Liverpool City Council was rocked by allegations of bribery, fraud and corruption in 2020. Trust in the council was badly damaged but, like the city as a whole, it is building itself back up after months of turmoil. Lisa Pilkington looks to the future with council chief executive Tony Reeves.
It is almost a year since news broke of a major scandal at Liverpool City Council, following the arrests of mayor Joe Anderson and several top officers over allegations of corrupt property deals.
On 4 December 2020, Liverpool City Council was thrust into the glare of national news headlines for all the wrong reasons, owing to allegations of bribery, fraud, corruption, witness intimidation and misconduct.
The five men accused, including director of regeneration Nick Kavanagh and Andy Barr, the council’s assistant director of highways and planning, denied any wrongdoing. Days later, Anderson stepped aside while Merseyside Police made their investigations.
Two weeks after the original news of the scandal broke, then secretary of state for housing, communities and local government Robert Jenrick stepped in and ordered an official inspection of Liverpool City Council. Speaking at the time, Jenrick said he had ordered the inspection to get “direct, independent assurance that the council is compliant with its best value duty”.
Culture of intimidation
Fast-forward to 23 March this year, the day before the government’s inspection report findings were announced, and Kavanagh was dismissed.
The “Best Value” inspector’s report, written by Max Caller, a local government executive, cited an “intimidating” regeneration style at the council, with missing or hidden detail over property sales. The report described a “bullying culture” and said there was “pressure to behave in a certain way with certain people”.
Employees said they “could not speak out” and the report said “people who did not comply did not last”. It added that “the only way to survive was to do what was requested without asking too many questions or applying normal professional standards”.
The investigation revealed no proper filing and poor records around disposals, with documents regularly being destroyed or discarded in skips. Inspectors said: “It has been hard to establish what deal actually was approved and who authorised it.”
Some 65 sales since 2015 were found to have issues. The inspector also noted there was no market testing and buyers were selected from “a very restricted pool”.
Council employees told the inspection team that “often the challenging behaviour came from the mayor and prominent councillors”.
The criminal investigation remains ongoing. None of those arrested have been charged.
The key part of our responsibility is to rebuild our credibility and to rebuild the trust in the council from a wide range of stakeholders
Tony Reeves, Liverpool City Council
Gaining trust
It has been a tough 12 months to be leading the city council, but for chief executive Tony Reeves (pictured), who joined the council in 2018 after advising the local authority on its strategy and transformation as a consultant, change is afoot, and he and his current senior officers have the trust of government.
“In terms of good local government process, in terms of securing best value for the people of Liverpool, a small number of people did wrong – significant wrong,” Reeves tells EG. “And that was a real problem. But, actually, it was good governance that identified the problem; it was identified from within the council. We made the referral to the police and we dealt with those issues.”
Reeves is at pains to explain that he is not in any way trying to “sugar-coat” what happened. He says: “It happened over an extended period of time. I’m not talking about the police allegations. That’s a matter for the police, in terms of the criminal allegations.” And he is candid that “there are things that we need to improve”.
This is undoubtedly a difficult time for the council. Reputation is everything, and Reeves and his council colleagues are trying to rebuild Liverpool’s political and public image day by day.
“The key part of our responsibility is to rebuild our credibility and to rebuild the trust in the council from a wide range of stakeholders, including the development industry, investors, local businesses and, of course, the people of Liverpool,” he says. “Because if people don’t have trust in the council, if it doesn’t have credibility, that will affect the decisions that people make about this city and its future.”
Improvement journey
Despite the column inches of bad news, there are silver linings to take from the situation. The council’s leadership immediately accepted there was a problem and has owned it. It has never been in denial and is working hard to put things right.
Reeves admits: “It has been a really tough period. We’ve been open and honest about the issues that we’ve been dealing with. We’re now working positively with the commissioners who are overseeing our improvement journey, and we’re working really hard to rebuild our reputation. And that comes with doing things properly and with absolute transparency. We’re working very hard to do that.”
Part of the city’s rehabilitation is the appointment in May of Joanne Anderson (no relation to Joe Anderson) as the new mayor, which, anecdotally, is proving to be working well.
It has to be borne in mind that the criticisms of the council have been levelled only at one part of it, and not the whole organisation. Other services, including education and culture, were absolved of any wrongdoing in the report and by Jenrick.
Positive sentiment
Reeves is realistic about the future: “We have got a couple of years of hard slog ahead of us to get everything in place that we need to, and we should be pretty much best-in-class around all of those issues [in the report] at that point.”
Encouragingly for Liverpool, external perceptions about the city already appear to be on the mend, says Reeves. “The interesting thing that we have heard from a number of investors and developers over the past 12 months is that the fact that we have dealt with these issues has positively impacted investment sentiment towards the city. There was a perception that things weren’t right for many years, and that was affecting a lot of people’s appetites to invest in Liverpool. We are now seeing the signs of that improved sentiment.”
While Reeves is optimistic about Liverpool’s onward trajectory, he is also sincerely contrite: “Even though the people that did the wrongdoing are not here, it is absolutely our responsibility to put this right. And it is our duty to Liverpool… to make sure that the governance, transparency and credibility of the council reflects what the city is really about and what it has to offer the outside world.”
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