Sunday, November 12, 2006

STOP THIEF! MCELHINNEY AND THE JOINT VENTURE

HENSHAW'S rottweiller - Dr David McElhinney - is responsible for the systematic theft of public money from Liverpool for the last FIVE YEARS, it is now clear.
Millions of pounds were involved according to the city council's new chief executive, Colin Hilton.
Yet no action will be taken against McElhinney who continues to abuse his position as a public servant by installing a shower for his own personal use in his office.
It is also clear that the sensational allegations made against McElhinney on Tony Parrish's liverpoolevilcabal blog about the culture one stop shop, The 08 PLace and his friend, millionaire pop promoter Chas Cole, were just the tip of the iceberg.
They pale into insignificance compared to what has been uncovered by independent auditors, KPMG who have made 37 separate recommendations about the future conduct of council contracts with Liverpool Direct Limited, which is run by McElhinney.
The council contracts with LDL are worth an astonishing £520 million and cover services such as all staffing matters for the city council's 19,500 employees, car parking, revenues and benefits, grants and IT.
As chief exec of LDL, McElhinney is now in charge of all these, after quickly jumping ship from the city council when former Leader Mike Storey handed over a dossier of evidence against him.
Although the council are refusing to make their independent report public and have only come clean about the recommendations, it is now possible to piece together what was going on under the hated McElhinney.
  • Services provided by LDL were vastly more expensive than when they were provided by the council.
  • In some cases, the difference in costs between the two organisations was "substantial".
  • McElhinney's LDL deliberately inflated the cost of providing some services.
  • There were no regular reviews of services to check that the city council was getting value for money.
  • Services provided by LDL were not subject to the same rules as council services, which are designed to prevent corruption.
  • There was a growing informal relationship between the city council and LDL, which led to eyebrows being raised and prompted questions about integrity and propriety.
The report also calls for independent officials to be brought in to monitor the relationship between the council and LDL.
There is also bad news for chief executive Colin 'Cover Up' Hilton (left) who allowed McElhinney to escape to LDL in March, as his boss Henshaw left.
The report says staff should not be able to transfer to LDL within six months of leaving the council - a clear slap in the face for Hilton's mishandling of the McElhinney scandal.
It is now clear that McEhinney has been robbing the people of Liverpool blind to feather his own nest at LDL ever since it was set up as a joint venture with BT in 2000.
And he must have had the support of former chief executive Henshaw and the smiling assassin Halsall, who is supposed to keep an eye on taxpayers money.
Either both members of the evil cabal were grossly incompetent - or they colluded in the theft of council taxpayers money.
The city council should now be taking action against both over the missing millions.
Meanwhile BT Chairman Sir Ian Bland is also under pressure to take action against McElhinney and to repay the money robbed from Liverpool by the joint venture.
Editor's note: BT is worth £23.2 billion and last week announced half-year profits of £665million - an increase of 12 per cent.

COMING SOON: More on the thief McElhinney and the LDL joint venture with BT.
Dr David McElhinney

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

It struck me reading the Daily Post the other day that MCelhinney must think the politicians are complete numbskulls. he has served up a new LDL scheme for Marbrow, which involves the city centre being wireless'd up by BT. Quite why Marbrow has not insisted that poorer areas such as his own ward of Kensington should not be part of the digital revolution first before the rich city centre, is beyond me. You can wonder into any coffee bar in the city centre open up a lap top and get a wireless connection already from the numerous offices and businesses around. It doesn't need wireless connections from BT thank you very much. If it was in Kenny or other pooere areas then maybe people could learn new skills and progress? Or would that be too radical a notion? Anyway McElhinney has obviously given this bollocks to marbrow to divert attention away from the LDL scandal and to bolster fat boy's ego. And to try and get a positive headline to save his twisted little neck. The pity is the councillors on the Excec Board will probably be taken in by all this nonsense which is completely uncosted and contains absolutely no figures or dates for implementation. In other words, rather like much else that McElhinney has alegedely produced, this wireless nonsense is completely fanciful and spun like crazy to throw him a lifeline. When will anyone get wise?

Tori Blare said...

The reason the councillors on the exececutive board have been taken in by all this nonsence is because they are either stupid, or there is something in it for them!
Larry Neild getting thrown out of the executive board meeting to discuss the show me the money pops, furthers the belief that the council HAVE something to hide. The people of Liverpool paid for that report, yet cover up is living up to his name and blatantly covering up, not only Mad Dogs role in this sorry affair but all the people who have known about him and his cronies yet just sat back and allowed it to continue.You all know who you are, if people HAD done something to stop these theives not only would we not need the likes of Mr Parrish and the blogs but maybe just maybe, the dog and his co-horts would have been stopped and brought to justice.
This sadly is the real world and the so called Lib-dem councillors have allowed it to continue.
How stupid do you really have to be to become a councillor?

