What's The Big Secret?
Readers in South Lanarkshire have been puzzling over a simple question for a very long time:
How come people are entitled to know what salary is paid to South Lanarkshire Council's chief executive?
Yet people are not entitled to know - according to the council anyway - what a gardener or refuse worker in South Lanarkshire gets paid?
For those who don't already know - South Lanarkshire Council pays its chief executive £146,502 a year.
The chief executive's salary details are published regularly in the Scottish press - and are freely available - as any right minded person would expect.
But incredibly South Lanarkshire refuses to explain what traditional male jobs are paid - in an age of freedom of information.
South Lanarkshire's pay arrangements do not operate in an open and transparent way - as they should - and that issue will be put to the test as 2011 gets into full swing.
How come people are entitled to know what salary is paid to South Lanarkshire Council's chief executive?
Yet people are not entitled to know - according to the council anyway - what a gardener or refuse worker in South Lanarkshire gets paid?
For those who don't already know - South Lanarkshire Council pays its chief executive £146,502 a year.
The chief executive's salary details are published regularly in the Scottish press - and are freely available - as any right minded person would expect.
But incredibly South Lanarkshire refuses to explain what traditional male jobs are paid - in an age of freedom of information.
South Lanarkshire's pay arrangements do not operate in an open and transparent way - as they should - and that issue will be put to the test as 2011 gets into full swing.