QUESTION: Why did Colin CoverUp write this email to standards watchogs - but never send it...?

ABOVE is an email that Colin Hilton, the chief executive of Liverpool city council, wrote to the Standards Board to officially complain about the conduct of former council leader, Mike Storey.

Amazingly, and for reasons best known to himself, CoverUp NEVER SENT this email to the Standards Board.

It was written after a council investigation into the Storeyteller leaking details of The Harbarrowboy's heart condition to Joe Riley at the Oldham Echo.

The email outlines nine potential breaches of codes of conduct by the Storeyteller.

CoverUp told Jason Harbarrowboy that he had sent the letter and had made an official complaint to the Standards Board about the Storeyteller's conduct.

This was a lie. He did nothing of the kind.

The Harbarrowboy was astonished months later when he discovered that Hilton had never sent the email! He had kept it.

After a complaint by Jase, the Standards Board are now finally investigating the circumstances outlined by CoverUp's email - and how Storeyteller leaked details of the Harbarrowboy's health to the Oldham Echo.

If the Standards Board eventually find against the Storeyteller on this charge - one of several - it would also be curtains for Hilton.

It would mean that he had been complicit in a grave breach of the city council's Code of Conduct.

Yet he failed to draw it to the attention of the proper authorities.

We might also conclude that CoverUp has 'gone native' and thrown in his lot with the Lib Dims, forever compromising the last tatty remnants of his professional integrity.


The plot thickens.

Now read on...


16 July 2007




CH/KD/1607




Confidential




The Standards Board for England,
Fourth Floor,
Griffin House,
Lever Street,
Manchester.
M1 1BB

Dear Sirs,




I write to refer to you details of what I consider to be a breach of the Council’s Code of Conduct by Councillor Mike Storey CBE. I enclose a copy of my recent letter to Councillor Storey in which I set out the grounds for this referral.

As you will be aware Councillor Storey is a senior councillor and a member of the Council’s Executive Board. My Investigations have led me to conclude that he has supplied a story to the media consisting of confidential information about the health of a senior employee without any attempt to either check the particular facts or to discuss internally whether or not such information needed to be released and, if it did, what would be the best way to present such information so as to exercise care towards the employee and protect the reputation of the council.


Whilst the councillor is also a Director of the Council’s Capital of Culture Company (to whom the senior employee concerned reports directly) neither the service nor the employee comes directly within the councillor’s portfolio and the matter was not, therefore, within the responsibility of the councillor. I can think of no proper motive for the councillor having directly approached the media to disclose the information but, in any event, the councillor denies so doing. I set out below extracts from the Council’s Constitution which I believe to be relevant.
Member Officer Protocol (copy enclosed):-

Para 6.1 – must keep confidential information confidential


Para 6.3 – information about someone’s private or business affairs – will normally be confidential (in my view this must include the health of an employee and even if it were necessary to make a public announcement about the health of a senior employee that should have been done properly through the Council by the appropriate people).
Para 7.1 – personal relationships must be based on mutual respect

Para 7.3 - must strive to avoid developing antagonistic competitive relationships with each other.


Para 10.2 – members should not become personally involved in staffing matters

Employees Code of Conduct (also in Council’s Constitution)


Page 5/26 of the Constitution reproduces Paragraph 74 of the National Conditions of Service for APT&C staff:-
“Information concerning officers’ private affairs shall not be supplied to any person outside the service of the employing authority unless the consent of such officer is first obtained.”

Members Code of Conduct


Paragraph 2(b) - treat others with respect

Paragraph 2(c) – not do anything which compromises or which is likely to compromise the impartiality of those who work for or on behalf of the City Council.


Paragraph 3(c) - a Member must not disclose information which he believes is of a confidential nature without consent.

Please note that in view of the importance of this matter the Council’s Monitoring Officer has been involved in advising me and, therefore, in the expectation that you will decided to investigate this matter I would request that the investigation be carried out by one of your own Ethical Standards Officers.


