MP says silence on LiveWire investigation is unacceptable

WARRINGTON North MP Helen Jones is calling for a full public disclosure on the results of a governance investigation set up into LiveWire over fourteen months ago.

She has written to council Chief executive Steven Broomhead asking for the governance report to be made public but says she has been told this is not possible without permission of the LiveWire board.

Meanwhile Livewire, who operate the town’s libraries and leisure centres, have welcomed the “robust governance review” and say they have made progress across all recommendations highlighted in the report, which is reviewed with the council every quarter.

Angered by the lack of public disclosure Helen Jones said: “It is now well over a year since the governance report was commissioned and I understand that it has been completed but there remains a wall of silence from both the Borough Council and LiveWire as to the conclusions reached. This is frankly not acceptable.

“LiveWire spends public money and following the fiasco surrounding their handling of the library consultation and the subsequent revelations about how one of their major projects was been managed, the public have a right to know what is going on.

“I felt at the time that the governance investigation could have had a more extensive remit. It did, for example not include a review into how board members are recruited, what skills they should possess and why, following the recruitment of a consultant a sustainable plan for libraries was not produced.

“However, despite my reservations about the limited remit of the investigation, the fact it was set up represented some acknowledgment of LiveWire’s inadequacies.

“I was promised that the report would be made public. Now I am told the report cannot be made public without the permission of the LiveWire board and management who, I understand have had the report for some time. Sadly, there remains a deafening silence from this quarter – they are clearly reluctant to tell the public what the conclusions are and I suspect are hoping everyone will have forgotten the shambles of 2017.

“It remains the case that no one at board or senior management level has ever accepted responsibility for the long list of failures we saw throughout 2017. There remains a real issue about people spending public money but regarding themselves as unaccountable when things go wrong.

“ I have written to the council’s Chief Executive asking him to ensure this report is made public. The public have a right to know and the council itself should be ensuring that people can see how the problems associated with this public interest company have been addressed.“

A LiveWire spokesperson said: “All good organisations take opportunities to learn from their experiences, and we’re no different. This robust governance review, commissioned by the council, looked in detail about what we do and how we do it – and that can take time – but we have welcomed the opportunity to challenge ourselves.

“As an organisation we’ve made many improvements since 2017 and we’re pleased to have made progress across all the recommendations highlighted in the report, which we have been reviewing with the Council every quarter.”