We smell a Rat (run) - incompetent Wigan council strikes again

7 years ago Wigan Council closed the right hand turn into clapgate lane from the A49 at the Marus Bridge roundabout (see orginal story here). At a cost of thousands the council justified the decision on safety grounds.

Now the council is to put the junction back in its original form, wasting tens of thousands of taxpayers money in doing so ....

Plans can be found here

Labour run Wigan Council admits to hacking 3 Councillors e-mails

If you're ever complained to your Councillor by e-mail or telephone regarding a confidential issue or complained about staff, or services, there's a chance that Wigan Council staff may also have been reading your correspondence.

Wigan Council refused to admit that its staff were hacking peoples e-mails.
After failing to provide the information for 7 months an intervention by the ICO has forced Wigan Council to disclose the information;

Wigan Council have finally admitted to hacking 3 Councillors IT, but fail to identify who they have hacked, how often or who authorised it....
The Council admits it keeps no records of dates and number of times the Councillors records are accessed.

Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2014 5:51 PM
Subject: Freedom of Information Requests - ID 5335

I am writing to respond to your freedom of information request   This request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The response to your request is detailed below.
Examination of how the Council maintained network and supported devices are utilised is periodically performed by Internal Audit to assess all staff and members compliance with the Council's Acceptable Use of ICT and IT Security policies. This includes appropriate examination of logs in relation to network security, internet, emails and text messages. Authorisation to perform these functions is contained within the Constitution. Where any suspected irregularities are identified then further detailed investigations are conducted and reported accordingly. Internal Audit activities are reported 6 monthly to the Audit, Governance and Improvement Review Committee and also in the Council's statutory disclosure document.
In addition to these planned reviews, ad hoc investigations are also performed where there is suspected misuse of Council provided IT based services that could lead to disciplinary action against officers and/or Members and/or referral to the Police for prosecution where appropriate.
As outlined in your request I can provide the following information.
Access to specific members records was as follows:
2012/13 - 2 members
2013/14 - 1 additional member
The reason for access to all records was due to investigations.
There is no record maintained of the exact dates and number of times records are accessed as all occasions would have been required for the purpose of the investigations.
If you are unhappy with any aspect of this response, an independent senior officer will review this decision. Please let me know if you would like to arrange this.You can also complain to the Information Commissioner, who is the regulator for Freedom of Information. His website is www.informationcommisioner.gov.uk and his helpline number is 0303 1231113.
His staff may ask you to exhaust our internal complaints procedure if you choose to complain to his office now.
May I take this opportunity to apologise for the delay in responding to your request, this is due to the high volumes currently being received.

Yours Sincerely


Data Protection and Freedom of Information OfficerResources Directorate
Legal & Risk
Wigan Council
Town Hall
Wigan
WN1 1YN

x

Wigan Council refuses to call on Councillors accessing pornography on Council laptops & mobile phones to resign.

Many will know the story of ‘Porno Bob’ also known as Wigan Cllr Robert Bleakley and his accessing of pornography on his taxpayer funded mobile phone and laptop.

WIGAN COUNCILLOR SHAME

The ruling Labour party on Wigan Council tabled a motion at the full council meeting on Wednesday 24th Sept 2014 calling on Cllr Bleakley to resign, which passed unanimously.

However (and was unreported in the media) wanting to go one better, independent Cllr Garth Fairhurst tabled a motion calling for all Wigan Councillors who accessed pornography to be called on to resign. He also called for resignations if they were found to have misused taxpayer’s money in claiming expenses.

Cllr Fairhurst said ‘ This way the Council would send out a clear message that we as a Council would not tolerate porn on Council equipment like their, laptops, Blackberry's or iPads’

Incredibly the ruling Labour party opposed this and voted it down, in effect giving Councillors the green light to access pornography and fiddle expenses without facing any kind of censure by the Council.

This raises the question that UKIP wanting answering; have Labour party Councillors also been accessing pornography and abusing their telephones and are they concerned that they will be caught doing so in the near future?

Wigan Labour party do have a history of this kind of thing (accessing child pornography, expense scandals and racism) and many will suspect that they haven’t identified other councillors for political reasons.

Even Cllr Fairhurst said; ‘I can only draw the conclusion that Labour are not bothered about their Cllrs that have porn on their Laptops. That is disgusting and now Labour have let Standards continue to be in the gutter by voting against  the motion. It seems to me that Labour don't mind their Cllrs to misuse their Council Equipment for accessing porn otherwise they would have voted with my motion’
http://garethfairhurst.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/labour-vote-against-banning-porn-on.html

Watchdog puts Wigan Council on monitoring list over FOI response delays

Wigan Council joins 3 other councils in being monitored over poor delays over Freedom of Information requests.

Labour Politicians come out fighting over St Helens Labour candidate..

It looks as if Labour politicians can get it right sometimes.....

Labour MP Shaun Woodward, 55,  describes his replacement - Labour candidate for St Helens Marie Rimmer as a "true fighter"

Rt. Hon. Margaret Hodge MP describes Labour candidate for St Helens: “She's a natural fighter"

Shadow cabinet member Maria Eagle said: "Marie Rimmer has long been a doughty fighter for Merseyside"

It had to happen.....

Former Merseyside council leader Marie Rimmer charged over alleged assault at Scottish independence polling station

Although in fairness our Wigan Labour Councillors have been doing this kind of thing for years. 

Councillor fined for attack on ex-RL star

Labour run Wigan Council admits it has no idea were £96,000 has gone.

Poor Wigan Labour MP Lisa Nandy got her timing badly wrong this week and was left with a touch of egg on her face.

As shadow Cabinet Office minister she lambasted the Tories over its 'Big society' idea in Parliament. Lisa told the House of Commons: “We now know that the Government’s Big Society lies in tatters’ after the cabinet office announced it was trying to recoup £33,994 it had donated to a charity, see the full story in the independent here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/big-society-in-tatters-says-labour--as-charity-funds-face-recall-9727658.html

Bad timing for Lisa however, because  it was announced at the same time that that her own Labour run Wigan council has just admitted losing 3 times that amount, some £96,000 donated to a music group.  At a lost a lost to explain were the money had disappeared to, her local Wigan council staff have admitted ‘the council has no idea where the £96,000 has gone'


http://www.wigantoday.net/news/local/music-group-s-funding-cut-as-96k-of-public-money-goes-missing-1-6834827


If the Tories policy is in tatters over £33k, is Labour’s policy down the toilet for 96k?

Labour in threat to sue its own MP in row over 'backward Northerners’.

Labour has threatened to sue one of its own MPs, Austin Mitchell, after he claimed a senior aide to Ed Miliband referred to Northerners as ‘backward’....

Austin Mitchell said Miss Yearley made the comment to him and also claimed she talked to him like 'an educationally subnormal pensioner'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2733374/Labour-threat-sue-MP-row-backward-Northerners-Veteran-clashes-Eds-woman-fixer-call-female-lists.html