North Lanarkshire Update
What does North Lanarkshire Council and our European neighbour Spain have in common?
Well, for both of them December 2015 was a very important month.
Spain had a national election in December (before Christmas) and its politicians have spent the past four or five months since then arguing fiercely amongst themselves (while on full pay) in an unsuccessful effort to form a new Government.
The end result is that new elections will now be called and the earliest Spain can expect to start the whole process again is sometime during the summer of 2016; meanwhile Spanish civil servants are running the country.
North Lanarkshire Council, on the other hand, faced a much easier task last year, the Council having agreed to complete a job evaluation (JE) review of various council jobs before the end of December 2015, as part of an equal pay settlement agreed in the spring of 2015.
Now the outcome of this JE review was to have been backdated to 1st April 2015, so the long-suffering workforce is now well over a year beyond the intended settlement date for any changes to take effect - and for people to receive any backpay and pay increases they deserve, going forward.
But in April 2016 (four months after the agreed completion date) North Lanarkshire sends out senior managers to carry out their own 'review' of how Home Carers do their jobs and how long they take to perform certain tasks, even though (JE) job evaluation has nothing to do with the Social Work Department and despite the fact that this information has already been gathered by the Evaluation Panel.
So, what is to be done about this unwarranted meddling and interference?
Well here's a letter I wrote to the Opposition leader on North Lanarkshire Council, Cllr David Stocks, at the beginning of April 2016 which called for an independently-led review into the Council's appealing handling of equal pay.
Someone needs to get a grip on what is going on inside the Council and the trade unions could help by publishing the information has been gathered already, so that the workforce understands what issues senior managers are trying to overturn and change.
Councillor Stocks email address is: stocksd@northlan.gsx.gov.uk
North Lanarkshire Update (05/04/16)
I sent the following letter to Councillor David Stocks the other day, the Leader of the Opposition on North Lanarkshire Council.
I am pleased to report that I received a prompt and encouraging response from Cllr Stocks and that the matter will be discussed at the next SNP Group meeting.
So the pressure on the ruling Labour administration is growing all the time and is beginning to show signs of achieving some results, even though there is a long way to go before all of the Council's outstanding equal pay issues are finally resolved.
Dear Councillor Stocks
NLC and Equal Pay
As you know, there are still a number of outstanding and major issues regarding equal pay in North Lanarkshire Council after two decades in which the ruling Labour Administration failing to deliver on its commitments to the council workforce.
The background is detailed in the following posts from my blog site, but the key issues are:
1 Unresolved 'First Wave' equal pay claims from Sheltered Housing Wardens, Clerical Assistants and Classroom Assistants
2 The further JES review of council jobs including Home Carers whose gradings were heavily criticised in the long-running Glasgow Employment Tribunal
3 The Council's refusal to cooperate in allowing equal pay claimants to have their cases settled on a pensionable basis which (in the case of A4ES clients) is being appealed to Scottish Ministers
4 The treatment of GMB members' claims which resulted in this group (alone amongst all the claimant groups) to have their claims restricted to only three years.
I have been involved in the fight for equal pay in North Lanarkshire Council for the past 11 years and, in my view, the Labour Group's behaviour has been truly shameful; the elected politicians have made a terrible mess of the Council's pay arrangements and have not been held to account by NLC's senior officials.
North Lanarkshire failed to meet the original deadline for delivering a non-discriminatory pay structure which was April 2002 as laid down by the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement signed by COSLA, all 32 member councils and the trade unions.
A new implementation date of April 2004 was agreed, but the Council failed to meet that deadline as well with virtually nothing happening until Action 4 Equality Scotland came along in August 2005 and began to explain the enormous pay gap between traditional male and female jobs.
North Lanarkshire Council (along with other councils) was finally stung into action and in 2006/07 the Council introduced new pay structures which the Labour Group and senior officials claimed to be non-discriminatory and 'equal pay proofed'.
I said on my blog at the time that North Lanarkshire's new pay arrangements and job evaluation scheme (JES) were not fit for purpose and I was proved to be correct when Action 4 Equality Scotland challenged the JES outcomes in a long-running case in the Glasgow Employment Tribunals which resulted in a major equal pay settlement in 2015.
In essence the Council's political leadership and its senior officials were forced to eat their words and the criticism I made of the 'new' 2006/07 pay arrangements were completely vindicated some 8 years later.
Against that background and track record of failure, I believe that North Lanarkshire Council should establish an independent inquiry into its handling of equal pay over the past 5 years because the reality is that the Labour Group and its advisers have failed to protect the interests of the workforce not once but twice, with the introduction of botched pay arrangements and a flawed job evaluation scheme in 2006/07 which has cost the council tens of millions of pounds.
I hope you will give consideration to this suggestion as I believe it is the best way to restore trust in the Council after so many years of poor political leadership, mismanagement and failure .
Kind regards
Mark Irvine
