Exclusive: Gerard Woodhouse was investigated over allegations of ‘financial irregularity’

The County Ward councillor denies all accusations of wrongdoing

Dear members — last August, we published a long-read about County Ward councillor Gerard Woodhouse that turned out to be one of our most popular pieces. In it, we looked at Woodhouse’s propensity to tell tall tales in the local and national press, often in the form of exaggerated stories of poverty. It mattered, we argued, because Woodhouse’s Liverpool Six charity receives a lot of money from private donors and public funds — in particular from the Mayoral Neighbourhood Fund. What we didn’t know then, but do now, is that Woodhouse has already been investigated by the council for possible misuse of the fund, including accusations that he personally funnelled money into organisations he was linked to. We’ve got our hands on a copy of that investigation, never made public by the council. Woodhouse strongly denies all of the claims.

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Your Post briefing

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced £20 billion of investment in carbon capture and storage, which he said will kick off with projects on Merseyside, in yesterday’s budget. According to the BBC, the budget “had a focus on prompting those who have left their jobs to return to the workforce, and boosting business investment.” Other key announcements included the following:

1. Free childcare of 30 hours a week for working parents in England will be be expanded to cover one and two-year-olds (but will only be fully implemented in September 2025)

2. The government is scrapping the lifetime allowance on tax-free pension contributions, which is currently £1.07m, to stop people like doctors from retiring early

3. Government subsidies limiting typical household energy bills to £2,500 a year extended for three months, until the end of June

4. Defence spending is being boosted by £11bn

5. The economy will narrowly avoid recession, but spending power is still forecast to fall by 6% over this fiscal year and next, according to independent watchdog the OBR

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was highly critical, calling the government “out of touch” and using a phrase familiar around here: “managed decline”. 

Another £4.4 million has been allocated to the controversial West Kirby sea wall project, taking its overall budget up to £15.9 million. Despite disagreements, all Wirral councillors voted in favour of the extra funding — which comes from the Environment Agency — for the wall, which will stretch for 1.15km with the aim of protecting houses from flooding and storms. The wall has evoked a lot of anger among locals, who said in a statement that it was a “hugely expensive white elephant”. Issues listed include loss of parking, damage to town businesses, pile driving shaking houses and spoling the promenade, “an amenity for walkers from far and wide”. Labour councillor Steve Foulkes argued public opinion will eventually shift as sea levels rise, saying: “I think there's a little bit of egg on a number of people's faces because they railed against the design… and now it's taking shape and people can see it.” 

Sport Minister Stuart Andrew says Liverpool fans should be praised for behaviour that led to no deaths amid the chaos of last season’s Champions League final. His comments follow a damning Uefa report last month into the “colossal policing and safety failures” that game between Liverpool and Real Madrid in Paris, and saw fans teargassed by French police. The French authorities initially put the blame at the door of Liverpool fans, accusing them of attempting to gain access to the stadium without tickets, though this was disproven. “I’m glad to see that the Liverpool fans were exonerated from any blame and in fact actually it was only because of how they behaved there were no fatalities,” Andrew said. 

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Post Picks

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🎨 Wine in one hand, brush in the other, slip away into a Van Goghian fantasy with City Wine Bar’s Saturday night “sip & paint”, where you can recreate Michelle Shore's Starry Night over Liverpool with guidance from a practising artist. Tickets here.

🎶 When eccentric tobacco magnate and philanthropist Joseph Williamson moved into the Edge Hill area in 1805 and ordered his workers, for unknown reasons, to dig a massive network of tunnels beneath the town, would he have expected that 200 years later his creation would be home to an Analog rave? Who knows. But that’s what’s happened. More information here.

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By Jack Walton 

Last month, a tipster sent me a report leaked from the council. Marked on each page of these crumpled sheets of paper was the word “CONFIDENTIAL” in giant capital letters. They were stamped over an internal report alleging that a prominent Liverpool politician might be misusing public funds. Dated November 2019, Liverpool’s internal audit team said it had received “a number of whistleblowing referrals” raising concerns about Gerard Woodhouse, a Labour councillor for County Ward. The substance of the report was interesting to say the least.

Let’s recap. You might remember our investigation last year about Woodhouse, a well-connected, media-friendly politician who runs a charity in Everton called the L6 Community Association. It has a food union, a baby bank and a school uniform service, and it clearly helps many very vulnerable people. In our story, we documented how Woodhouse has exaggerated the impact of his charity. He claimed, for instance, that young mothers were having to leave their babies on maternity wards because they couldn’t afford car seats — a claim debunked by Liverpool Women’s Hospital. A number of Woodhouse’s far-fetched stories have been credulously reported by the BBC, ITV, and most frequently, the Echo. The substance of our article was this: the false stories Woodhouse puts into the media are worth investigating. He receives a lot of money from taxpayer funds and private donors, some of whom may have been moved by his implausible statements about poverty, so his organisation deserves proper scrutiny.

Gerard Woodhouse stands outside his charity last year. Photo: The Post.

Woodhouse has since been forced out of the Labour Party and will be running as an independent in the May elections. According to Labour, he hadn’t been pulling his weight on the campaign trail, a claim he denies.

But this audit report, which has never been made publicly available (one councillor, speaking off the record, tells us it was “suppressed” to avoid embarrassment, and “should have been published years ago”) may get closer to the truth of why Woodhouse was removed from the party. When we reached out to Woodhouse himself for comment, he told us that he had never been shown the report. In summary, the report alleges that Woodhouse:

• May have accepted Mayoral Neighbourhood Fund money on behalf on organisations he was linked to, in breach of the rules

• Acted as a trustee for an organisation that was not legitimately constituted but took £20,240 in public money

• Sent £19,824 of council funds earmarked for County, the ward for which he is councillor, to organisations beyond his boundaries

• Failed to adhere to proper book-keeping practices, creating issues in tracing how money is spent

Woodhouse vehemently denies all of these these accusations, and in a statement to The Post said his charity is properly administered.