Being fourth in the queue will deny Northumberland the strong Chief Executive it wants, needs and deserves.

 

The Max Caller report on the disastrous state of Tory Governance at County Hall in Morpeth and his demands for new Leadership and Management in top office brings out the question of who will we as residents get after a tiny glimpse of what's been going on since May 2017 has been exposed to public scrutiny.

His report doesn’t quite shed light on how bad it's been, with Councillors believing they are the officers of the Council and staff fighting back. His new governance report replaces the model written and promoted by the Current Leader of Council in 2021 Glen Sanderson, which apparently was just as bad as the Peter Jackson version introduced by the Tories on their election into office in 2017 if two Tory leaders can’t get it right then a new Leader needs to be sought who isn’t a freemason and can handle the pressures of bringing all parties together to resolve the needs of the electorate.

Then we need to ask who or even how will they get the right Chief Executive into office when we have four Unitary Councils now vying for top bods with two of them as actual neighbours of Northumberland.

Somerset has come out as the top job for the top person offering a starting salary of around £200,000 way above the level of pay Councillors Wearmouth and Sanderson want to pay in Northumberland as they whinged at their now forced out CEO’s pay all of the time. 

Then our neighbours are next, Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness with newly elected Councillors talking about ‘Total Package Costs’ and not just
wages, being well over a quarter of a million pound per year, leaving Northumberland’s dodgy one party cabinet with the dilemma of upsetting Conservatives who are also taxpayers alliance members or going for a second rate CEO who has an olympic gold in a martial art or who holds a lonsdale belt to be able to fight their own corner and knock back the urges for power of the Morpeth Mob.

What a dilemma!

Chopper Shapps lowers AMT’s chances at next General Election!

Since 7^th May 2015 the Tories current business secretary Anne Marie Trevelyan MP has traded in the County of Northumberland solely on the dual carriageway extension of the A1 trunk road north from her former home town of Morpeth as she’s desperate to raise it from its current back lane status.

 

Grant Shapps, her cabinet colleague and secretary of state for transport, promised both AMT and Northumberland’s road using residents that he would sort this project out and begin progress on making the A1 safer for locals, traders and travellers through the County.

His promise was not like the massive Tory loyalty bonuses of huge capital spending on the A1, quadrupling and tripling lanes through all of the other English Counties the former ‘Great North Road’ runs through. His promise, to dual a further few miles of what must be one of the nations most dangerous highways is being stalled on a regular and ongoing basis due to the concern that the Lib-Dems will run riot again in North Northumberland and Morpeth at the next elections with the nations media illustrating recently that Labour will take Hexham, Blyth Valley and Wansbeck seats at the next General Election and move the Tories out from their seats in the Tyne Valley, South East Northumberland and the Rural Coalfield at the Locals.

 

Shapps latest snub to England's most Northern County and a massive low cost snub it is, instead of deciding to invest very little making a decision on the A1 in March 22, (that's when he put back his decision until June 22,) he has now promised to ‘look at things’ as he put it in December 22. We will not hold our breath.

 

It's exciting that we are watching the demise of the Tories at all levels, because in Northumberland we do not get any sort of equal share when it comes to Government capital spend on infrastructure as its believed in Westminster that they will win three seats here because of our sheep like nature and simply accept that we only deserve the high tax and high NI Tories as our masters.

 

We here at Murky will be watching their demise with absolute glee as this has to be the worst government for the North since ‘Bad Prince John’ and according to the release of information through the press in the last few weeks, the worst Unitary Council ever.

 

Has the Leader’s antics blown the cover on 8000 new green jobs in the River Blyth Basin?

 

2022’s longest day showed the disgraceful actions of the Leader of the County Council, Glen Sanderson JP live on your tv sets in your living rooms.

A special meeting of Council was held to take on board the report of the Leader’s ‘contractor’ Max Caller, a top bod when it comes to assessing Councils on behalf of the government.

The results of the Caller report was that Councillors of all groups MUST work together to safeguard the future of the Unitary County Council.

