WirralPC

I thought you were gunning for me earlier Bobby. Imagine the waves of relief washing over me, as I scanned down the page, and the penny dropped that it's Bad Bill Norman still in your sights. I hope you have your day in the ring with him, cos my money's on you, sir. It'll be like a rematch between Jack Bodell and Sir Kenneth Clark. Bill's quotes from the bard, and rapid fire rhyming couplets will be as nothing in the face of your stinging left jabs and vicious right uppercuts. There'll be blood all over the canvas and none of it yours.

http://www.easyvirtualassistance.co.uk/01%2011%2012%20-%20Private%20Eye%201326%20Wirral.jpg "Norman's Bill"... from an old Private Eye

Worcestershire County Council compromise agreements. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/57382/response/143360/attach/html/3/Resp.docx.html Totals on the rise....? 2007 - 2 2008 - 8 2009 - 6 2010 - 11 2011 - zero (question placed too early in the year for a proper response) 2012 - ?? 2013 - ?? 2014 - ?? "Lobbeth thou thy holy FoI hand-grenade....." https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/updated_totals_for_compromise_se/new

Thanks Megilleland. Someone needs to lob an FoI grenade into Worcestershire and send a few suits scattering. The article you've linked to reveals a definite "large grey pachyderm lurking in the council boudoir". It would be revealing to see how many leavers were gagged, compromised out, and at what cost. For example, here on Wirral, I discovered they'd made 800+ voluntary redundancies last year, and gagged every one of them - from senior manager right down to lollipop lady - costing us a cool £62,500. This kind of work is craved and prized by the circling jackals - otherwise known as law firms in the pay of the council - mainly because the photocopier is on all day, and a ream and a half of A4 paper and some astute use of the tippex over signatories' names, suddenly transforms a few hours of your secretary's work (at £7.50 per hour) into a goldmine. As I said in the last post, this hideous attitude on the part of councils is the product of collective, crazed, corporate paranoia, and this is where it takes them - on a mission up every cul-de-sac, covering their tracks.

We've forked out £1 million+ on Wirral in exactly the same way. The current council leader, Phil Davies, was chair of the Employment & Appointments Committee - the committee charged with deciding how we should make abusive senior officers accountable. NOT ONCE did they reach for the disciplinary procedure, preferring to reward the abuse with fat cheques. I placed an FoI to try and pinpoint how he voted to see if I could get a handle on whether he was personally sanctioning these mammoth pay offs, but it didn't get me very far: http://wirralinittogether.wordpress.com/2013/08/04/how-much-of-the-1-million-plus-pay-off-money-did-wirrals-council-leader-sanction/ And here's the roll-call of persons moved on... CEO Steve Maddocks – paid £157,000 Director of Social Services John Webb – paid £152,000 Deputy CEO Ian Coleman – paid £86,000 Director of Law Bill Norman – paid £146,000 Interim Director of Social Services Howard Cooper CBE – retired with pension Social Services senior officer Maura Noone – paid £110,000 - (left ONE day before publication of damning Klonowski report) Social Services senior officer Mike Fowler – paid £110,000 - (left ONE day before publication of damning Klonowski report) CEO Jim Wilkie - paid £111,054 Director of Technical Services David Green – paid £103,000 Deputy Director of Finance David Taylor Smith – paid £68,000 Chief of Internal Audit David Garry – paid £46,000 Head of Asset Management Ian Brand - paid £68,368 Head of IT Services Geoff Paterson - paid £72,166 Head of Cultural Services Jim Lester - paid £72,166 Head of Regulation Rob Beresford - paid £70,900 TOTAL = £1,373,022 It should be noted that the worse the abuse, the higher the stench rose, the deeper we had to dig, and the MORE we had to pay to "put things right". Have things been put right? Certainly not... Elected members are now operating a Cabinet system, with executive power in the hands of an inner ring of power abusing members and officers. These chosen few (who picked each other) have banned other parties from chairing any committees, spiralled down into defensive paranoid behaviour ...and any chance of healthy democratic values e.g. openness, transparency, accountability, scrutiny or proper public oversight breaking out are now a distant pipedream. By the way, this isn't a competition and I'm not trying to trump or beat Herefordshire; I'm just pointing out that this is where you could be headed if you don't get a grip of your abusive councillors and if they don't get a grip of your out of control, beyond all accountability senior officer power abusers.

