach that went effectively unchecked."

Thereafter, power became increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few. In one of the bombshell lines from his report, Caller acknowledged this. He suggested the council's leadership became not altogether different from a "secret cabal".

Where exactly Liverpool goes now from here is not immediately clear. No other city of this size had ever had government officials move in like this. It is unprecedented territory.

What is already clear is that – excluding some on the hard left who talk of a Tory takeover – there appears some political agreement that communities secretary Robert Jenrick had little choice but to appoint commissioners to oversee change.

"We've got to be big enough to own [what has happened]," said Paula Barker, MP for Liverpool Wavertree. "If we expect any moral authority to call out alleged government corruption and cronyism, we've got to have the bravery and integrity to investigate it out in our own ranks."

Sir Kier Starmer, too, supported the move.

The commissioners, it is understood, will now work alongside the council's chief executive, Tony Reeves –acknowledged in the report for beginning to turn things round – to implement a plan for action in the authority's planning, highways, regeneration and property management departments. They will likely stay in position for three years.

The police investigation into Anderson and at least four other men remains ongoing, meanwhile. All strenuously deny any wrongdoing. Anderson released a statement this week saying of the Caller report that "success brings jealousy".

And, then, just to throw an extra ingredient into the pot, there's the upcoming mayoral election in May.

Labour are still to pick a candidate – a process which has already been the subject of infighting – yet, whoever they do choose, their ultimate victory retains an air of inevitability.

"Will it all have an impact politically?" ponders Tonge. "The report is so damning, it could hardly fail to have some impact but I can't see this staying anything other than a Labour city. The movement away would need to be too big. What it might mean is that we now have a contest rather than a coronation."