‘An extravagant waste of public money’: inside the meltdown at Wirral Council

Dear readers — For today’s edition, we’re going behind the scenes at Wirral Council, where a culture of internal division and finger-pointing hasn’t helped improve a dire financial situation. We’ve learned of thousands of pounds spent at places like Asda and the Vue on council p-cards, a mysterious promise of a “major transformation of the council’s digital capability” that no councillors we spoke to had ever heard of, £42,000 spent in a single week to cover the costs of one child’s private residential care, and much more. Could bankruptcy be looming? Dive in below — but first, an update on our ongoing Laurence Westgaph investigation, as well as good news both for the region and anyone who backs the Blues. (Sorry, Reds.)

Fallout from our investigation into allegations of sexual and domestic violence against the historian Laurence Westgaph – and the ways in which National Museums Liverpool ignored those allegations when they hired him in 2020 – continues across both traditional and social media. On Monday, The Times covered Abi’s reporting, although it should be noted that their implication that only one woman who spoke to The Post claimed she was pressured into violent sex is inaccurate; multiple women told us this.

Meanwhile, Westgaph himself has taken to Facebook to mount a defence. In a series of now-removed posts, the disgraced historian described our reporting as “unverified fucking garbage” and claimed we are being served by defamation lawyers. (We have not been served by defamation lawyers; at least, not yet.) In the same thread, in response to a woman calling him a “sexual predator” for his convicted statuary rape of a 15-year-old, Westgaph said his conviction was a “strict liability defence” and called for the woman to apologise to him. He has since deactivated his Facebook account.

Meanwhile, Sonia Bassey MBE, the community organiser and former chair of National Museums Liverpool’s (NML) RESPECT Group, who appointed Westgaph as Heritage Project Manager to her local charity Mandela8 in 2020, also seemingly made oblique reference to our reporting, writing on Facebook that “the press in this city have always defamed and degraded Liverpool 8 and its people […] they very rarely celebrate our successes, just trash our characters, reputations and assassinate us [...] This is by design. I call them rags for a reason.”

We’re currently reporting a follow up story about Westgaph, who’s enjoyed a high profile across the city – working with institutions like University of Liverpool, the Bluecoat, the Liverpool School for Tropical Medicine, the Everyman Playhouse, the Athenaeum, and many more. Do you work for any of these institutions or have any information about Westgaph you could share with us? Please get in touch: shannon@millmediaco.uk.

Merseyside residents are having their cancer detected at an earlier stage, thanks in part to a targeted check programme. Merseyside and Cheshire – grouped together by the NHS – are now ranked 8^th in the country for the early detection of cancer, compared to 18^th in 2018. Professor Rowan Pritchard Jones, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside’s medical director, credited initiatives such as the Targeted Lung Health Checks (TLHC) programme for the turnaround. “Regular checks and screenings are vital for effective cancer treatment, as early detection enables timely intervention and greatly improves patient outcomes,” Jones said. Launched in 2019, the TLHC involves specially adapted lorries visiting areas to perform quick and easy checks. The TLHC has identified more than 560 cancers in the Liverpool City Region, and 80% of those at an early, more treatable stage. Extended to the Wirral and Warrington last summer, TLHC will cover the whole of Cheshire and Merseyside by 2027.

And the last ever Merseyside derby at Goodison Park ended in a memorable 2-2 draw Wednesday night. In what is also likely to be their final floodlit game at their old ground, a David Moyes-rejuvenated Everton opened the scoring early when Jarrard Branthwaite snuck a freekick in behind Liverpool’s backline for Beto to finish. As the Premier League’s leaders, Liverpool’s response was immediate, with Alexis Mac Allister’s glancing header from Mohamed Salah’s cross beyond blues goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. Salah punished Everton again, scoring for Liverpool to take the lead with only 17 minutes to go. Underdogs going into the game, the Toffees had arguably had the better of the play in front of a raucous Goodison crowd, and heading into injury time it looked like they might be left to rue missed chances. But on 98 minutes, James Tarkowski volleyed an unstoppable shot past the Reds’ keeper Alisson to rescue a point with practically the final kick of the game. The late goal precipitated absolute chaos, including a brawl between the players, a pitch invasion, and red cards for Everton’s Abdoulaye Doucoure and Liverpool’s Curtis Jones, as well as their manager Arne Slot. It means both teams end on 41 derby wins apiece in the atmospheric old stadium, with Everton earning the last ever win.

A riddle that’s bedevilled Wirral Council in recent months: how to show the government that you’re (once again) in need of extra funds – but you’re also cost-efficient, trustworthy with taxpayers’ money, exceptional at decision-making, and organisationally sound?

Their answer (at least this time): an extraordinary meeting that involved packing around 70 of the organisation’s most high-profile individuals into its former headquarters to solemnly debate the risks tied to a financial decision some present had already taken a whole month prior.

Perhaps not the most conventional solution, but that’s an adjective seldom applied to the peninsula’s local authority.

Barely five years since funds were made available, news broke that the council was once again applying for millions in exceptional financial support (EFS) to balance its books before an 5th April deadline, raising eyebrows on both sides of the Mersey.

Grant Thornton — the long-suffering external auditor — had once again identified urgent concerns with the organisation’s pecuniary stability. Shortfalls in the 2024-25 budget caused by overspends and chronically low reserves — by now, almost a Wirral speciality — suggested that the authority may not be able to meet its financial obligations by the fiscal year-end, nor set a legally viable strategy for 2025-26.

Now, though, the stakes were even higher. Auditors had exercised legal powers to issue the council with a statutory recommendation in January, meaning the secretary of state had also been notified, as is standard practice. They gave decision-makers one calendar month to publicly recognise the severity of what remains a precarious situation. Without improvement, the prospect of a dreaded section 114 notice — the closest UK councils can feasibly come to layman’s bankruptcy — still looms large.

“There is a risk that the council will need exceptional financial support to balance the financial position in 2024-25," the statutory recommendation read, "and to set a balanced budget in 2025-26.” Grant Thornton needed proof of "immediate and effective action to manage the [EFS] risk."

Eight days after the recommendation was issued, all sixty-six elected councillors, led by Paul Stuart of Labour – an ambitious ally of Wallasey MP Angela Eagle from her failed bid to reunite and “heal” the Labour Party by ousting Jeremy Corbyn – were summoned to the unusual meeting at Wallasey’s town hall. (In 2022, Al Jazeera’s Labour Files investigation had unmasked right-leaning Stuart, soft-spoken but not at all media-shy, as the instigator behind the compilation of a dossier attacking fellow Wallasey members.)

The otherwise out-of-use, Grade II-listed town hall was reopened to the tune of £400,000 a year in 2024 after some councillors had felt intimidated by Liverpool Friends of Palestine’s March protest outside Birkenhead town hall. A Labour and Conservative-led majority had voted against a ceasefire in Gaza, and members of the public turned up to heckle them for it.

“Of course there was a public reaction,” Bromborough representative Jo Bird, the Green Party co-leader, told The Post. “And [Stuart] should take responsibility for his actions. He’s leading the council [in] an extravagant waste of public money.”