I think you're onto something there Megilleland. It's the 7th largest payment in the whole sheet and the largest REDACTED one. Also, all the other six figure payments are clear as a bell, with believable Expense Areas. This is the ONLY 'holding codes' one and therefore looks a little bit whiffy. Herefordshire Council should be careful they don't ever conceal payments above £30,000 to ex-employees, and not declare them immediately to the Inland Revenue as the law requires, or this might happen. Wirral Council got away with it, but how 'mutually beneficial' are Herefordshire Council's relations with HMRC? https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/allegation_of_tax_evasion_by_wir

Here's a quote from my post #38 on page 2 of the thread: 10. Number of employees in receipt of payment(s). These figures only appear to include payments made to staff who brought the grievance. Correct, democratic public oversight demands to know whether payments have been made to any of the other 6 staff involved. [this will include the bullies] When you read the original request, it clearly stipulates and includes ALL related payments, but what we've never got in response to this request are the payments made to the senior members of staff who were dishing out the bullying and harassment. The ICO has glossed over it, lazily quoting 'severance payments' to cover everything, so it's left to us the public to do the digging. Here's an FoI request I made in February 2013: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/monetary_totals_attached_to_cot3 The council's answer was: A. Of the cases reported in our response to your previous request (FOI CIU 3105), I am advised that none related to an individual with a salary level of over £150,000. Three related to individuals with salary levels over £50,000 as follows: Assistant Director - £42,115.50 Head Teacher - £43,450 Head Teacher - £45,000 Of the remaining cases reported on, all fell under a salary range of £50,000. The total awards made for these cases amounted to £242,229. I can also confirm that this information is published annually in Herefordshire Council’s statement of accounts. It's not broken down or explained very well, so I'm wondering, what does "these cases" mean? Does it include the total payments for the Assistant Director plus the 2 x head teachers, along with the totals for people on a salary below £50,000, where those on above £50,000 got £130,565.50 and those on below £50,000 got £111,663.50? Or is "these cases" the total for those on below £50,000 alone, in which case the true total would be £242,229 plus £130,565.50 = £372,794.50 I've made another request to cover the interim period between February 2013 and today: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/monetary_totals_attached_to_cot3_2/new So the question is: Why have they gone all shy with the figures this time around? Is it because they've gone through the roof, and now they're distancing from themselves with GDJ's 'plausible deniability'? I don't believe they're in a position to not furnish the figures within 20 working days having already responded in full to an identical request previously. But we shall see !

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/total_number_of_compromise_agree_2/new I've made a new FoI request for the total number of compromise agreements issued between February 2013 and today.

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre, The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..." WB Yeats

Disinformation: quickly all over the internet before the truth has had a chance to get its boots on. My original request was broad-ranging. Check it here: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/payments_to_council_officers_scr It requested information about ALL payments associated with "e.g. Racial Discrimination; Bullying & Harassment; Dignity at Work Complaint, etc. I likened the Herefordshire situation to that which occurred at Bill Norman's former employer, Wirral Council, where a senior officer was paid £48,000 in public money to settle a case he / she had brought internally. In this case, the CEO Graham Burgess gagged all councillors with an email, which prevented them from talking about or referring to it. The leader then wouldn't answer any questions that did arise, choosing to say, "I refer the honourable member to the CEO's email" (which had globally banned everybody - the activities of the former East German STASI don't even come close!!). I saw the whole thing as clear extortion of public money. The individual has never been identified - which puts the lie to the ICO justification on bullying here, where they're insisting that disclosing the amounts paid would risk identifying the persons involved - which every man and his dog knows to be bollocks. My original request didn't even include the word "severance". It was a request for ALL payments (including severance payments) - which appear to have been made to senior staff thugs, who were protected and paid off. The newspaper appears to have gotten hold of the ICO decision notice (point number 1.) http://ico.org.uk/~/media/documents/decisionnotices/2014/fs_50531217.ashx ...which is fraudulent / incompetent.... and taken it as truth.

