Glasgow and Equal Pay

Regular readers will be interested to learn that I have submitted a formal FoI Review Request over the remuneration package paid to a senior official (Ian Drummond) who left Glasgow City Council's employment in 2010-11.

A Review Request is the second stage of Scotland's FoI regime and if the City Council fails to provide the details I have requested, I intend to appeal to the independent Scottish Information Commissioner. 

Here's what I said to in support of my latest request which seems perfectly reasonable and sensible to me, so the obvious question is why Glasgow City Council is refusing to part with this information?

Dear Glasgow City Council

FOISA Review Request

I would like to register a formal FOI Review Request in response to Glasgow City Council's refusal to provide me with information regarding Mr Ian Drummond's remuneration package upon leaving the City Council's employment in 2010-2011.

Specifically, I am seeking  a review of the City Council's refusal to answer Part 3 of my original FOI request in which I asked whether Mr Drummond's remuneration package included any discretionary benefits such as 'added years' in respect of the Local Government Pension Scheme.

I do not agree that this information is exempt as personal information given Mr Drummond's position as one of the City Council's most senior officials. In my view, since other aspects of Mr Drummond's remuneration package have been released, the same logic must apply to any discretionary payments agreed by the Council in respect of this employee.

Furthermore, I believe this is especially important since Mr Drummond, as Executive Director of Corporate Services, appears to be the author of the report on 'discretionary redundancy and retirements payments' from which he seems  to have benefited personally on leaving the City Council's employment.

I look forward to hearing from you and would be grateful if you could respond to me via email at: markirvine@compuserve.com

Kind regards

Mark Irvine

I have to say I will not be remotely surprised if the City Council did use its powers of discretion to award extra 'added years' to Mr Drummond's already substantial leaving package.

Because chief officials in Scottish local government have traditionally received much better treatment (pension wise) than council 'foot soldiers' - the carers, cleaners, catering workers, classroom assistants, clerical staff etc.

If this proves to be the case, I imagine lots of Glaswegians will be aghast at the City Council's generosity to a chief official compared to its mean-spirited, Scrooge-like behaviour back in December 2005 - when thousands of low paid council staff were pressurised and 'bullied' into accepting poor offers of settlement to their 1st Wave equal pay claims?

Many of these same people, of course, are still fighting for their rights to equal pay all these years later (in 2017) and I would hazard a guess that those who have retired since 2005 did not enjoy the same generous boost of 'added years' to their much smaller pension pots.  

I'll share the response to my FoI Review Request in due course though I would say this looks like another good reason for the winds of change to blow through Glasgow City Council at the local elections on 4th May 2017.

  

Glasgow's Pay Arrangements (25/03/17)

Here's the response I received from Glasgow City Council in response to my FoI request regarding the remuneration package received by Ian Drummond on leaving the council's employment back in 2010-2011.

Now I asked Glasgow City City Council for a breakdown of Mr Drummond's leaving package when his employment ended - the council's full response is reproduced below, but here's my summary of the figures. 

1. £ 132,051 (Salary fees and allowances)
2. £ 109,303 (Compensation for loss of office)
3. £   10.201 (Election duties)
4. £ 251,555 (Sub Total)
5. £   56,000 (Annual Pension)
6. £ 155,000 (Pension lump sum - tax free)
7. £ 462,555 (Grand Total) 

So it appears that the final leaving package was £462,555 an even greater sum than the £450,628 figure reported originally in The Telegraph newspaper.

An interesting point to note is that 'Election Duties' are normally, in my experience, the responsibility of the council chief executive, but is his final year of service these duties appear to have been passed over to Mr Drummond. 

The payment involved counts for pension purposes and relates to years in which there are local councils elections and other national elections where the City Council is in overall charge of the arrangements acts as the 'returning officer'.

In any event while it's noticeable that Mr Drummond got everything he was entitled in terms of his leaving package, the City Council's lowest paid workers are still having to fight tooth and nail for equal pay.

