Sauce for the Gander
A kind reader from South Lanarkshire drew my attention to the following article from a recent edition of her local newspaper - The Hamilton Advertiser.
Now I don't know any of the politicians involved although according to her own web site Margaret Mitchell study law and graduated from Strathclyde University - with an LLB and Diploma in Law and Legal Practice.
What Hamish Stewart's credentials are I don't know - but after a mammoth 52-week hearing at the Employment Tribunals, if I remember correctly - it strikes me as a rather silly thing to say that the hearing failed to 'properly take into account much of the evidence presented'.
Maybe the Conservative Group leader on South Lanarkshire Council - will publish the legal council's legal own advice because that way we could all come to our own view on the merits - or otherwise - of what it has to say.
Because both Labour and the Tories are keen for the Scottish Government to publish the legal advice received by Ministers - on the Independence Referendum planned for 2014.
Which begs the question: 'Why not adopt the same kind of open and transparent approach in South Lanarkshire when it comes to equal pay?
Surely what's sauce for the goose - should be sauce for the gander.
"Tories at odds over South Lanarkshire equal pay fight"
"Tory councillors are at odds with one of their MSPs over South Lanarkshire Council’s decision to continue their equal pay battle.
Central Scotland MSP Margaret Mitchell this week issued a press release describing the issue of equal pay as a “ticking time bomb” for Scottish councils.
She said huge sums of public money were being squandered “in a futile and unjustified fight to deny thousands of people the wage they deserve.”
However, the statement has embarrassed Conservative members of South Lanarkshire Council who prop up the minority Labour administration there.
In August, the council decided to appeal a key ruling, made by an employment tribunal pre-hearing, in their equal pay fight with almost 3000 mainly female staff.
The tribunal had found that the council’s job evaluation scheme did not comply with equal pay legislation.
Councillors made the decision after considering the advice of senior legal counsel.
The move will add to the £418,000 the council has already spent on outside legal help used to fight the case.
Mrs Mitchell said statistics, obtained by her under the Freedom of Information Act, showed that Scottish councils had already spent £4m fighting equal pay cases.
A total of 3500 new claims had been made in the last 18 months alone.
She added: “It is not sustainable that Scotland’s councils are continuing the scandal of spending such enormous sums of money delaying the legitimate settlement of equal pay claims.
“Local authorities in general should be facing up to this and negotiating a solution, not spending millions booting the matter into the long grass.”
However, South Lanarkshire’s Conservative Group leader Hamish Stewart said they unanimously backed the council’s stance on equal pay.
“We scrutinised this in great detail and concluded that the council are quite right to challenge the findings of the hearing,” he added.
“The decision to appeal was taken only after counsel's opinion was sought which indicated clearly the QC’s belief that the hearing had failed to properly take into account much of the evidence presented.
“The council have a responsibility not only to employees but also to all the residents of South Lanarkshire.
“Taking proper advice and acting on that advice is the responsible way to represent the interests of all these residents.
“South Lanarkshire Council has a good track record of looking after its staff, for example by supporting the living wage.
And in a blast at Mrs Mitchell and her ‘unhelpful’ statement he adds: “It is easy just to take the headline-grabbing figure of what the council has spent on this so far and come up with a knee-jerk response that it’s wrong, but that would not be the responsible thing for us as councillors to do – and we won’t.”
