Phil Halsall - Misinformation by Mayor Anderson

The request was refused by Liverpool City Council.

Dear Liverpool City Council,
In the Council meeting held in January 2018, Cllr Richard Kemp put the following written question to the Mayor:

"Would the Mayor please confirm that Mr Phil Halsall and Mr Ged Fitzgerald are council appointed directors of the Liverpool Arena Company. If this is the case would he inform the council why he considers this appropriate in the current legal circumstances?"
The Mayor's answer was as follows:

"Mr Halsall is not a director of Liverpool Arena and Convention Centre."

As Mayor Anderson will know the name - Liverpool Arena and Convention Centre was changed in June 2015 - to - ACC Liverpool Group Ltd. It is clear that it is the same company, and Mayor Anderson will be cognisant of that fact.

Please supply the following information:
[1] As Phil Halsall IS a director of ACC Liverpool Group Ltd please supply all the reasons why Mayor Anderson misinformed Council by stating that Mr Halsall was NOT a director of this company?
[2] Please supply all the reasons why Mayor Anderson failed to mention that Phil Halsall is also a director of ACC Liverpool Hotel Ltd when Cllr Kemp's question was obviously focused on the point that Phil Halsall is on police bail and was questioning the appropriateness of him being involved in LCC companies. This could be considered misinformation by omission

Yours faithfully,

Josie Mullen

Finance and Resources, Liverpool City Council

Information request
Our reference: 573333

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Information Requests, Liverpool City Council

2 Attachments

Dear Ms Mullen

 

Please see attached response to your FOI Request as submitted to Liverpool
City Council.

 

Regards

 

Information Team

 

Information Requests

Liverpool City Council

[1][email address]

[2]LCC auto signature (2)

 

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Dear Liverpool City Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Liverpool City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Phil Halsall - Misinformation by Mayor Anderson'.

[ GIVE DETAILS ABOUT YOUR COMPLAINT HERE ]
In your FOI response there is no evidence whatsoever that Mr Halsall resigned his position as Director of the ACC Liverpool Group Ltd in November 2017. According to Companies House, the last person to resign from ACC was David McDonnell on the 31/03/17.This was received for electronic filing on the 17/05/17. If Mr Halsall had resigned in November 2017,even taking into account that it can take 6 weeks to appear in electronic format, then the information should have appeared in Companies House by the end of December 2017. The only information for Mr Halsall is CHO1 [ef] - Change of Particulars for Director, delivered 31/01/2018 - THIS IS NOT TERMINATION OF APPOINTMENT. It seems that every director registered Change of Particulars information on the 1st Feb. 2018. Please investigate my Internal Review on the following grounds:

[1] The response to this FOI did not furnish any written evidence or a link to any electronic evidence that proves that Mr Philip Halsall resigned as director of ACC Liverpool Group in November 2017.....please supply the evidence that proves that Mr Halsall, or his representative, officially contacted Companies House in November 2017 to resign his position of director [copy of official electronic form/email with attachment]
[2] In the same FOI I asked about ACC Liverpool Hotels Ltd in relation to Mr Halsall...this was ignored

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...

Yours faithfully,

Josie Mullen

Information Requests, Liverpool City Council

2 Attachments

Dear Ms Mullen

 

Please see a letter advising of the outcome of the Internal Review
undertaken in respect of Information Request 573333.

 

Regards

 

Information Team

 

Information Requests

Liverpool City Council

[1][email address]

[2]LCC auto signature (2)

 

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References

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Katie M. left an annotation ()

Great questions, and utterly shocking responses - the first one was an outright lie, and the review just repeated the same rubbish.
The Council appear to be refusing your request for evidence of Halsall's having resigned as a director of LCC on the basis that the info is in the public domain.
It isn't, because he hasn't.
As your request for a review correctly pointed out, the only change to the info on Mr Halsall on file with Companies House (since he was appointed a director in December 2010) is the change of particulars it filed for every director of the company on 31 Jan 2018 (likely to be a change of contact address or something similar). This was a couple of weeks AFTER the Council meeting at which Joe provided a partial and wholly untruthful response (so even if Halsall really had resigned at the end of January, it would not alter the fact that Anderson himself told a bare-faced lie.
And ACC Liverpool Hotel Limited is not just "another company", it is a wholly owned subsidiary of the company you were asking about, part of the same group (wholly owned by Liverpool City Council), so it is covered by Kemp's question.
Halsall was made a director of the Hotel subsidiary on 27 January 2015, well over a year after he had left Lancashire CC "by mutual consent", and also after the attention Lancashire Police was paying to him (searching his property, questioning him) had been extensively reported by the Liverpool Echo among other media outlets. And he didn't replace anyone - so why did they appoint him? Create a directorship just for him?
Joe Anderson is a director of both companies, and was a director at the time these appointments were made (he joined the ACC Liverpool board on 1 September 2010 and the ACC Liverpool Hotel board 16 December 2013), so he will have been involved in the decisions to appoint Mr. Halsall. Does he not take his duties seriously? Go to board meetings? Read the agendas? And if he doesn't, LCC also has Wendy Simon and Ged Fitzgerald as its directors. Did they not go/read/vote either? Or have they got collective amnesia?
This needs nailing. You should ask the Information Commissioner's Office for advice on how to appeal this: they are refusing to provide information on the grounds that it is already available, when in reality the information does not actually exist because it isn't true.

Dear Information Requests,
Please read response by Katie M.......
Yes, as usual, I will be writing to the ICO about this matter. You treat some important FOI requests with absolute disdain...and there is no reason why the public should put up with it

Yours sincerely,

Josie Mullen