Cost of investigation and disciplinary process re senior council officer-UPDATE

Wirral Council has responded to the Freedom of Information request as follows:

Good Afternoon,
Thank you for your email below. I have now had sight of the invoices which the Council received and paid in relation to the independent Investigation, and they are from, and paid to North West Employers. I hope this has been of use.
Kind Regards

M Smith has replied:

Dear Ms Corrin,

Thank you for that information. In order to clear up any confusion, would it be possible for you to establish whether or not the investigation was sub-contracted by North West Employers to Vic Hewitt Consulting Ltd?

Regarding the second element of my request, you say there were no separate associated legal costs, as the legal work was all done in house by Wirral Council Employees.

Please will you provide an estimate of the cost of this investigation, as I assume the employees were not working pro bono. This can be calculated from the number of
man-hours entailed and the salaries of those concerned.

Also I understand that Mr Martin Moreton, a Council whistle blower, stated publicly at a recent meeting of the Audit and Risk Management Committee that Wirral Council paid his solicitor's fees, in relation to the disciplinary investigation, from its
commencement in 2008.

Thank you

Yours sincerely,

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Cost of investigation and disciplinary process re senior council officers-LATEST

M Smith has responded to Wirral Council regarding this FOI request:

Dear Ms Corrin,

As a result of the annotation made by Veridici I made a telephone call to North West Employers. They confirmed that Mr Hewitt did indeed retire early last year, well before the investigation was ordered by WBC.

In view of this I think it best that the internal review go ahead in order to establish whether the information with which you have been provided is correct.

Yours sincerely,

This brings the number of requests awaiting internal review to twelve, with another seven overdue.

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© copyright . Reproduced under fair use for the dual purposes of comment and news reporting
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Cost of investigation and disciplinary process re senior council office-LATEST

Wirral Council has provided information regarding this FOI request:

Good Afternoon,

Further to my email below, please find detailed the costs to the Council of the Independent Investigation, carried out by North West Employers.
(Apologies that this request has been delayed until today and not responded to on the due date of 28 September 2009.)

Costs including VAT were £14,678.95

I hope the information I have supplied is of use to you.
Kind Regards

Natasha Eubank has made an annotation to the above as follows:

is there no hard copy evidence to support the amount quoted by WBC?

There should be.

Veridici has made an annotation with the following:

Natasha Eubank, my information from a very reliable source is that the investigation was not carried out by North West Employers.

Vic Hewitt of Vic Hewitt Consulting Ltd (Regd. No. 06490633) retired from North West Employers over nine months prior to being appointed by WBC.

He is a one-man business working from home. Around £3,000 per day (not £5,000 as stated on WDTK ) is a very nice little earner for a pensioner, isn't it?

Just when you think it can't get any worse, too!
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© copyright . Reproduced under fair use for the dual purposes of comment and news reporting
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