In response to part of what Bobby said, there are plenty of journeymen senior public servants out there, from a band of itinerant, unsettled, fortune-seeking travellers. Your Bill Norman (formally ours) appears to be a fine example. They look for abusive organisations with the intention of landing a role, arming themselves with special knowledge, keeping shtum, protecting their empire until the day of reckoning arrives. The day of reckoning can be retirement, fair enough, they made it over the finishing line - and if they had any sense, they paid regular pension contributions, possibly even enhanced ones. They're put out to graze to enjoy their fortunes and the game is over. The day of reckoning can also be when they get found out. Like Bill Norman did on Wirral. But luckily, along came Richard Penn as the Designated Independent Person to carry out the required lop-sided 'investigation' finding that Bill and 3 of his senior colleagues were clean all the way through and had no case to answer. Have a look at some of the preposterous emails he sent to me: http://wirralinittogether.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/public-servants-with-attitudes-not-nice-ones-yikes/ The day of reckoning will NEVER take the form of disciplinary action against a senior person. Unlike 10 a penny juniors who are not armed with special knowledge via which they can influence their own seniors to 'remember how vulnerable they are due to their own pecadilloes', they can breeze onto the next highly-paid public sector position - which was their intention all along. Once they've made it into this repetitive groove, and laid waste to the vulnerable public's chances of receiving any statutory care, they're there for their working lives. I hope they're not reading this - as a few posts ago, Councillor Chappell gave them all his own glowing endorsement.

Bobby. You have them down to a tee. Hereford times reporter Bill Tanner DID return my call, as I was walking home through Central Park, Wallasey, in glorious sunshine. I stopped beneath the shade of a mighty old oak, and we had a long, friendly conversation covering many of the points raised here today. Not once did he mention any 20 year friendship with any local councillor (although I never asked). Okay, this was my first conversation with him, but I go on my instincts. He seemed very laid back, knowledgeable, comfortable in his chosen role and all too familiar with local authority bravado, foolishness and hypocrisy. The kind of conduct that's been making waves in a few different places around these parts. Definitely not the type of person to preach from a raised pulpit about his privileged position and his vast network of invaluable connections. Nor does he seem the type to repeatedly hang out his flowery underwear in order to inspire gasps of admiration from fellow wasters and chancers. I believe there's going to be another story - soon hopefully - possibly an update to the existing one, so keep your eyes peeled for that! Here's a definition that may come in handy... Vainglory: (noun) excessive elation or pride over one's own achievements, abilities, etc.; boastful vanity.

Hi Megilleland, I've just spoken to somebody at the Hereford Times who said Bill Tanner was engaged in another call. He said, "It's been difficult to get the information" (tell me about it) and, "there will be more news tomorrow". I told him that the issue of paying off bullying senior officers hadn't been acknowledged, addressed or reported on. Like Dippy said, It does appear that everything the newspaper has reported may have been accessed here and through the links here (apart from the senior officers' pay offs, gags / clean bills of health, which has been omitted). But to address the point of the newspaper claiming it's been silenced on what's happened with the money, well they haven't. They could either do nothing, or they could start banging on the doors of councillors to demand why there's apparently no proper system in place to carry out scrutiny and public oversight of how the Herefordshire public's council tax money is spent. I'm waiting for Bill Tanner to call me back.

With regard to the Hereford Times article... There's a rather large elephant in the room: Bill Tanner has made no mention whatsoever of the 3 x £000,000 ??? payments to departing senior bullies. It seems the lack of scrutiny and hands-off treatment of this by councillors has allowed the more unsavoury aspects to be "managed out of existence".

If comments are not enabled, I think we can ponder on whether there has been a "mutually beneficial arrangement" struck between newspaper and council. I can't think of any other reason for closing the public out of such an explosive story, involving potentially six figure sums of THEIR cash.

This was and still is the modus operandi at Wirral Council. Raise your head above the parapet and they will shoot. I'm not sure if it's the same here at Herefordshire, but on Wirral they gag their 'voluntary' redundancy people within expensive compromise agreements, even when there are 100s and 100s of them: http://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/10829476.More_than_800_redundant_Wirral_Council_staff_signed_compromise_agreements/ And then can't find it in their hearts to publicly admit that they did it (knowing that the ICO will ride in on a white charger and rescue them): http://wirralinittogether.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/unhelpful-ico-response-when-a-council-was-found-to-have-given-false-information/

Thanks for that news Dippy. I'm not surprised to hear it. These things follow a generally pre-determined course. Intimidation is never very far away where spiteful power abusers are concerned. Call it the "bullying / lodging a grievance journey". It's been a rocky ride and the targeted / victimised staff may be approaching their destination.