I've lost count of the number of people who tell me they felt  'pressurised' and 'bullied' into accepting poor equal pay settlement offers (back in December 2005) without knowing what their claims were really worth - which to my mind is at odds with the way the council's lowest paid workers have been treated. 

And while I'm on the subject, I don't recall the trade unions threatening any strikes or  industrial action when the City Council's lowest paid women workers treated in this shabby fashion.

I've already submitted and FoI Review Request to the council in respect of its refusal to say whether or not Mr Drummond's 'leaving package' included additional 'added years'.

The importance of this further FoI request being whether the City Council exercised its discretion to be extra generous towards a highly paid official which may stand in stark contrast to the treatment of its lowest paid, predominantly women, workers in relation to equal pay.

  

-----Original Message-----

From: Dickson, John (Revenues) (Revenues) <John.Dickson@glasgow.gov.uk>

To: 'markirvine@compuserve.com' <markirvine@compuserve.com>

Sent: Wed, Mar 15, 2017 3:36 pm

Subject: FOI request

			Financial Services Glasgow City Council Room 10 City Chambers, Glasgow  G2 Phone 0141 287 8186 Fax 0141 287 9568 Email: FS_FOI@glasgow.gov.uk					Corporate Services Glasgow City Council City Chambers George Square Glasgow   G2  1DU Phone 0141 287 8186 Fax 0141 287 4575 Email customercare@glasgow.gov.uk

Date  15 March 2017

Mr Mark Irvine Flat 8/1 90 London Road Glasgow G1 5DE Sent by email to: markirvine@compuserve.com

Dear Mr Irvine,  

Freedom of Information  Request

I refer to your Freedom of Information request received on 16 February 2017 requesting that the following information be provided to you:

“I understand that Mr Drummond left the City Council's employment in 2010-11 and that the figure of £450,628 will have represented a 'leaving package'.

I would be grateful if you could:  

1.         Provide me with a breakdown of the £450,628 figure into its component parts, i.e annual salary, pension payments etc 

2.         Explain the basis of the 'compensation for loss of office' payment and how this payment was calculated

3.         Confirm whether Mr Drummond's remuneration package benefited from any discretionary payments, e.g. 'added years' under the Local Government Pension Scheme”

The Council is treating your request as a request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Please note, some of the information which you have requested is, in our opinion, exempt from a request under section 1 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 because of an exemption contained in s 38(1)(b) of the Act.  In other words, in our opinion disclosure of the information would involve disclosure of personal data as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998 (as amended) and that such disclosure would breach the Data Protection Principles contained in Schedule 1 Part 1 of that Act.  We are therefore unable to comply fully with your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

The information which you have requested and which can be provided is as follows :

1.         Provide me with a breakdown of the £450,628 figure into its component parts, i.e annual salary, pension payments etc 

Ø  Within the Councils 2010/11 annual accounts, as a Senior Officer, Mr Drummonds annual remuneration was detailed as follows:

4.3. Remuneration of senior employees                                                    

Year ended 31 March 2011

            

            

Remuneration           Salary fees           Compensation            Election Duties          Total

of senior                     and                        for loss of 

employees                 allowances           office               

                                    

                                                                

                                                                                

Ian Drummond          £ 132,051               £ 109,303                         £ 10,201            £251,555

Executive Director of Corporate Services

(to December 2010)

and Executive Director of Special Projects 

(from December 2010)

Thereafter, within the annual accounts, as a Senior Officer Mr Drummond’s Pension Benefit’s were detailed as such :

5.2. Pension benefits of senior employees      

In year pension contributions                     Accrued pension benefits

Pension benefits of 

senior employees                 For year to 31 March 2011               As at 31 March 2011

                        

                       

Ian Drummond                            £ 199,073                        Pension         -  £    56,000

          Lump sum     -   £ 155,000

2.         Explain the basis of the 'compensation for loss of office' payment and how this payment was calculated

Ø  Please see attachment, detailing Council’s policy on redundancy and retirement provisions for the requested period, which was approved by the Executive Committee on 13 November 2009.

