A proposed motion of no confidence in the Mayor of Liverpool and her cabinet has been blocked ahead of a crunch meeting tonight.
The city council has had another difficult week with the dramatic resignation of chief executive Tony Reeves. Mr Reeves quit with immediate effect on Monday after four years in charge.
His resignation comes at a critical moment for the council, with government commissioners soon to publish their second report since arriving to oversee key departments at the Cunard just over a year ago. That report is widely expected to recommend further interventions.
Mr Reeves had been facing growing calls to consider his position from councillors. Both he and his former deputy and finance chief Mel Creighton were criticised over the contract errors that have led to the authority facing millions of extra pounds in energy bills. Both have now quit their posts.
READ MORE: Liverpool Council chief executive Tony Reeves resigns
With Mr Reeves now gone, attention will turn to what Mayor Joanne Anderson says and does next. She will lead a crunch city council meeting this evening where she is expected to lead a Labour vote to remove her own position of mayor and return to a leader and cabinet model. That's despite the leader model coming bottom of the pile of potential governance systems in a recent public consultation.
The city's main opposition party, the Liberal Democrats, attempted to bring a motion of no confidence in the mayor and her cabinet at tonight's meeting. Leader Richard Kemp submitted the motion, which stated: "This Council has no confidence in the ability of the Mayor and Cabinet to give effective political leadership to a council which is clearly the worst in the Country.
"It calls on the Mayor and Cabinet to consider their positions and to immediately call a cross-Party meeting to consider how Liverpool can be run in the run up to the all-up elections and abolition of the post of Elected Mayor."
However, an email seen by the ECHO confirms that the motion will not be debated at tonight's meeting. An email sent from the council's committee services lead Michael Jones said the decision to block it was ultimately made by Lord Mayor Roy Gladden.
The email said: "In this instance, the Lord Mayor has consulted the monitoring officer and deputy monitoring officers and it is considered that the form and content of your motion could reasonably have been submitted to the whips Meeting for review alongside all other motions. It is similarly considered that insufficient reason or justification has been provided such as to enable the Lord Mayor to permit its inclusion as an urgent additional item.
"For the above reasons, the Lord Mayor has confirmed that he will not be accepting your proposed motion as it is not considered to have the necessary quality of urgency. As you will be aware, the decision of the Lord Mayor is final on these matters."
Responding, Cllr Kemp said: "I am not surprised but I am saddened by the fact that my motion to move a Vote of No Confidence in the Mayor and Cabinet has been blocked by the Lord Mayor. This is, course, an almost exact mirror image of the situation in Parliament where the Labour Party complained about their motion of no confidence being blocked.
"There is no doubt that the Council is in a crisis mode. Our Senior Management team has only one permanent appointment who was here before Christmas and three other appointments since Christmas, Our key directorates of Regeneration and Neighbourhood Services are occupied by interim Directors."
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