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Published on: 23/01/2018 04:23 PMReported by: roving-eye
Sefton Council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Regeneration will be meeting at 5.00 pm on 31st January at Bootle Town Hall to put the Cabinet's £32 million purchase of the Bootle Strand shopping complex under the microscope. The special Scrutiny meeting was agreed by the Council after a motion by Southport Lib Dem Leader Councillor John Pugh, who had protested about the secrecy in which the sale was decided and the failure of the Council to allow any consideration of the finances of the deal.
Lib Dem Councillors Iain Brodie Browne and Simon Shaw managed to use their audit powers to find out about the £660,000 bill which Sefton Council had paid to tax and property consultants and lawyers but there are still many questions outstanding about the deal which involved [urchasing an offshore company, thus exempting the Council from paying a 'Stamp Duty' tax on the purchase.
A number of Lib Dem, Independent and Conservative Councillors have expressed concern about the legality of the way that information about the shopping centre purchase, made nine months ago, has been withheld by the Council's Cabinet. Sefton Council has a past record of serious incorrect legal decision. Eight years ago, the Labour and Conservative councillors would have unlawfully made the Council's chief executive redundant has it not been for one Tory councillor preferring to attend a royal lunch appointment rather than going to a Cabinet meeting, leading to the Lib Dems winning a vote to get specialist legal advice.
The Committee is recommended to pass the following resolution:
That, under the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information)(England) Regulations 2012, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following item on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972. The Public Interest Test has been applied and favours exclusion of the information from the Press and Public.
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said says:23/01/2018 11:06 PM
Originally Posted by r4dent
Agenda item 4
The Committee is recommended to pass the following resolution:
That, under the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information)(England) Regulations 2012, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following item on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972. The Public Interest Test has been applied and favours exclusion of the information from the Press and Public.
In accordance with the White Paper entitled "Your right to know"in response to that claimed by Jack Straw in 1999, ‘Unnecessary secrecy in Government and our public services has long been held to undermine good governance and public administration’ Further a publication from the CfPS (Centre for Public Scrutiny) for the Government states in its Executive Summary " Accountability – allowing others to judge credibility of decisions and policies.
Sometimes a formal sanction can be associated with poor performance or
non-compliance"
The CfPS also state "Our principal finding is that open data does not on its own ensure accountability. Commissioners and providers of public services need to also
encourage participation in decision-making through collaborative approaches
to transparency. Using data primarily to support choice risks missing the wider
benefits of collaboration. Simply publishing more data limits the impact of
transparency on decision-making. Without collaboration and co-production,
data users will have no effective means to influence decision-makers. The
practice of transparency will not live up to the promise."
.
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Gwhizz says:23/01/2018 11:08 PM
Originally Posted by Username2016
They’ll be overshadowing the x-men with those super powers. The libs do seem to look for any chance for a fight, pity they lose most of them.
I know, hysterical! Their audit powers?! IIRC these figures where in a section on the Sefton website called Transparency reports... so it was hardly the Panama Papers, Sefton put the info out on the website, they just knew which bit it was in... this follows on from their protrayal of Pugh as Southport's Batman the other week fighting crime by calling a meeting with the local police... but keeping schtum about the fact he voted for police cuts of course while an MP, so really he's more The Joker!
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