The Tories were well rehearsed with the usual cries of it wasn’t us it wasn't us from across the hall with the Chairman of the meeting, Councillor Barry Flux showing himself up when challenging an Independent Councillor, Georgina Hill when she was asking some pertinent questions from her constituents. It was quite embarrassing for the Tories as those questions were ones which the report should have picked up.

All in all, it went quite well with the Labour Party accepting of the report, knowing that without their acceptance things could only get worse for residents of the County and the Independent Councillors voicing matters hurled at them by their constituents and rightly so, UNTIL :

The Leader of Council started to sum up, then in an instant burst out with his rendition of the worst political speech ever, and blew the meeting and the developed good will of others apart when he began to point the ‘fickle finger of shame and fate’ at opposition councillors within the room, its was You and You and You and You he spun on blaming everyone but his own secretive council and its even more secretive one party cabinet who have two meetings each month one in private to do the deals and one on public to nod matters through.

The Council working together and developing a harmonious relationship with both the Local Enterprise Partnership and the leader of the City of Newcastle Council, the Mayor of North Tyneside Met and the Mayor for the North of Tyne region is essential to the support needed for the new green jobs being planned for the River Blyth basin.

The Office of National Statistics has just published its data on the green economy which revealed that an annual spend of £200,000 is necessary to support a ‘green job’ and that 42% of employment is temporary, elementary low paid jobs which indicates that £1.6Bn must be brought down annually via the levelling up system to produce the jobs promised in Northumberland. Much of which will be sucked up by Tory shareholders and profiteers and never find its way into the local economy but that apart.

The unbelievable antics of Councillor Sanderson and the constant blame game culture the Tories believe in whether in or out of Administration of Councils may have put the annual drawdown of funds as large as this in jeopardy and if the Tories want to continue to work with other Councils, the LEP and the Mayor they have to change rapidly, but it's now believed by all others in the room that they can’t and don’t really want the towns of the South East Northumberland, the Tyne Valley and Rural Coalfields of the County to prosper at all and are producing enough spin to stop things happening.

Councillor Sanderson needs to come clean and decide if his party wish to pursue the levelling up agenda on offer or simply does he and his mates want to have oversight of a county full of second homes and deprivation, the choice is yours Northumberland Conservatives and you can’t blame other for the mess you have laid at the feet of the residents of this wonderful County Northumberland since May 2017.

Exactly as we suspect, Max Caller can’t stop the bullying at County Hall

 

The link below illustrates perfectly the problems Max Caller the Government’s investigator into all that's wrong in Local Government won’t be able to correct in Northumberland County Council.

We have reported on several occasions regarding the antics of Councillor Wearmouth who reports opposition Councillors to the standards board if their opinion differs from his high and mighty impression of himself.

We suspect that at this moment in time he is beavering away at his laptop conjuring up magnificent words to upset and displace the confidence of a Councillor he has conned and wronged in the past as her opinion on Council owned companies differs from his. (many of those companies were set up by Councillor Wearmouth in his own image).

Independent Councillor Hill’s opinion of Councillor Wearmouth’s council owned arms length ADVANCE Northumberland differs from his. In the past 2017-21 Councillor Hill sat at the right hand of Northumberland Tories and managed the chair of the Council's audit committee. In that role she oversaw and fulfilled much of the agenda Councillor Wearmouth created then suddenly in 2021 he ditched her and as a strong woman scorned, her true thoughts will out and she has become a thorn in the side of Councillor Wearmouths deplorable spin machine.

We’re sure we will hear more from the septic sore this spat has opened up and we here at Murky will ensure you hear all about it!

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/people/councillor-calls-for-abolition-of-advance-northumberland-after-report-revelations-3733273

Nick’s back! wearing another ‘cheap watch’

 

Councillor Nick Oliver was Northumberland’s finance portfolio holder and cabinet member for all things financial at Northumberland County Council from 2017- 2021.

