Toothless Tigers

As regular readers know, I have a very low opinion of Scotland's public spending watchdogs - the Accounts Commission and Audit Scotland.

As far as I can see they are just 'toothless tigers' - who are treated with disdain by COSLA (the 'voice' of Scottish local government) and individual councils - when it suits their purpose. 

Over the weekend I read somewhere that the retired Auditor General - Bob Black - who threw his tuppence worth into the 'future of public spending debate in Scotland' recently - had been championing this cause for years.

Well if he has, then I have to say it's news to me - and I've taken a keen interest in these issues for a very long time.

So let me give you one example of outrageous public spending - which to my knowledge went completely unchallenged for years by Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission - Top Up Payments to Councillors in Glasgow.

The story ran in the Sunday Herald over several months - in a series of excellent articles by Paul Hutcheon - who essentially pointed out that councillors in Glasgow were being paid twice for the same job - at a cost to the local taxpayer of over £260,000 a year.

So what did Audit Scotland or the Accounts Commission have to say on the matter  over all this time - what did their annual inspections and teams of accountants throw up? 

Nothing as far as I can recall - which doesn't sit to well with any claim that these two regulatory bodies speak up and speak their minds - loudly and clearly - when it comes to wasteful public spending.

Here are some previous posts from the blog site which explain what was going on - but suffice to say the whole disgraceful practice was brought to an end - though not through any action taken by Audit Scotland or the Accounts Commission. 

I might also add that none of the local Labour MSPs spoke out against these payments at the time - including Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader - whose partner/husband Archie Graham was, and still is, a senior Labour councillor in Glasgow.

Government Turns Off Glasgow Top Ups (4 June 2011)

The Herald reported yesterday that Finance Secretary - John Swinney - is putting an end to 'top up' payments enjoyed by many councillors in Glasgow.

True to his word during the Scottish election campaign - John Swinney is now putting a stop to the practice which has been widely condenmed - as a ridiculous waste of public money.

Here's what the Herald had to say:

Needless councillor cash 'to stop'

"Finance Secretary John Swinney said new regulations would end controversial payments to some city councillors.

Regulations to end a system which saw city councillors pocket an "unnecessary" quarter of a million pounds have been announced.

Finance Secretary John Swinney said the new rules will end payments to councillors who sit on bodies known as arms-length external organisations, after a Holyrood committee discovered that Glasgow councillors had claimed £260,000 between them.

The Scottish Local Authority Remuneration Committee (Slarc) found Glasgow to be the only council area in which significant payments of this kind were made.

The regulations come into force on July 1 subject to parliamentary approval, although councillors will still be allowed to claim for "associated expenses".

The move implements one of the recommendations of the Slarc report, published earlier this year.

Swinney said: "It can't be right that a limited number of councillors can receive additional payments to help deliver broadly the same services as delivered by their own councils. In effect, some councillors are being paid twice.

"The Slarc report highlighted that only Glasgow City Council had a policy to pay additional monies and confirmed that 40 councillors were sharing £260,000 in additional payments for serving with boards of arms-length bodies.

"I agree with Slarc that this completely undermines the principles of the existing councillor remuneration scheme, and that's why I have today laid regulations to stop the practice."

The SNP said its councillors on the Labour-controlled local authority sought to end the payments at a meeting of the city council but Labour and the Lib Dems blocked them.

Before the recent Holyrood election, Mr Swinney criticised the council for not ending the "unnecessary" payments voluntarily. He promised to take steps to end the payments himself if re-elected."

So that's £260,000 or so that can go towards something useful in Glasgow - instead of just lining the pockets of Labour councillors.

But what you've got to ask is this:

Why did the Labour councillors in Glasgow not show some leadership and put an end these payments themselves - why did they wait for the newly elected Scottish government to put Glasgow's house in order?"

Glasgow Top Ups (12 February 2012)

I came across another post from the blog site - about the long-running scandal over Glasgow's 'top up' payments to local councillors.

How refreshing it is to see the good citizens of Glasgow - like Douglas Thomson - standing up and speaking out against this kind of hypocrisy.

The council's leaders and senior officials should be ashamed of the role they played in introducing these payments - and for wasting £260,000 of taxpayers money every year.

Yet no one has been held to account - so far at least.

Glasgow Top Ups (June 5th 2011)

The Herald ran an excellent letter the other day - from a Glasgow reader - who rightly condenmed the Labour-led City Council for its practice of 'topping up' the pay of councillors - who sit on 'arms length organisations'.

Regular readers will be familiar with this subject - which essentially involves Glasgow City Council paying its councillors twice for doing the same job - at a cost of @£260,000 to the public purse.

So well said Mr Thomson - whoever you are.

A welcome end is in sight to system of political patronage.

"You report moves by the Scottish Government to formally end the much-criticised system of local authorities rewarding councillors with additional payments for representing the council on the boards of arm’s-length external organisations, also known as Aleos (“Council double pay axed”, The Herald, June 2).

Such belated action can come as no surprise. That Glasgow City Council was singled out as the main culprit is equally unsurprising, given that Glasgow is the only council in Scotland with a formal policy to pay councillors additional remuneration for serving on Aleos. The Scottish Local Authorities Remuneration Committee (SLARC) had recommended in their report in March that such payments should be ended.

With the council leader, Gordon Matheson, taking no action over the matter, it shows how increasingly isolated the top team at City Chambers have become. The council will now be forced to end the system that many have identified as nothing other than reward for political patronage.

It will be of interest to see how many of the councillors currently serving in these posts will continue to do so without the supplementary payments. Without the additional financial incentive, the expectation must now be that councils throughout Scotland with Aleos will be obliged to ensure that only the most suitably qualified councillors are nominated for such roles and that such appointments are independently scrutinised. Such corporate governance backstops are already employed successfully in the private sector and for appointments made to Scottish Government agencies.

At the same time, the role of Aleos is likely to be examined in the forthcoming report from the Christie Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services. Aleos must either prove themselves to be a vital part of squeezing more from less in the tight spending environment we are currently entering, and if so be aggressively rolled out nationally. Or, be seen as nothing more than an example of local government excess at its worst.

More disturbingly for local democracy are the findings contained within the SLARC report that the average councillor is white, male and aged 54. Meanwhile, the Electoral Reform Society identified that in the 2007 local government elections, only 21.6% of councillors being elected were women. This outcome has shown little change in the progress of diversity in those representing local communities over the previous decade.

With the battle lines already drawn for the local elections next May, it is perhaps already too late to address this electoral imbalance, but it is clearly necessary for Holyrood to take note. After all, 22 of the new intake of MSPs came from the ranks of local councillors, which in itself is hardly a ringing endorsement of diversity within the Scottish Parliament.

Douglas A Thomson,

Glasgow."