Staff members at Liverpool Council are “fearful” of the presence of government appointed commissioners.
Former acting Mayor, Cllr Wendy Simon, said the introduction of Whitehall mandated officials has left some at the Cunard administration worrying about how their jobs and departments could be impacted moving forward. Cllr Simon told the authority’s audit committee how members were well aware of how the mood had changed among council staff since former Secretary of State Robert Jenrick instructed four external officials to oversee their work.
The Kensington and Fairfield councillor’s remarks came as committee members discussed the need for a culture change at the Cunard Building after an investigation into its expensive energy contract failings identified an embedded environment where staff felt they could not speak up to flag issues. She said: “I’ve had mixed views from staff in general, staff are quite fearful of the commissioners and what that means for their departments and their workforce as a whole.”
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“We’re certainly aware of that as elected members.” The remarks from Cllr Simon, who stepped in as acting Mayor for almost six months following the resignation of former Mayor Joe Anderson in December 2020, did not draw any reaction from lead commissioner Mike Cunningham, who was in the chamber during the meeting.
Cllr Joe Hanson told the meeting how it felt like even with the commissioners in situ, the council was not making any progress. He said it saddened him that people felt they couldn’t come forward and the authority needed a “clear direction of what we need to achieve."
He added: “We need to draw a line and move forward as quickly as possible." Cllr Simon, who stood to be the elected Mayor in 2021, said: “There are some people who feel their management structure is very open and they can come forward so I think we need to clarify some of those things.
“We’re spending a lot of money being told the same things then we’re being asked to expand on areas where we really need to prioritise some of the issues that we need to deal with and not keep adding to that list because we’re never going to solve the problems going forward.” In a brief intervention during the committee meeting, Mr Cunningham told councillors how if it was going to address its challenges, it first needed to tackle its “significant capacity issue” particularly around internal audit which needed to be sorted “urgently”.
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