His antics including accusations of looking after his family businesses at the Council Taxpayers expense are well documented and this blog asked on a number of occasions why he as the finance bod for the Council was allowed to sit in at every audit committee meeting when it was his department that was being scrutinised and about him writing his own reports, presenting them to the audit committee for ratification and then using those false reports to attack opposition councillors on a regular and ongoing basis.

But his most recent spin is galling to say the least, he has come out in Conservative Home with a tale that is beyond belief even for him regarding the anomalies of the International s
ection of the Council and its trusted partner Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust after it has been subject to scrutiny by a Government Commissioner acting as a consultant to Northumberland Tories to tell the world 'It's got nothing to do with me mister it was all those other’s honest’.

Unbelievable and the MP for Blyth, Oliver’s new boss, Ian Levy should have this story investigated in its own right as it looks to us that it's certainly a ‘cheap watch’ tale from a man whose history is packed with them.

We urge all of our readers to click on the link below and ask yourself ‘how can the portfolio holder of a council not be watching the work of partnerships signed off by his own team of which he was a top bod and managed by the Chief Officer his Group employed in that position?”

We can smell it from here!

https://www.conservativehome.com/localgovernment/2022/06/harry-fone-a-warning-from-northumberland-of-the-lack-of-spending-transparency.html

Delivering Best Value in Northumberland Can Councillors trust Max Caller’s suggestion to 10?

 

Top local government inspector Max Caller’s first report into the shocking state of politics and Leadership at the Tory led and bled Northumberland County Council for the last six years is rolling along and he MAY even get some of his message across to the Morpeth Mob that being secretive, lying, cutting the public off from information and placing great pressure on staff and workers isn’t the right thing to do.

The Tories running the Council have no thoughts at all that they are elected to serve the public, scrutinise decision making by the Councils single party (nasty style) cabinet and in many cases believe they are the Officers of the council who can direct staff as they wish and have their jobs done at the expense of areas who aren't as supportive of their antics.

This NO to opposition input, NO to data sharing, NO to proper scrutiny, NO to acceptance that others may have a different point of view has led Max Caller into his decision that new leadership is required at the Council and that new tough professional officers must be brought in to manage the move from secrecy to openness, then the Council may be able to deliver ‘Best Value’ but our chats with opposition Councillors of all denominations tell us that none of the opposition can accept Mr Caller’s recommendation J.

The lack of trust by opposition Councillors in anything to do with the Tory led Local Government Association acting as mediators at this deplorable Council is huge as the current Leader of Council, Glen Sanderson JP is a leading light of that organisation who has sat back and did very little to attempt to stop the Morpeth Mob’s antics or those of the former now deposed leader of Council, Peter Jackson or his current Deputy Leader, Councillor Wearmouth who after all is the top Tory behind the scenes planner of disruptive antics in the North-East and a regular reporter to the standards board of Councillors whose opinion may differ slightly to his.

The Council meets in its usual disharmonious savagery towards opposition Councillors on Tuesday 21st June 2022 to discuss the Caller Plan but even if armed guards paraded in the room the twisted antics of those who believe they were born to rule will certainly colour the issues surrounding the designed way forward and to find officers tough enough to manage the separation of duties required to deliver the plan and take away the powers that Tory Councillors believe they have and bring back democracy into Northumberland; Officer recruitment must take place among front line military colonels.

The Best Value Plan in Brief

1. Redraft its Corporate Plan in terms of the administration’s Goals and Objectives, moderated by the capacity of the organisation and the legislative framework,

2. Ensure the values by which it seeks to operate are lived within the organisation

3. Use the data it holds, collects, or needs to collect to define priorities and monitor and improve performance in a systematic way and publish the outcomes.

4. Review and redraft the constitution to ensure that decisions that should be taken at member level, by cabinet, committee, individual member or full council are clearly identified and that the recording and scrutiny of officer decisions, both individually and in aggregate, is unambiguous.

5. Review and redraft the codes of conduct which regulate member and officer behaviours and working relationships with each other, to make it clear what the expectations of each party should be and how robust challenges can be handled, to ensure proper accountability can be achieved. This needs to recognise the legitimate rights of councillors for information to enable them to do their role and for councillors to recognise that policy is the preserve of the council unless delegated and saying no is a legitimate outcome.

