Labour-Led South Lanarkshire
The day after tomorrow is the big day - I can hardly wait.
South Lanarkshire has until Friday - 2 September 2011 - to comply with a decision of the Scottish Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion.
What will this increasingly ridiculous council do?
Comply with the carefully reasoned decision of the Scottish Information Commssioner - or waste even more time and taxpayers money by appealing (yet again) to the Court of Session.
If the latter, I'm going to have to contact the Scottish Labour leader - Iain Gray - again.
Regular readers will know that Iain Gray is keen that public bodies - inclduing the Scottish government - comply with decisions of the Scottish Information Commissioner.
So clearly Iain Gray will not want Labour-led South Lanarkshire Council - making a fool of Scottish Labour's principled stance.
Let's hope that South Lanarkshire Council makes the right choice - and stops bringing freedom of information into disrepute.
CENSORED in South Lanarkshire (25 May 2011)
Here is the 'guts' of the document censored by South Lanarkshire Council - following my freedom of information request about Single Status and Equal Pay.
The council has removed or redacted a whole section of Paragraph 2.2.1 - presumably because this lets the cat out of the bag - in terms of what council officials were really up to back in 1999.
What's amazing is that elected councillors appear to have left the whole business of Single Status and Equal Pay - up to the most senior officials who sat on the Corporate Management Team.
Incredibly, the subject of Single Status and Equal Pay - the biggest issue facing the council - is not discussed at any council committee - between the summer of 1999 and the spring of 2003.
So much for local democracy.
Which appears to have been casually cast aside to suit the council's Corporate Management Team - who now want to keep their deliberations secret.
But that's what the House of Commons tried to do as well - in relation to MPs' expenses.
And look what that did for MPs - and the House of Commons.
"1 Purpose of Report
1.1 To outline the principles of Signle Status and seek the Corporate Management Team's approval for a strategy to implement Single Status in the Council.
2 Background
2.1 The introduction of Signle Status removes the divisions in conditions of service between APT&C and Manual employees and provides the Council with an opporuntiy to re-engineer the organisation and re-configure our workforce.
2.2 Alternatives Available for Implementation of Single Status
2.2.1 Achieve Single Status through the Existing Organisation
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2.2.2 Achieve Single Status through an Organisation for the Millennium
THIS SECTION CONTAINS LOTS OF WAFFLE - BUT NOTHING REALLY IMPORTANT
3 Proposals
THIS SECTION CONTAINS LOTS MORE WAFFLE - BUT AGAIN NOTHING REALLY IMPORTANT
4 Recommendations
4.1 It is recommended that implementation is progressed on a phased basis by initially approving these principles (under Paragrpah 3), with further reports submitted to the Corporate Management Team outlining each specific stage. As part of the first stage, Corporate Personnel Services will liase with the Trade Union side to obtain their agreement of the principles. and progress implementation thorugh a partnership approach.
4.2 The next step will involve rolling out the principles of Single Status to managers and this would be achieved through the delivery of a series of Corporate Road Shows.
4.3 Following this, a further report will be submitted to the Corporate Management Team by 31 December 1999, detailing the proposed timetable for implementation.
4.4 It is recommended that the Corporate Management Team agrees the principles of Single Status and the proposals for roll out as outlined."
More to follow - so watch this space.