Anonymous said...

The KPMG report is covered by a commercial confidence contract and, as stated from the outset, is not available as a public document. However, the 43 recommendations are being made public. As a matter of routine practice, a copy of the report has been sent to the District Auditor, who monitors council performance, for information.

So there ner ner

Tony Parrish47 said...

And we can have every confidence in him, he's been actively looking after the public's money throughout the Henshaw regime, hasn't he? Just because the council say the report is covered by a commercial confidence contract, doesn't mean that the people of Liverpool should accept secrecy, does it? It should be available as a public document, although we are reliably informed that it has been filleted in advance and contains very little explanation or justification for the 37 separate recommendations it makes. In other words, they have deliberately suppressed the evidence which implicates Mcelhinney...

Tori Blare said...

Macca has stuff on A LOT of people so he is obviously told them if he goes down he will be taking a hell of a lot of people down with him!
Even stuff on Sir Diddy!
If wish they would call his bluff, as knowing him he will, take the rest down with him and then hopefully we can get rid of all corruption and stop all the bullying of staff in the council, in one fell swoop.
Hilton said he would follow all the reccommendations and have it in place by end of financial year didn't he?
Watch this space, who knows what will happen next!??

Anonymous said...

ishe talking about mccartney?

Anonymous said...

Remember to vote early and vote often!

Anonymous said...

Christ knows how they can justify keeping Halsall on as City Treasurer when he allowed all this to happen too!

Anonymous said...

These are just arrogant bastards who have nothing but contempt for ordinary people and think they can get away with anything they want. It is sickening and horrific that these men are being paid by the people of Liverpool to make public services better. The stocks is too good for them.

Tori Blare said...

Is that a Tony Parish award that McElhinney is holding.
Smug looking git

Tori Blare said...

Look what I found on some techi site!!!
Laugh? I sent the idiot a link to this site so he can see the real truth!

interview: Joint venture boosts council efficiency

David McElhinney explains how Liverpool council and BT have improved public services
James Murray, IT Week 16 Jun 2006
ADVERTISEMENT

Many local councils could improve the quality of their services by deploying new technologies. However, the small size of many councils makes it hard for them to do this, according to David McElhinney, chief executive of Liverpool Direct, a public-private partnership between BT and Liverpool City Council responsible for providing the council's revenue and benefits services.

Following its launch in 2001, Liverpool Direct started a multi-million-pound transformation project that saw it set up 10 one-stop-shop service centres; launch a 24/7 call centre; update the HR and payroll software; implement council-wide e-procurement tools; and deploy a major image scanning and workflow management system.

McElhinney said that by integrating these different systems the council has cut complaints to its revenue and benefits operation by 76 percent while simultaneously reducing costs from around £20m a year to just £5m.

Key to many of the improvements has been the ability to replace paper with electronic documents. "Previously, we had paper, paper and more paper," McElhinney said. "We had three floors of a building filled with paper files."

Liverpool Direct uses 30 Kodak i60 and i260 scanners to convert forms from paper. It has reduced costs and improved customer service by integrating the scanned forms with workflow technology provided by public sector software specialist Comino, automatically assigning forms to the right staff for processing at the right time.
But despite this success, McElhinney voiced concerns that many other councils are not in a position to emulate Liverpool Direct's transformation effort. " Most councils' benefits and revenue departments are relatively small," he said. "This implementation cost us £5m and took 18 months, and for smaller councils it is difficult to authorise that level of investment."

The government has suggested councils should share service centres to overcome this problem, and achieve economies of scale. But McElhinney is sceptical: "They could provide a means to the end," he admitted. "But the problem is [while] everyone wants to form a shared service centre, no one wants to be the council it is done to."
However, even large councils with the budget to undertake major IT initiatives will struggle without private-sector input, McElhinney argued. "Even a council the size of Liverpool couldn't do this [level of transformation] without a PPP [public-private partnership]," he said. "As a joint venture with BT we have been able to use BT's power to get suppliers to act quickly."

McElhinney believes more drastic changes to the structure of local government may ultimately be the only way to enhance efficiency in services. "The government is talking about any police force with fewer than 4,000 officers being forced to merge," he observed. "But you don't see the same discussion with services like revenue and benefits. Maybe the government is using the police as a trial and will roll out similar initiatives to other services, because [it] must be frustrated by the slow pace of transformation."

About David McElhinney

David McElhinney is chief executive of Liverpool Direct, a public-private partnership between BT and Liverpool City Council.

His background in marketing and general management includes 15 years working for Littlewoods Organisation.

Anonymous said...

I never