6. Establish a rationale for the establishment or continuation of any company
   established under the provisions of the Localism Act 2011.

7. Establish a specific governance framework by which, for those companies
   wholly or partly owned by NCC, their Directors are appointed, reports on performance are presented to a cabinet sub-committee, conflicts of interest are dealt with and risk and how shareholder agreements are ratified, by both the company and NCC.

8. Establish an officer structure which is designed to deliver against earlier recommendations and seek to appoint permanent employees to fulfil those objectives.

9. Establish a scheme of performance appraisal, starting with the chief executive at member level, in line with the JNC provisions, which cascades throughout the organisation so that every employee is clear about their targets and how they fit into plan delivery. As the chief executive is accountable to the council as a whole for their performance, publish the targets and how they have been achieved as an annual statement to council.

10. With the help of the Local Government Association, establish a challenge board with appropriate experience at both top officer and elected Member level in unitary authorities to work with NCC, on a cross-party basis, as it addresses these recommendations

 

They destroyed a profitable trading company, denied all knowledge of huge spends on booze and broke the code of conduct?

 

The one good thing to come out of the Max Caller report into the scheming, lying, secret one party Conservative administration at County hall in Morpeth isn’t just that the mob will have to declare if they are freemasons or not, its that he has ordered  that the secrets must now come out and freedom of information requests must now be answered fully, five years on from their shut down.

The catch up has begun and after spending £120,000 having ARCH investigated and only finding one anomaly, that a £52 bottle of wine was purchased at a UK T&I event in France allowing Councillors Wearmouth and Oliver to write their own report, presented to the Audit Committee of the Council to have it legitimized and closed ARCH on the back of the lies it contained.

The hidden secret to come out this week is that in one day a group of the Mob (photo evidence attached) spent the equivalent of 199 bottles of wine, £10,366.25 in fact on a beanie at Westminster whilst breaking the Councils code of conduct by boozing whilst at work.

The revelation regarding the International Department was later denied by Councillor Jackson who just like his wind farm forgetfulness of a few years ago could not remember signing a contract that contributed towards the Council making £120,000 unlawful payment to its Chief Executive or ever having anything to do with International health trading during his reported attacks on that same chief executive, Daljit Lally.

The report on what he said is sat in one of the links below but here it is in case you can't open them

Councillor Peter Jackson said “In Northumbria, we are at the forefront of domestic health care and community care of the U.K. Therefore, it’s a great privilege for us to support and enhance other countries’ ability to develop their health care and community care. At the same time, we look forward to learning from our partners their advanced experience, truly achieving international cooperation and mutual benefit.”

This deal was with the Chinese who pulled out of the deal later but more of that story at another time and back to this one.

The giant expenditure which included almost £6000 on bait and booze with £774 spent on single day travel, can you imagine the costs if they had stayed overnight?

Can’t wait for Max’s clean up of Freedom of Information requests next installment which prove how inept the administration of lies really is at County Hall and how your Council Tax is propping up a septic regime complete with its convulsive culture.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/international_dept?nocache=incoming-2059072#incoming-2059072

http://www.rongqiao.com.cn/enm/show.aspx?ctlgid=534165&Id=1367

Northumberland County Council’s Speaker Peter Jackson said: “In Northumbria, we are at the forefront of domestic health care and community care of the U.K. Therefore, it’s a great privilege for us to support and enhance other countries’ ability to develop their health care and community care. At the same time, we look forward to learning from our partners their advanced experience, truly achieving international cooperation and mutual benefit.”

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s International Cooperation and Development Department Director Ms. Allison Joynson said, “Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust attaches importance to strategic cooperation with Rong Qiao Group. Such strategic partnership is bound to be long-lasting, close and sustainable.”

As partners of Rong Qiao Health Care, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust are both rated as “Outstanding” by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) of the U.K. Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust manages more than 100 hospitals, medical centers, community clinics, elderly care and other medical establishments. It has excellent professional competence in patient-centered health care services.

