Top Brass
What do readers think that the Council Management Team (CMT) at North Lanarkshire Council get paid - the most senior officials who are charged with ensuring that the council is properly run and accountable to the council taxpayer, and the council workforce?
Now I don't know the answer to that question, but I can hazard an intelligent guess and I would say that this small handful of senior people must cost the Council (and the taxpayer) the best part of £1 million a year.
Because if the Chief Executive earns around £140,000 a year plus his pension costs and has another 7 or 8 colleagues all on big pay packages (such as the Head of Personnel Iris Wylie), then that must surely leave little change out of £1 million.
In which case you would surely expect to get really top notch value for money for all this public dosh, the best possible advice and performance in the job - and the kind of attitude which says 'the buck stops with me'.
Yet North Lanarkshire Council has been forced to admit in the Glasgow Employment Tribunal that it has made a very poor job of scoring or grading some of the council's most important female dominated jobs.
Home Support Workers (Homes Carers), for example, who were awarded the lowest possible score (1) for their working environment under the Council's job evaluation scheme (JES), which beggars belief if you ask me.
Because before JES North Lanarkshire's Home Support Workers were on the same grade as council refuse drivers (MW5) - yet after the application of JES the women workers found themselves 3 or even 4 grades behind their male colleagues.
Now how is that possible?
Which is exactly the kind of question that Daphne Romney QC (acting for the A4ES clients) has been asking of the Employment Tribunal which is dealing with the North Lanarkshire Council claims.
How can the Council have defended this score (1) and grade for many years, yet now be forced into conceding that the Council and its senior managers have been wrong all along?
North Lanarkshire Council owes its workforce (and the taxpayer) some answers, if you ask me, because an employer that spends around £1 million a year on the pay and pensions senior its management - deserves much better than this 'dog's dinner' of a mess on equal pay.
My mother was supported by home carers in her later years and her carers were all dedicated, hard working, kind and trustworthy people - because I got to meet them all and saw what they did with my own eyes,
So to say they they should have been awarded the lowest possible score (1) for their working environment is an insult to people's intelligence.
Maybe a council manager working in a nice air conditioned office would merit such a low score (1), but not a hard working Home Support Worker who occupies a position of trust by looking after vulnerable people in their own homes and has to travel from client to client, in all weathers of course.
So North Lanarkshire Council has a lot of explaining to do and, so far at least, and in my opinion the Council Management Team is not earning their big salaries and pensions.
In which case who within the Council's Top Brass is going to accept responsibility and what exactly will 'accepting responsibility' mean - will heads roll for example?
Good to Talk (15 March 2014)
As I've pointed out to readers in previous posts, Iris Wylie is well connected in terms of the politics of equal pay, having previously been the partner of Mike Kirby, the long-time convener of Unison in Scotland and now the union's regional secretary.
Now I don't know if Iris and Mike are still on speaking terms, but what I do know is that the situation is North Lanarkshire Council is a disgrace, if you ask me, and that someone, somewhere must surely accept responsibility for the complete hash the Council has managed to make of things.
As ever, I am prepared to let bygones be bygones, for the greater good so to speak, because the important issue now is the shabby way the Council's low paid workers (mainly women of course) have been treated, and how that situation is going to be put right.
So if Iris Wylie and/or Mike Kirby would like to meet up with me to see what can be done, then I for one would be happy do so - I'm sure it would be good to talk even after all these years.
Small World (1 April 2012)
I asked readers in North Lanarkshire for help the other day.
I wanted to know if people could help trace the background to the controversial North Lanarkshire Council bonus scheme - which has hit the newspaper headlines recently.
The one that seems to be restricted to only the most senior and highly paid officials - as far as anyone knows.
I asked readers if a reference (HR/IW) on the previously secret document - which has been dragged out of the council via an FOI request - might provide a clue.
Since then readers' suggestions have been flying in by e-mail and they all point in the same direction - that HR stands for Human Resources - and that IW stands for Iris Wylie, the council's Head of Human Resources.
Now that would make sense - why didn't I think of it before?
Because the name Iris Wylie is on the list as receiving a top-up or bonus payment of £5,758.56 - and HR is the obvious area of the council from which to seek advice on pay issues.
So who knows for sure?
Maybe the council will explain the background properly and publicly - or maybe Iris Wylie will get in touch directly and fill in some of the the gaps in people's knowledge - which I'm happy to publish on the blog site.
I first met Iris Wylie years ago - but haven't seen her in the flesh for some time.
The last occasion I remember seeing Iris was at the Scottish TUC in Glasgow in 1999 - when she was 'stepping out' - so to speak - with the Scottish Convener of Unison, Mike Kirby.
Mike has since moved on from his role as convener and stepped up - so to speak - to become the union's regional secretary in Scotland - a full-time paid official in other words.
Iris and Mike are both mentioned in a previous post to the blog site - one of the earliest posts in fact - going all the way back to April 2007.
So it all just goes to show what a small world it really is - though that doesn't help to explain why a Labour council - yes a Labour council - would introduce a secret incentive pay scheme - or a bonus scheme for those at the top, as I think it should be called.
Especially one that rewards only the most senior council officials - and appears to exclude the vast majority of the workforce - many of whom are very low paid of course - and many of whom are still fighting for equal pay.
No wonder people are so cynical about politics and politicans these days - and that includes the politics of local government.
Bonus Balls (12 March 2012)
I am a man with a mission - as they say.
I am trying to discover who is - or was - the brains behind the North Lanarkshire Council bonus scheme.
Which resulted in £184,000 worth of top-up payments - to the council's most senior officials including the chief executive, Gavin Whitefield.
I am told by a well placed source - one very close to the council - that this exercise was carried out entirely in-house - and was not farmed out to any independent third party.
Which wouldn't suprise me - because it has all the hallmarks of a rather cosy in-house deal - which hasn't been subjected to much, if any, independent scrutiny.
But if any readers can help me by providing further details - I'd be greatly obliged.
Because I think this business of performance pay - for only the most highly paid officials of the council - is a complete scandal and a terrible waste of taxpayers' money.
One clue that might help people is the reference number on the document that was finally dragged out of North Lanarkshire Council - after another very time consuming and time wasting Freedom of Information request.
Why do these council say they support Freedom of Information when - in practice - they do fight tooth and nail to keep things under wraps?
Anyway the reference on the document is HR/IW apparently - and good folks working within the council may be able to decipher what this means - and where the trail might lead next.
So if you have any ideas, drop Mark Irvine a note - in complete confidence of course - at the following e-mail address: markirvine@compuserve.com
PS
I've been keeping an eye out to see what the trade unions have to say - if anything - on the latest revelations from North Lanarkshire.
I haven't spotted anything so far - but then again I don't always see the local papers. So if readers have any useful information to pass on - please don't hesitate to do so.