Yours sincerely


Colin Hilton
Chief Executive

Our Lord Redmond cancels closing ceremony so 2008 will end....

OUR Lord Redmond has cancelled plans for a closing ceremony for 2008 - because there is no money left in the kitty.

Redmond, a multi-millionaire who lives in Cheshire, pulled the plug at a meeting in the Millenium House Fun Palace this afternoon.

He had appointed himself as the producer of the show and was due to take all the credit for single-handedly designing a showpiece event.

Liverpool subCulture understands that these were some of Redmond's planned highlights:

• The March of the Superlambananas - a parade of all the Japanese-made statues which were erected around the city.


• Karaoke Kop - a massed choir in the Oldham Echo Arena singing their favourite Beatles songs.


• 'I'm a Scouser, get me out of here!' - a new series broadcast on closed circuit TV all around the city where celebrity scousers try to out-do each other with their quaint Scouse mannerisms. This was Our Lord's own, totally original, idea.


• Build your own bench, sponsored by Rapid. A mass creative cultural experience for local people to show how fully engaged they are in Liverpool 2008. In a new innovation, benches can be made from wastepaper made in Oldham. Redmond said: “I said at the beginning, it’s not simply a bench. It’s also a cultural resting place." (He did actually say this, eds)


• Build Your Own Pub, sponsored by Cains.


• A great after-show party for Phil and his mates, including Pete Price (welcome back Pete, eds), Clare Sweeney, Sinbad and various other extras from Brookside.


• The Phil Factor - Our Lord judges the world class local talent who come on, trip up over some tatty 08 branding and then start singing old Frank Sinatra songs. Into the wrong microphone.


• 'Standards are Slipping' - a look back at the city's rich political history, culminating in a pyrotechnic re-enactment of the Fireman's famous 'Walk of Death' to judgement day by the Standards Board for England.


• Carry On Cover Up - a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek romp through the farcical goings-on at Liverpool Town Hall.


• Double Your Money - a live casino on the waterfront where council taxpayers give up all their money to incompetent council bureaucrats who then disappear to retirement homes in Formby, Spain and Wales.

Unfortunately we are now going to miss all these treats. Because all the money has been spent. Gone, Vanished. Disappeared. The cupboard is bare. There is no more dosh. It doesn't grow on trees yer know. We are brassic. Aint got a cent, lah. On our uppers, Phil mate.

Redmond had originally wanted £1million for the end of the year show when he began planning his great moment six months ago. Then the budget was halved to half a million - the amount being paid to Hasitall as a reward for his incompetence. Then the budget was going to be dependent on what could be raised in ticket sales for seats for the show at the Oldham Arena. Then at today's meeting, Redmond was finally told there were no more spondulicks.

What's more, since the long-suffering Culture Company staff are all out on their ears on December 31st, not many were going to be daft enough to rally around to make multi-millionaire Redmond look good.

No doubt he will now try to cobble something together with a few of his 'mates' to try and save his face. But it won't be anything like what he had planned - or the people of Liverpool had expected.

Perhaps the Oldham Echo can organise a 'Save the Show' campaign?

FAMOUS FIVE DISAPPEAR FROM TREASURE ISLAND by Enid Blyton

WHATEVER has Colin CoverUp done to the Famous Five?

His 5-man Executive Management Team (EMT) has now all but disappeared from the law-breaking city council.

The only two left are CoverUp's mate and chief 'yes' man Stuart Smith, who was last spotted hiding under a desk with his hands over his ears and regeneration boss John Kelly (who has had such an impact on the city that we had quite forgotten him, until reminded by one of our commentators below).

Its the end of an era and no more lashings of Cains ginger beer and ham-fisted sandwiches for the super-directors.

The smiling assassin Hasitall has been booted out of the Municipal Buildings with a half a million pay-off after making the council the worst in the country.