Auctioning empty shops could 'change face of high streets'

 

Analysis by the think-tank Onward shows that Government plans to force landlords to rent out empty high street premises could bring tens of thousands of shops back into use.

The research found there are about 58,000 shops empty across the UK. The Government's proposals would give councils the power to hold a rent auction where a town centre shop had been empty for more than a year.

Will Tanner, director of Onward, said: "Empty shops ... aren't only a very visible sign that the local economy is in dire need of levelling up, they are also a blow to civic pride". He added: "Auctioning off empty units for the benefit of start-ups, community groups and charities would transform the face of high streets across the United Kingdom."

The think-tank’s report said that two types of owners - financial institutions and overseas investors - account for half of all empty properties because they have little incentive to accept lower rents.

British Financial Institution Northumberland Estates have openly warned Northumberland County Council via the press that 50% of its properties in the Keel Row shopping centre smack bang in the middle of Blyth, the counties largest town, are empty.

A local business source linked to the centre stated that the ‘County Council are planning to build a three screen cinema in the centre of Blyth’s market square when they could redevelop the Keel Row into an excellent cinema and shopping experience 50yds from their chosen site to benefit the whole community’, ‘especially if they also reopen Regent Street to traffic enticing shoppers to drive through the central commercial heart of the Town instead of bypassing it’.

Remodelling the Keel Row would also protect the view across the Town Square keeping it intact between the shops on Market Street and Waterloo Road where events including the carnival, the xmas market, summer fair, art and music events could be held in Northumberland’s best and largest Town Square.

 

 

Governments Food Experts condemn Johnson’s Food strategy

 

It's a non-strategy which forces the public sector to buy home-grown produce without links to farmers or plans. It's been produced to take people's minds off the failure of Brexit and the PM?

 

The Government's new food strategy - due to be published today - will oblige schools and hospitals to buy British food.

 

Environment Secretary George Eustice said that under the plans, the public sector could see half of all its food locally produced and certified to higher standards, as part of efforts to support suppliers and drive economic growth.

 

The strategy will also will relax planning laws to approve a new generation of large-scale greenhouses that can grow crops all year.

 

Meanwhile, the Government's lead adviser on food issues, Henry Dimbleby, has condemned the plan, saying it is “not a strategy” and warning it could mean more children will go hungry. He said the document "doesn't set out a clear vision as to why we have the problems we have now and it doesn't set out what needs to be done.”

 

Northumberland Farmers already produce some food directly contracted by the County Council but they have also stated that ‘we have no idea where the investment to change from agriculture to horticulture will come from as EU development cash runs out next spring and that the shared prosperity fund is far too small to develop the vision the Government wants to see’.

Honesty and Integrity The people expect it.

 

Where’s Northumberland’s Resignations.

With people still disgruntled through the actions of the National Tory Party and its Leadership, Northumberland Tories in full public view ran out the report on the disgraceful happenings and core-rot of their County County Council since 2017.

Between the leading cabinet group and officers who opposed them they have destroyed a Council which Baroness Jane Scott, the Conservative Leader of Wiltshire County Council praised when Labour was in power following a Local Government Association ‘Peer review’ during 2014/15 financial year.

A report released this week shows how far down the ladder of shame the Council has slipped under the Tories since 2017 but the real problem isn't just the incredibly disgraceful behaviour of Top Councillors is that those Top Councillors did nothing about it.

Doing nothing about it is shameful as the current leader, Cllr Glen Sanderson JP - is the Local Government Association’s Regional Lead Peer for the East Midlands, North East and Yorkshire & Humber.

Regional Peer’s travel around Councils at great expense to the ratepayer instructing Councils how to get better, putting together improvement plans to guide them through the maze of problems that can beset Councils and when characters destroy the necessary links and working relationships between Officers of the Council and elected members, their reports are used to support Government in forcing Councils to remove those problems.

