FOI Request
Here's my latest FOI request to South Lanarkshire Council, the purpose of which is to fill in the gaps of public knowledge - regarding the pay scales of traditional male council jobs.
Now we know (because the UK Supreme Court says the public is entitled to know) that the official pay band for certain (LSO 3) council jobs is Spinal Column Point 25 to Spinal Column Point 28 - or between £8.77 and £9.17 an hour.
But we also know, again thanks to the UK Supreme Court, that 92.4% of the Council's LSO 3 posts are paid above SCP 28 - and that 71.24% are paid above SCP 34 (£10.03 an hour).
So, my request to South Lanarkshire Council is to find out if these posts are paid as far up the pay ladder as SCP 55 or £13.70 an hour - and perhaps even higher - because with preserved salaries and allowances that could well take the annual earnings for these jobs up to and beyond £40,000 a year.
The best bet would, of course, be for the Council just to come clean and sweep away all this secrecy - instead of having to drag the truth out through a series of further FOI requests.
No other council in Scotland has behaved in the way that South Lanarkshire Council has behaved, which speaks for itself - and I'm sure that most local councillors and MSPs (including the Labour ones) will be shocked at these revelations.
The question is what are they going to do about bringing the facts out into the open - where we can all judge what has been done in the people's name - with huge sums of public money, of course.
14 August 2013
Lyndsay Freeland
Chief Executive
South Lanarkshire Council
BY E-MAIL
Dear Mr Freeland
FOISA Request
I refer to my letter from South Lanarkshire Council dated 7 August
2013 and the recent decision (056/2011) of the UK Supreme Court.
Against that background I would like to make the following request
under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002.
1 Please provide me with the number of LSO 3 Council posts which
are placed at the twenty one Spinal Column Points SCP 35 to SCP 55
As you know, when the UK Supreme Court finally got to hear South
Lanarkshire’s FOI appeal the five judges gave short shrift to the Council’s
arguments and decided, unanimously, that such information should be made available
public, as did Court of Session in Scotland and the Scottish Information
Commissioner, of course.
So I hope that South Lanarkshire Council might on this occasion
answer by return as the information I am requesting must be ready to hand since
the Council has already released similar data relating to LSO 3 and Spinal
Column Points 25 to 34.
I look forward to your reply and would be grateful if you could
respond to me by e-mail to: markirvine@compuserve.com
Kind regards
Mark Irvine
