MEDIA RELEASE
Issued by:
Councillor Tom Harney
Date of Issue: January 11th 2012
Contact numbers:
07980 280074
0151 3272146
Lib Dem office: 0151 691 8544

LIB DEM LEADER COMMENTS ON AKA REPORT

Speaking following the release of the AKA Limited report, Independent Review of Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council's Response to Claims Made by Mr Martin Morton (and Others), Lib Dem Group Leader Cllr Tom Harney said;

"As I have only had the report for a matter of a couple of hours and it is around 250 pages in length (excluding the appendices), I will need to read the report in detail in order to be able to comment fully on its content.

"However, the handling of the release of this report has been a shambles. It has taken a very long time for this report to be published, so it isn't as though they did not have sufficient time to prepare. 

"One of the key recommendations of the consultant is that the whole council should work together, regardless of political persuasion on the improvement process, but the Labour Administration is not letting this happen.

"The Liberal Democrat Group have shown that we are willing to work in cooperation with the Administration to support work to improve the council and put political differences aside while things are sorted out. This is vital for the sake of Wirral residents, businesses and employees.

"But despite our willingness to cooperate with this process, time and again we have been excluded from it. I myself was only handed a copy of the final report a few hours before publication and was not even invited to the council's press conference on this issue - in fact I was told 'no' when I asked if I could attend.

"So much for this new era of openness from Labour - so far they seem to have learnt nothing from their past mistakes.

"Steve Foulkes must be judged by his actions and not by his words. Until the Labour Leader starts to talk to us in a mature way, we won't be able to make progress."