Being a member of the ‘Secret Cabinet’ of Northumberland County Council since may 2017 Councillor Sanderson simply sat back and watched as other members of the Cabinet acted shockingly and he did nothing about it. He then became Leader of Council following the former leader Councillor Peter Jackson being ousted by a coalition of rebel Conservatives, Labour Councillors and the Independent Group, Councillor Sanderson voted to retain Cllr Jackson in Office whilst fully aware of his antics and support for dreadful behaviour by others.

Things began to get much worse with one Councillor, Sanderson’s Deputy, Councillor Wearmouth abusing his power by reporting opposition Councils to the standards board when their opinion differed slightly with his.

Councillor Sanderson whose six year reign on the Secret one party Cabinet included three of those as Portfolio Holder for Local Services and coincided with the stoppage of key and local performance indicator information being issued to Councillors whose job it is to scrutinise his and other portfolio holders actions and when scrutineers asked questions they were either yelled at or reported to the standards board for questioning the Glorious Tories, and were sure that as a top very well paid peer for the Local Government Association, Councillor Sanderson preaches exactly the opposite before counting the bags of gold handed over to him for his supposedly sound advice.

But the nasty party members of the leading Tory Group carry on regardless striking fear into opposition members and Conservatives who hate the lies told about their activities by the Tories and whatever Max Caller the latest person attempting to resolve some of the issues the Council has adopted as its norm says, opposition members on the Council will not relish working with nasties who walk hand in glove with people like Boris Johnson and the devil whose scruples are so rotten that they can’t even picture what good behaviour looks like.

Councillors Sanderson and Wearmouth must now consider their futures and as one who knows better, Sanderson, who has turned a blind eye to Wearmouth’s activities should resign and Wearmouth should follow him out of the door.

https://www.lgcplus.com/politics/governance-and-structure/county-lost-its-way-over-a-number-of-years-says-review-09-06-2022/

'Fraud'? At Northumberland County Council?

 

'Never' states precursor to the damp squid.

With a report waiting in the wings from the well paid for 'by me' in the words of Glen Sanderson, the Tory Leader of the County Council, speaking about the report writer and G-Man, Max Caller, whose had his scribblings mostly leaked out through the Council's audit committee followed by strong articles in the press telling the world 'no ones to blame' Northumberland's soggiest and most pathetically unrewarding meeting of the six year 'secret council' reign of evil takes place this week.

Due to the national dissatisfaction with the Tories and the expectation that whatever is said in the long awaited tomb won't be in the interests of anyone but Northumberland Tories as they have paid for its production and because the information is harvested by the G-Man at interview, it may also be conservatively untrue! 

As farmers do, the muck that has been raked up is being riddled and reassigned to further fields and the lumps kicked into the long grass, article 114 report or not. 

Many of the Tories are in such a tizz as some of them aren't farmers and may be left out of the safeguarding tarpaulins being spread out around Morpeth and with the televised outbursts from Councillor Bawn overprotecting his rights not to declare he is a freemason leaving a large part of the clan with open sores being infected and the strongest element of the G-Mans report insisting the Council will have to show how well it can work together as a singular unit.

We know that regular readers will have had to take a break at this juncture to visit the loo as they roll around the floor hehawing and laughing with the thoughts that anyone could rally around and work in coalition with  Councillors Sanderson and Wearmouth let alone the Conservatives caught up with the bullying Tory core who can't stand what's been going on behind the still closed to all dark doors at County Hall.

With no one being to blame and no recognised fraud taking place at County Hall according to the FOI below, how will the opposition Councillors and the Conservatives who silently oppose and hate what's going on safeguard the staff who have suffered for the last six years, let's hope they step up to the plate and tell the Tories how it is, how it has been and how they expect the Tories to act in future.

Good Luck at the meeting to those who became Councillors to help those in need and be strong against the liars, cheats and bullies who are making everyone's lives miserable thinking Councillors are and can be as bad as Prime Ministers who don't give a damn!

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/fraud_employees_245?nocache=incoming-1993667#incoming-1993667