FOI and Equal Pay



I submitted an FoI request to North Lanarkshire Council (NLC) on 5 November 2014 which means that the Council has 28 days (i.e. until 3 December) to respond and say whether or not it will release details of NLC's controversial 'performance management scheme' for chief officials.

I wonder what the Council will do, will it pull down the shutters again as it has done in response to other recent FoI requests or will North Lanarkshire finally see the light and accept that such information ought to be freely available and that it belongs in the public domain? 

After all what my FoI request comes down to is the use of public money to fund a highly unusual 'bonus' scheme for rewarding the Council's most senior and highly paid officials.  

While the rest of the Council's workforce has been putting up with a policy of public sector pay restraint, of course. 

I am counting the days and can hardly contain my excitement and at this stage I should emend readers that North Lanarkshire is a Labour-run (yes a Labour-run)  Council - and has been since NLC was created as a new single-tier council in 1996.



5 November 2014

Gavin Whitefield
Chief Executive
North Lanarkshire Council


BY E-MAIL TO: whitefieldg@northlan.gov.uk

Dear Mr Whitefield

FOISA Request 

I would like to make the following request under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002.

1 Please provide me with details of the Council's performance management scheme for chief officials which has resulted in substantial 'bonuses' being paid to the Council's highest paid staff in recent years.

2 Please include details of the decision making process by which these payments are made and the criteria used to measure and assess performance.

3 Please include any documents which explain the background to the scheme and the alleged justification for paying performance bonuses to the Council's most senior officials while the rest of the workforce has faced a policy of public sector pay restraint. 

4 Please include a breakdown of all payments made under the scheme to date. 

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

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