In reply to gdj... Yes, there's definitely been a light shone into some very murky corners here. In my experience, this one really is a HIDEOUS case and you're right, will have had quite an impact in many ways: Bill Norman seen to have brought 'unconventional' means with him from abusive Wirral Council - I'm being kind Local Herefordshire councillors gone AWOL Deliberate dishonesty exposed in Herefordshire Council's FIRST and INTERNAL REVIEW responses to my FoI request Dishonesty / incompetence exposed at the ICO, stating there was 'no evidence of a Section 77 breach' (Fraudulent responses) Vulnerable members of staff bullied and silenced with public money Senior members of staff protected, reputations cleaned and silenced and sent on their way ££weighted ££down Compromise agreements / gagging clauses exposed again for what they are - a ready means of managing a basket case's reputation Shenanigans up there for all to see, for ever, on the WhatDoTheyKnow Website

In reply to Cambo... If one of the targets of bullying at Herefordshire Council was to come forward and identify themselves to me, they may instantly be in breach of the compromise agreement they've signed. I'd say that would be likely, as the agreements generally prohibit wider discussion of "the circumstances that led to the signing of the agreement." So, the council's officers (the protectors of the bullies) will almost certainly have covered themselves within this legal document, ensuring that the intimidatory behaviour has become 'official', if not absolutely watertight. I requested many details, but the main thrust of the public interest is the total in public money, paid across in an attempt to: a. Buy the silence of 5 x disabled people who were the targets of a campaign of bullying by Herefordshire Council managers b. Buy the silence of and reward the bullies themselves; and also enable them to move on with a clean bill of health This is the genuinely HIDEOUS aspect to this - the idea that bullying goes on, festers, and is covered up by Bill Norman and colleagues when they are notified by the targets - and OUR cash is used to do it. Only those targets of bullying who've been gagged, upon reading the ICO decision notice, and seeing the Council's justifications for not disclosing (Points 17, 18, 19 and 20) - will KNOW whether it's actually, specifically true that they've separately given their consent to withhold from the public the amount of public money paid individually to them. If they weren't approached and asked this specifically, then they have a decision to make: do I come forward, make myself known, make a written, signed submission or attend at First Tier Tribunal and reveal Herefordshire Council legal officers' dishonesty to the panel? If it were shown that the Council had indeed lied to the ICO, or worse, that the ICO is separately "in cahoots" with the Council on a flimsy or non-existent basis, it would cast doubt on the safety of the legal documents drawn up to date - the CAs and the DN. Of course, I'm no lawyer and have witnessed what I regard as "rogue decisions" being made on several occasions, in the teeth of compelling evidence, by the so-called great and the good of the UK judiciary.

None of the disabled people who were bullied, and whose employment tribunal claims were 'bought off' have contacted me yet. I'm assuming 'self-preservation' is at the heart of this, because that's what human beings do. It's completely understandable. Who'd want to have the spotlight shined on them once again, threats made, and a shadow cast over their future ability to provide for themselves and their families? That's how corporate bullies win - through intimidation. I've got 3 days to decide whether to draw up and lodge an appeal. One of the key elements to this is the public interest. See points 21 to 24 in the decision notice. Well over 2,000 people have viewed this thread, including those who will be making arguments on behalf of the council at any tribunal. What do people think? If I don't go ahead with the appeal, it's back to (ab)normal.

Yes. You can read that in two ways. "497 allegations weren't crimes in the first place." "The majority of allegations potentially WERE crimes, but the police are under massive pressure to "manage" their workload down due to cuts or dishonesty / mendacious behaviour / pressure brought to bear by senior staff." I'd suggest the latter.

As a newcomer and an outsider, can I just watn the councillor that he is straying into an extremely sensitive realm - personal privacy and the risk attached to exposing third parties to the risk of being identified. The circumstances and the "justifications" you may have are irrelevant. Are you a data controller registered with the ICO? You could be risking a £5,000 fine... or if the party suffering a detriment pushes for it, an unlimited fine in the High Court... Think on...

I'm not sure that's right Dippyhippy. I think they stopped gagging whistleblowers only and are still using compromise agreements coupled with what they call 'confidentiality clauses'. These have exactly the same effect as gagging clauses. Reputation is paramount and they shut people up just as effectively. The idea of doing this first came up in an NHS directive from 1998. This was roundly ignored by unaccountable managers under horrid head honcho David Nicholson until recently.

I'd ask for a cut of that public money Bobby... But I have principles and must draw a line... I cannot... ...now that I know where it's been.

http://www.heart.utest.thisisglobal.com/torbay/news/local/torbay-child-sex-abuse-claims/ No dates given yet. 50 officers working on case. Major inquiry involves 20 children of 12 and upwards.