Social Services Executive Director Tony Hunter, last seen looking like death warmed up after years of bullying by the rottweiller McElhinney, has legged it to become chief exec of Cleethorpes or somewhere equally obscure.

The 'Cultural' Exec Director, otherwise known as the Harbarrowboy, has been given a £250,000 pay-off, a season ticket to Tans R Us and a hammock on the Costa del Cock Up.

As one blog contributor has aptly noted, that leaves only Cover Up and nonentities in charge of the lawbreaking city council - the worst in the country.

Difficult to get a quorum for EMT meetings then.

Good to know that the city's biggest employer is in such safe hands, if you will forgive the pun.

Never mind though.

We are sure it won't be too long before Cover Up again appoints a costly firm of headhunters (breaking all the city council's procurement rules) to scour the country looking for 'top talent'.

"We are determined to appoint the best possible leaders," said a grim-faced council spokesman "to take Liverpool forward to a bright new dawn where children play happily in sun-kissed meadows, couples skip hand in hand through the latest shopping mall and literally millions of journalists from the Washington Post visit the city to witness a huge £1.8million thing lumbering through the streets (obviously Lord Redmond's ego, eds)"explained a council spokesman.

With the post of City Solicitor now being advertised for the third time (still no takers) perhaps word has got about?

Maybe we can stand-by for a whole new team of overpaid, lacklustre bureaucrats appointed on £225,000 a year, plus Performance Related Pay, to transform the worst council in the country into a new Jerusalem.

Yeah, right.

Historical note: You will recall that it was the evil Henshaw who first appointed four yes men (and one woman) as £150,00-a-year Executive Directors soon after being named chief executive by The Storeyteller.

The Famous Five then were:

• Colin CoverUp (Education)
  
• Hasitall (Resources)
  
• The rottweiller McEhinney (specially brought by Henshaw from Knowsley to mastermind dirty tricks)
  
• Annie Shepperd (daft as a brush)
  
• Charlie Parker (cockney wide boy).

The cost of failure for Hasitall.......

FAILED City Treasurer Phil Hasitall is being paid off with half a million pounds after making Liverpool the worst council in the country.

Details of the record pay-off are exclusively revealed in today's Daily Post.

It means the smiling assassin Hasitall will be departing next Spring after 10 years with the city council following the Audit Commission offically ranking Liverpool as the worst council in the country for its financial mismanagement.

We wonder how much he might have got if he had done his job properly?

The hated Halsall is known for a few other things:

He is a mate of Chas Cole, promoter of the Summer Pops

He gave more than £3million of council taxpayers money to his mate Chas for the Summer Pops, breaking all council procurement rules

He went on holiday to New York with his mate Chas and his other mate, the rottweiller Dr David McElhinney while signing the fat cheques for Chas

• He went to the same school in Southport with his mate Chas and Colin Cover Up - talk about the old school tie!
• His mate Chas gave Hasitall's son Liam a slot for his band 'Abe' as support to Status Quo at the Summer Pops - the band have since sunk without trace
  
• The cost of The 08 Place spiralled half a million pounds over budget, after his mate Chas got special treatment for his office inside from Hasitall's other mate, the rottweiller McElhinney


• His mate Chas got free parking from the city council at a cost of £19,000 - Hasitall authorised this
  
• Hasitall allowed The Harbarrowboy to waste millions on Capital of Culture cock-ups and then went cap in hand to the Government begging to be bailed out


• Hasitall has spent the last three years leaking like crazy against Colin Cover Up and Fireman Bradley after unsurprisingly failing to get Henshaw's job
  

Hasitall was, of course, a fully signed-up member of the evil cabal with Sir Diddy and the Rottweiller. Their major claim to fame, of course, was their corruption, dishonesty and cowardice.

An avid Daily Torygraph reader, Hasitall distinguished himself at the city council by putting his personal greed above all else.