3.         Confirm whether Mr Drummond's remuneration package benefited from any discretionary payments, e.g. 'added years' under the Local Government Pension Scheme”

Ø  This request relates to personal information which is exempt in terms of section 38(1)(b) the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, as explained above.

I trust the above information is of assistance. If you have any further enquiries or questions I can be contacted on telephone number 0141-287-8186 or at the noted e-mail address.

However, should you be dissatisfied with the way Glasgow City Council has dealt with your request you are entitled to require the council to review its decision.  Please note that for a review to take place you must:

Lodge a written requirement for a review within 40 working days of the date of this letter. Include a correspondence address and a description of the original request and the reason why you are dissatisfied.

Address your request to the :

Director of Governance and Solicitor to the Council

Glasgow City Council

City Chambers

George Square

Glasgow G2 1DU

Email: FOIreviews@glasgow.gov.uk

Glasgow's Pay Arrangements (19/03/17)

Here's a freedom of information (FoI) request I submitted to Glasgow City Council on 15th February 2017.

I received a response the other day which makes very interesting reading and I plan to share the details on the blog site within the next few days. 

15 February 2017

Annemarie O'Donnell

Chief Executive

Glasgow City Council

By email to - annemarie.odonnell@ced.glasgow.gov.uk

Dear Ms O'Donnell

FOISA Request

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

I refer to the article in The Telegraph newspaper dated 25 April 2012 which reported the remuneration package of Ian Drummond (in the previous year) as £450,628.

I understand that Mr Drummond left the City Council's employment in 2010-11 and that the figure of £450,628 will have represented a 'leaving package'.

I would be grateful if you could:  

1. Provide me with a breakdown of the £450,628 figure into its component parts, i.e annual salary, pension payments etc 
2. Explain the basis of the 'compensation for loss of office' payment and how this payment was calculated
3. Confirm whether Mr Drummond's remuneration package benefited from any discretionary payments, e.g. 'added years' under the Local Government Pension Scheme

I look forward to your reply and would be grateful if you could respond to me by e-mail at: markirvine@compuserve.com

Kind regards

Mark Irvine 

  

Glasgow Pay Bombshell (14/02/17)

Readers in Glasgow still fighting for equal pay will be interested to learn that the council employee with the largest remuneration package across the whole of the UK in 2010-11 was Glasgow City Council's very own Ian Drummond.

Now Ian Drummond was Glasgow's executive director of special projects at the time and according to the report below in The Telegraph the city council official received an eye watering sum of £450,628 that year including £109,000 for “compensation for loss of office” and £199,000 in pension contributions. 

The Telegraph newspaper famously broke the story on MPs' expenses at Westminster and its story in April 2012 certainly appears to have touched a raw nerve with GCC's spokesman who said:

“With local government facing unprecedented cuts, we simply cannot sustain the number of staff we once had.

“If the Taxpayers' Alliance was genuinely interested in public finances, it would realise that these are not simply normal salary costs - they include a redundancy deal that will save the public purse £45 million every single year.”

Now this is true, of course, because getting rid of highly paid senior officials did indeed save the council lots of money, but these individuals got what they were entitled to - they were not bullied or intimidated into accepting much less than they were due under redundancy and/or pension scheme regulations.

Yet compare how the city council's senior officials fared with the treatment meted out to equal pay claimants in the run-up to Christmas 2005.

On that occasion settlement payments were capped at just £9,000 (much less than they were really worth) and thousands of Glasgow's lowest paid workers were frightened into believing that they would 'lose everything', if they didn't accept the measly offer on the table. 

Ian Drummond played a big role in Christmas 2005 'buy-out' exercise if I recall correctly, as the City's Council's head of legal at that time, known affectionately by his nickname - 'The Prince of Darkness'.

Speaking personally, I always regarded Ian Drummond was someone you could do business with and this proved to be so in the negotiations with A4ES which followed, resulting in much higher and fairer settlements for A4ES clients in Glasgow.   

