No Class, No Style


I've finally heard from South Lanarkshire Council which had until today (9 August 2013) to release the pay information which it had been ordered to disclose by the UK Supreme Court - following a hugely expensive three-year battle to keep the details secret.

 Now the Council has clearly been sitting on this information for years - but last night at 17.07 hours I received the following email from a member of the Council's personnel staff:

 "Mr Irvine

 Further to the decision made by the Supreme Court please find attached letter detailing the information that you requested.

 Regards,

 Personnel Adviser 
South Lanarkshire Council"

 Now what I expected to hear was something quite different, something with a bit of class and style, from the Council Leader or Chief Executive - to reflect the complete 'horlicks' that South Lanarkshire has made of this whole affair.

 Perhaps along the lines of:

 "Dear Mr Irvine

 FOI and Equal Pay 

 Please find enclosed the pay information which you requested back in 2010 in your FOI request.

 We are releasing this to you following the recent unanimous decision of the UK Supreme Court which agreed that the Council was wrong to refuse your FOI request - and that this information should have been freely available to the public all along.

 We are very sorry about the length of time it has taken to finally resolve this matter and at the great waste of public money involved (@£200,000), but please rest assured that we fully intend to learn from our mistakes and that their will be no repetition of such behaviour in future.

 Kind regards

 Council Leader/Council Chief Executive"

 I will consider the Council's response and will have more to say over the next few days - so watch this space.

 But in the meantime all I can say is - what a way to run a public service.

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