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Hello,
Today’s edition focusses on a clean up drive taking place within Liverpool council and across the city. And there’s more headaches for Merseyrail as its services are set to be hit by next week’s strike action.
Tidy up time
After a shaky spring where more dirt emerged from the woodwork, Liverpool council is hoping to embark on a summertime clean up. While the contract saga doesn’t appear to be limited to a grossly inflated energy bill, with 12 more contracts said to be up for immediate renewal, Mayor Joanne Anderson has now spoken out and vowed that the troubled authority gets its “house in order.”
With talk of heightened government intervention, the council has to make improvements in order to retain what little autonomy it still enjoys. But the clean up won’t only be underway in the offices of the Cunard building. A cosmetic clean up it also set to get underway that could have a dramatic impact on the appearance of the city’s streets.
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Subterranean super-bins might sound like something dreamed up by Birkenhead band Half Man Half Biscuit, but they’re in fact a new initiative the council hopes to introduce to combat black bin bag waste.
Just days after it launched a new partnership with Keep Britain Tidy, the council is now looking to end a rubbish issue for huge swathes of the city, by installing large, new underground bins. The innovative scheme to retrofit waste collection in built-up urban areas is set to be the first of its kind in the UK.
The recommendation to begin consultations on introducing underground bins in several wards of the city will go to the council’s Cabinet next Friday, June 24. If it gets the green light the scheme will see these huge bins placed in 140 locations in densely built-up areas, many of which will replace some of the existing temporary communal bins which are often found parked at the end of streets.
It is expected phase one the £1.5m super-bin programme could begin to benefit people by the end of Summer. The scheme has been designed to create a cleaner waste solution for 27,000 terraced households, in hundreds of Liverpool's inner-city streets, which do not have the space to use a wheelie bin.
The city council is hoping this new approach will radically reduce the issue of ripped black bin bags spilling out onto streets and blighting neighbourhoods. This perennial problem creates hundreds of complaints a week and requires extra clean-up resources to be deployed. Across the city there have been a number of initiatives to clean up alleyways in densely built up areas such as Kensington and Walton, but other areas are still blighted by fly tipping and bins becoming ripped - spoiling the appearance for many communities. Therefore the new programme the council hopes to introduce could provide a successful framework for cleaning up the city on the whole.
Council to get its house in order
Liverpool council’s contracts are now under increased scrutiny after failures renewing its energy tariff is set to cost the cash strapped authority millions.
Weeks after the revelations around the council's energy contract disaster, a report to its cabinet to be discussed next week has identified 12 contracts in need of immediate renewal that have either run out or are in danger of doing so. Renewing or extending the contracts could set the council back around £20 million. Of the dozen contracts to be discussed next Friday, five have expired already.
After a leaked memo seen by the ECHO suggested that the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is considering further Government intervention within the council, Mayor Joanne Anderson is now calling for the council to get a better hold on things. As reported by the ECHO’s David Humprheys, Mayor Anderson has said the council must get a grip of its procurement processes.
Mayor Anderson said while lessons had been learned from the £16m energy supply debacle revealed last month, she added that “issues will inevitably arise in the process”. She said: “The council must get its house in order over contracts. The council has learnt lessons from the issues with its energy supply contracts that recently came to light and since then improvements in our processes have been identified to help ensure these errors are avoided in future. There have been recent senior level appointments with experienced council officers coming to work with us in the past week, and everyone is determined that each contract is procured efficiently, in a timely manner and delivers best value for the people of our city."
No disruption to services such as adult and social care services is expected in the city while the contracts are renewed or new providers found. The report to cabinet identified that in some cases, contractors have continued to provide services well after the expiration of agreements to ensure the council can meet its legal obligations.
Mayor Anderson added: “The whole council team is working hard to deliver high quality services and value for money for Liverpool residents and it is important to remember that whilst we work to put things right, issues will inevitably arise in the process. Things do sometimes appear to get worse before they get better and we are still in the early phase of our improvement journey.”
Black people twice as likely to be arrested in Merseyside
At a scrutiny meeting of Merseyside Police yesterday, senior officers heard that, on average, Black people across the region were 2.3 times more likely to be detained by officers than white people. According to Louise Kane, head of performance and analytics at Merseyside Police, this represents a downturn from 2.7 times three years ago.
As reported by the ECHO’s David Humphreys, Ms Kane told the meeting, held by Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurell, that while this was a “disproportionality to the force average” the “direction of travel is definitely a positive one” given where the force was in 2019. The findings come hot on the heels of controversial comments by Mrs Spurrell in which she agreed Merseyside Police was institutionally racist.
Chief constable Serena Kennedy addressed the panel at Wallasey Town Hall to explain how four superintendents on the force were working through the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) race action plan to establish how the disparities can be resolved, as well as its inclusion strategy. Among the actions within the plan are the introduction of mandatory training for all police officers and staff about racism, anti-racism, Black history and its connection to policing.
It also calls on forces to adopt a new explain or reform approach to race disparities and developing a new approach to tackle issues in the use of police powers – such as traffic stops, stop and search, use of Taser and other types of force – supported by strengthened governance through effective supervision, community scrutiny of police data and body-worn video.
In Focus
The View
“Things do sometimes appear to get worse before they get better and we are still in the early phase of our improvement journey”
Mayor Joanne Anderson
Mayoral consultation nearing its end
Residents across Liverpool have until Monday to have their say on how the city is governed going forwards. The consultation, which launched in March, is asking people to share their views on whether they want to retain the mayoral position or not.
Despite campaigning to be Mayor on the promise of a referendum on the very post she went on to take up, Joanne Anderson instead implemented the consultation which could see the city return to a leader and cabinet model or a committee model. At the time of its announcement in January, it was said the consultation would save the council roughly £350,000 and would be “full and meaningful”.
After the consultation ends on Monday, officers will present the findings to elected members who will debate which direction the city takes at a full council meeting later on this year. No changes would be implemented until after next year’s all out elections which will see every council seat in the city up for grabs. Labour is backing a return to the leader and cabinet model, while the largest opposition party, the Liberal Democrats, are campaigning to see the committee system implemented.
You can take part in the consultation here.
ECHO Chamber
Festival season is upon us. Here’s how it looked in Liverpool 20 years ago
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