But he did provide some lighter moments - Hasitall's two most memorable public appearances were:

1) Telling Mick Ord at Radio Merseyside how, thanks to Hasitall and McElhinney, city council staff were now going to get preferential treatment for tickets for the first Paul McCartney gig at Kings Dock - and then being slightly bemused when a firestorm of protest erupted

2) His now legendary TV interview with the saintly Gordon Burns on BBC North West Tonight earlier this year when the £230,000-a-year Hasitall was questioned about the council being the worst in the country for financial stewardship.

(This landmark interview is now being replayed by PR companies all over the North West as a classic example of how not to do a TV interview - Hasitall was rude, arrogant, dishonest and seemingly extremely put out that somone of his seniority and obvious intelligence was being held to account for his record as a senior council officer and why should he even deign to answer silly, stupid and ridiculous questions from a mere TV reporter who clearly didn't understand anything at all about figures and after all what was it to do with him anyway? I'm not fucking accountable to him or the great unwashed in Garston sitting at home watching the telly with their egg and chips on their laps waiting for Eastenders to start, I'm fucking accountable to that other dick-head Bradley and his stupid side-kick Hilton who are as bad as each other and I can pull the wool over their eyes any day of the week, anyway I would rather be on the golf course than sitting in a stupid fucking cupboard on Paradise Street talking to some idiot in a fucking studio in Manchester.)

Sort of thing.

Meanwhile Labour, for entirely understandable reasons, have been concentrating their attack over the council's financial failures soley on the Lib Dims.

In order to reap the obvious benefits, Joe Anderson has sought to extricate Hasitall of all responsibility, while pinning it more firmly on the back of Bradley et al.

Which is fine, but not the whole truth.

Hasitall is just as complicit in taking the city council to the brink of bankruptcy as the incompetent Lib Dims.

And now he has got his reward - half a million pounds of council taxpayer's money.

It is they who will now be picking up the tab for his failures for many more years to come.

While Hasitall lives up to his name.

Gordon steps in to spare Halsall's blushes...

PRIME Minister Gordon Brown has stepped in to spare the blushes of the smiling assassin Hasitall as he fights to save his failing reputation.

Some impish person, with a mischievous sense of humour (who could that possibly be? eds), appended Halsall's signature to the excellent petition currently on the No 10 Downing Street web site, calling for an independent investigation into the city council's finances.

Readers will recall that the Lib Dim city council was branded by the Audit Commission as the worst council in the country for its lack of financial stewardship, ably masterminded for the last nine years by the smiling assassin.

No sooner had Phil Halsall's name appeared on the petition than it was spotted by panic-stricken minions in the City Treasurer's department.

They urgently tracked down the £230,000-a-year (plus Performance Related Pay) smiling assassin on the golf course where he was swinging the lead, (shouldn't he be slinging his hook? eds).

Hasitall went ballistic, seeing the jape as all part of the civil war with Colin CoverUp and a further attempt to discredit him (are any MORE attempts needed? eds).

Hasitall immediately contacted the bald legal eagle Ken Unworthy, a close ally in his fight with Cover Up, to demand immediate action.

Emails were soon winging their way to the hard-pressed web master at No 10, demanding that Downing Street immediately remove Halsall's name from the petition.

There followed lengthy legal exchanges between the worst council in the country and No 10 - including threats of a High Court injunction - all carried out at an unknown cost to the taxpayer.

Halsall, renowned for his Daily Torygraph reading habits, also had the cheek to consult Unison, to intercede on his behalf.

Hasitall even went to see his mate Chas to see if he could help out by offering to throw a fund-raising gig for Gordon.

Finally, Colin Cover Up was reluctantly forced to intervene and write to No 10 vouching for the hated Halsall's bona fides.

(Oh, the ignomy, the ignomy, eds)

Eventually, No 10 relented and agreed to remove Halsall's name from the petition, allowing him to return to the golf course with his reputation, er, intact.

Any suggestion that Gordon is now considering bringing in Hasitall to aid his besieged Chancellor, is, of course, entirely without foundation.