Is Mike Cunningham heading home?

Dear readers — It’s been nearly three years since commissioner Mike Cunningham became one of the key figures in Liverpool’s governance. And yet the question hanging over him now is this: when is he leaving?

It was the middle of 2021 when Cunningham (a former police officer) was appointed on a clean-up mission. Liverpool City Council was in a mess — the mayor had been arrested on corruption allegations (though he still hasn’t been charged) along with a number of other senior council officials, Max Caller had dropped his bombshell Best Value Inspection report, and then-Secretary of State Robert Jenrick went to town on the council’s failings in Parliament.

But three years is a long time, not least in the high-octane world of Liverpool’s municipal politics. This week The Post sat down with Cunningham for one of his most in-depth chats since arriving in the city.

He told us about punch-ups (well, more like a lack of them) amid early differences with the senior leadership of the council, and the challenges of “root and branch” change in a local authority spiralling out of control. But still, one question remains: is the council now ready to fend for itself?

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Your Post briefing

The Mersey is now teeming with fish just a few decades after being considered biologically dead in what has been described as “possibly the greatest river recovery in Europe”, according to the Mersey Rivers Trust. It’s not just fish either, but a whole range of aquatic mammals spotted swimming in the river over recent years. There’s still some way to go according to the Combined Authority — with sewage, microplastics and pollution still plentiful — although all in all it’s been a remarkable recovery for a river once dubbed the ‘dirty Mersey’.

Two Merseyside football clubs have become locked in a bitter dispute over a ground sharing agreement, with the teams trading blows over social media. Bootle FC and City of Liverpool FC, both in the Northern Premier League, have been sharing the use of Berry Street Garage stadium in Bootle since 2015. This came to an acrimonious end ahead of a CoL FC match against Widnes FC at the end of January, when the event was cancelled last minute due to “unforeseen circumstances”. Bootle FC now say they’ve “terminated” CoL FC’s agreement after a number of breaches, with CoL FC accusing Bootle of “bullying”. Northern Premier League has offered to referee, but so far no deal has been struck, leaving CoL FC without a home stadium for the foreseeable. 

And amphibious adventures will soon be a feature on Merseyside again after Splash Tours announced it would be launching a new hour-long city centre tour of the streets and docks later this year. It’s been ten years since duck buses (which can travel on land and in water) rattled around Liverpool, after the distinctive Wacker Quackers — once a regular site around the city centre — ceased running when two of them sank in quick succession.

It was May 2023 and Mike Cunningham was staring at a seriously scathing report. It had been two years since he was appointed on a clean-up mission at Liverpool City Council, with only one year meant to be remaining in his tenure. And yet. The city’s Children’s Services Department had just been rated “inadequate” in a highly-damning Ofsted report. 

The report outlined how safeguarding failures had left some of the city’s most vulnerable children at risk of serious harm. While focusing on the dual crises in finance and regeneration, another crisis had reared its head, like an unwinnable game of Whac-a-mole. Cunningham must have wondered whether he’d ever be heading home.

One thing you couldn’t accuse Mike Cunningham of, is a lack of candidness. At least not when he sat down with The Post earlier this week, telling us that while there weren’t “active punch-ups every time [they] met”, when he first arrived at Liverpool City Council in 2021, things were pretty dire.

“Root and branch change” was in order, Cunningham says. Maybe that was obvious to an outsider. Liverpool City Council’s name — and the city itself by association — had been dragged through mud that year. Arrested officials, police storming into the mayor’s kitchen and dragging him away as he prepared his morning brew (though of course he still hasn’t been charged) and then, the Caller Report: the shadow of which has hung over the council ever since. 

But those within the authority at the time needed constant reminding — Cunningham contends — that all was not well. ”The leadership of the council largely believed that what was required was minor modifications,” he tells us. “And that was a problem”. Cunningham won’t name names (although we couldn’t help but ask) but he does tell us this was a problem at both an officer and political level.

Perhaps it was this blasé attitude to one obvious crisis that led the very same council to go blundering into its next major crisis a year after Cunningham rocked up: when a cool £16 million disappeared down the chute after the failure to renew an energy bill. But three years is a long time, not least in the high-frills, fast-paced world of municipal politics.

And over the past few months sources in business and politics have repeatedly told The Post that they believe the council’s new leadership — under Liam Robinson — is on far stronger footing (“the difference in competence is night and day,” one very well connected source outside of the council recently told us).