Glasgow - Sham Settlement Negotiations
Stefan Cross has posted a report on the latest settlement meeting with Glasgow City Council which echoes this previous post to the blog site on 17 May 2018.
If you ask me, the underlying problem is that the same group of senior officials who made such a mess of equal pay over the years are still running the show - the same group of senior officials who:
- commissioned and approved the WPBR in 2007
- singed off on the blatantly discriminatory 37 hour 'rule'
- defended the council's 'unfit for purpose' pay arrangements for years
- advised the council to 'seek leave to appeal' the Court of Session judgment
- urged the council to appeal to the UK Supreme Court after losing for the second time at the Court of Session Scotland's highest civil court
And this has been true from Day 1 which is why they are resisting my FOI requests which are designed to get to the truth of how senior council officials behaved when the WPBR was introduced back in 2007.
As regular readers know, the council's chief executive (Annemarie O'Donnell) insists that her officer team acted in good faith over the WPBR - which I say is a load of old baloney!
The solution is to put the facts on the table and let the people - including Glasgow's 100 local Councillors, MSPs and MPs - decide for themselves.
Glasgow - Sham Settlement Negotiations (17/05/18)
Stefan Cross posted an update on Facebook yesterday evening with his immediate reaction to Glasgow City Council's 'response' to details settlement proposals put forward by the Claimants representatives (A4ES, GMB and Unison).
The key part of Stefan's update is that the Council have, apparently:
"...agreed to nothing. Not a single issue. Nor have they proposed anything in response."
"...agreed to nothing. Not a single issue. Nor have they proposed anything in response."
Now I was Unison's Head of Local Government and chief negotiator in Scotland for years and I can honestly say that if the Council has not responded to the Claimants with a detailed counter-proposal, then these settlement negotiations are a complete sham.
Which is perhaps not surprising because the same set of senior officials who advised the Council to defend the WPBR all the way to the Court of Session and lost - unanimously - are the same set of senior officials who are now advising the Council on its approach to settlement negotiations.
Shameful.
Shameful.
And if you ask me, the reality is that the Council's corporate management do not accept the 'unfit for purpose' judgment of Scotland's highest civil court and are fighting a desperate rearguard action to prevent the truth emerging about their role over the WPBR - and whether of not senior officials acted in 'good faith', as they claim.
But perhaps the most shocking point to emerge is that there hasn't been a single meeting between the Council's political leaders and the Claimants' representatives.
So the political leadership of the Council are relying solely on the advice of senior officials, who are completely discredited in many people's eyes, instead of hearing directly from the Claimants and their representatives.
I'll reserve my final judgment until next week's joint meeting with the Council on 22 May, but up until now I think it's fair to say the whole process has been a terrible sham.
NOT LOOKING GOOD
Apologies as I’ve jumped the gun a bit here.
We’ve had a written response from the council but the claimant group does not get to discuss it until tomorrow and we don’t get to discuss it with the council until next week.
The council has stressed that everything in their response is confidential so I cannot disclose any details.
But on the face of it they’ve agreed to nothing. Not a single issue. Nor have they proposed anything in response.
If this has political approval then we’re looking at 3-5 years of more litigation, at least.
But I’m the ultimate pessimist. I may have misunderstood the council’s intention. Silence, or lack of objection, might be good. They might be holding back until our meeting.
Apologies again, [especially my colleagues) I probably should have waited until tomorrow at least.
Hopefully, the council will provide some assurance next week.
But there certainly isn’t any obvious good news in their response
Stefan Cross
BEING LED DOWN THE GARDEN PATH
So yesterday we had meeting 17 with the council since the beginning of December last year. And what a car crash it was. As I have mentioned several times before the council has called these “negotiations” but we’ve negotiated nothing, just discussed process hopefully leading to negotiations. Even that now looks increasingly unlikely
1. BROKEN PROMISE AFTER BROKEN PROMISE
Before we took the summer break at the end of June the council had promised to carry out certain tasks but had failed to meet their agreed deadlines. The most important of these was a pleaded defence to our NSWP claim. We didn’t get that on time and what was provided on the last day before their solicitor went on holiday was inadequate. This has still not been provided and the council has refused to provide anything more. They agreed to provide a revised timetable and milestones by 20th July. Not done. And now they tell us they are not going to do what they promised at all.
2. THROWN THE PROCESS IN THE BIN
When we started this exercise with them all the talk was of “collaborative working”. Even as recently as June it was agreed that we would set up a legal working group to seek to discuss the legal disputes/arguments and try and reach a common position or narrow down those issues that needed to go to tribunal. Now its true that backroom activities, like data cleansing and the JES group, have continued but the main negotiation group has ground to a halt and the legal sub group has been abandoned. The council now tell us that they will agree to NOTHING. They want to hear our views for them to absorb but they will give us nothing in return. So, for example, we have presented lists of compromise comparators but they have simply not responded. There have been no counter proposals nor any attempt to seek middle ground. The whole process has been thrown in the bin. Instead the council are going to “concentrate resources” on data cleansing (which doesn’t involve any of the officers in the main negotiating group) and they are simply going to present us with a number in November. Then they will “negotiate”. This is a joke.
3. GET READY FOR A CRAP OFFER BEFORE XMAS
Everything the council told us yesterday was geared to meeting the promise of an offer, any offer, before Xmas. It’s a charade. There is no realistic prospect of us being able to agree anything in that timescale or at all. In the meantime the council is undertaking an exercise to try an pick holes in every single application form to try and reduce their liability. At the same time they have re engaged John Bowers QC to give them advice. All of our experience is that he wants to fight and will not recommend a reasonable settlement. This is legal cover for the officers not to settle for a reasonable amount. The council have abandoned any attempt to agree what your true entitlement is but are now looking to see what is the bare minimum they can get away with. Another broken promise.
4. NOW ITS DOWN TO THE LEADER TO SORT THIS OUT
We have no faith that the officers can or will deliver. We have therefore formally triggered the dispute mechanism and sought a meeting with the council leader, hopefully on 21st.
5. BACK TO TRIBUNAL
As we said before, it was agreed in June that we would have the backstop or insurance policy of going back to tribunal on those matters that could not be agreed. Now that the council has abandoned any attempt at agreement EVERYTHING is going back to tribunal. This will be essentially split into two groups – those that that have a protection claim, and everything else. The council has agreed to swap lists of issues by 11th September and then there is a full day hearing before the tribunal on 25th September. We would hope the council will be ordered to set out all remaining defences and hearings will be listed for remedies for those former manual workers with protection claims. Former non manual workers may have to go through an incredibly long formal equal value process if, as we suspect, the council is fighting everything again.
We have achieved much in the last year – but none of it through negotiations or meetings with the officers. The team that lost the previous tribunal proceedings is the same team now fighting us all over again. Its going to be a long hard road ahead but we are united and strong. Far more united than them and far stronger.
We remain committed to negotiations. It’s sad the council isn’t.