But the big question for Glasgow City Council in 2017 is: 

"How come senior officials are treated so well when thousands of the council's lowest paid workers are still fighting for equal pay?" 

  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/council-spending/9223901/Record-number-of-council-staff-paid-over-100000-a-year.html

Record number of council staff paid over £100,000 a year

A record number of council officials are paid over £100,000 a year, new figures show.


Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: 'It proves there is significant scope to save taxpayers’ money by tackling the culture of dodgy pay deals and boomerang bosses that was the norm under Labour' Photo: PA



By Christopher Hope - The Telegraph (25 April 2012)

The analysis from the TaxPayers’ Alliance showed the number of council workers receiving more than the Prime Minister last year jumped by 10 per cent.

The alliance found that more than 3,000 senior council executives pocketed pay and perks packages in excess of £100,000 in its annual town hall rich list.

In all 3,097 town hall employees were awarded deals worth six figure sums in 2010-11, a hike of 13 per cent on the previous year. The figure is a record for the six years that the list has been compiled.

The alliance also found that 880 received in total more than the Prime Minister’s £142,500 salary, up 13 per cent from 777 in the year before. It also found 658 staff took home between £150,000 and £249,999, while 52 broke the £250,000 mark.

The alliance said some of the packages included redundancy payments but insisted that did not “wholly account” for the increase in high payouts.

The council employee with the largest remuneration package in the UK was Ian Drummond, executive director of special projects who received £450,628, including £109,000 for “compensation for loss of office” during the year and £199,000 in pension contributions.

Top of the Rich List when redundancy packages were excluded was Geoff Alltimes, then chief executive of Hammersmith and Fulham Council on £281,666.

Mr Alltimes no longer works for the council, which now shares the position of chief executive with another London council.

According to the study, the local authority with the most employees receiving more than £100,000 in 2010-11 was Barnet at 47 - something the council immediately claimed was untrue.

The report found Glasgow City Council had 25 members of staff with packages over £100,000, Cardiff City Council recorded 19 while Belfast City Council had just one.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TPA, said: “Taxpayers will be astonished that so many council employees are still getting such a generous deal while everyone else in the public sector is facing a pay freeze.

“The Town Hall Rich List shows that while councils insist cuts can only mean pressure on frontline services, some clearly have cash in the bank when it comes to paying their own senior staff.”

Top of the Rich List when redundancy packages were excluded was Geoff Alltimes, then chief executive of Hammersmith and Fulham Council on £281,666.

Mr Alltimes no longer works for the council, which now shares the position of chief executive with another London council.

A Barnet Council spokesman said: “The number is wrong. The Taxpayers' Alliance is cross referencing two lists that don't contain the same information. The council had 25 staff, including interim staff, on total remuneration over £100,000.

“A further 16 appear on the list because of redundancy payments and another six are teaching staff. This number of teaching staff also includes redundancies.”

A Glasgow City Council spokesman said Mr Drummond had since left the council. A spokesman: “With local government facing unprecedented cuts, we simply cannot sustain the number of staff we once had.

“If the Taxpayers' Alliance was genuinely interested in public finances, it would realise that these are not simply normal salary costs - they include a redundancy deal that will save the public purse £45 million every single year.”

A Hammersmith and Fulham Council spokesman said its pursuit of value for money was “relentless” and sharing a chief executive with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea was saving taxpayers £200,000 a year.

Government sources said most of the pay deals were agreed before the Coalition came into power, and ministers were trying to bear down on town hall pay.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: “It proves there is significant scope to save taxpayers’ money by tackling the culture of dodgy pay deals and boomerang bosses that was the norm under Labour.”

The alliance said it based its report on local authorities' 2010-11 annual statement of accounts and where salary bands were provided it used the midpoint. 

Table note: 2010-11 remuneration is not limited to salary and also includes fees, allowances, expenses, compensation, employer pension contributions, election duties, benefits in kind, redundancy payments and other payments.