The deal
in which Liverpool Labour boss Joe Anderson was paid £4,500 a year by a Sefton
school for doing no work came under attack from Lib Dem councillors at Thursday’s
meeting of Sefton Council.
When
the school, Chesterfield High School in Crosby ,
ended the arrangement, Mayor Joe Anderson took the case to an Employment
Tribunal. When he lost there he appealed
and lost again, with the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal being
widely reported last week:
At
the Council meeting in Southport
Town Hall , Birkdale Lib
Dem councillor Simon Shaw led calls for an Inquiry into ‘all aspects of Sefton
Council’s involvement in this matter’.
However Bootle Labour council leader Peter Dowd turned down the request in
what is expected to be his final appearance before being elected MP for Bootle in two week’s time.
In
calling for the Inquiry Cllr Shaw quoted directly from the words of Judge
Serota who blasted the deal in his written Appeal judgement.
“When
you have a judge saying that Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson was ‘party to a
misuse of public funds’ and that ‘this arrangement may strike members of the
public as constituting a misapplication of public monies’ then it seems to me
that there needs be a thorough Inquiry into Sefton Council's involvement in
this matter,” said Cllr Shaw.
“For
Sefton Council’s Labour leader to pass the buck by saying that ‘the matters as
affecting Sefton Council were dealt with in accordance with the appropriate
legislation by officers’ is simply unacceptable.”
Lib
Dem councillors Iain Brodie Browne and Haydn Preece also asked questions about
the deal which the judge had condemned as ‘a reverse form of a zero hours
contract, whereby the school was bound to make payment of salary but the Claimant
(Mayor Anderson) was not bound to provide any services.’ However they also received dismissive replies
from Councillor Dowd.
Details
of the questions and answers given at the Sefton Council meeting are available
at: http://modgov.sefton.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/b20999/Supplementary%20Agenda%2023rd-Apr-2015%2018.30%20Council.pdf?T=9
The
full judgement from the Employment Appeals Tribunal is available at: http://www.employmentcasesupdate.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed26506