Glasgow - Accountability and Equal Pay
Here's a comment from a regular reader in response to yesterday's post about Glasgow's politicians and the fight for equal pay.
Well if councils are independent from the gov then why did the SNP gov step in and stop councillors (mainly Labour ) from paying themselves twice for sitting on ALEOs. And also implemented a pay cap for local gov. So to me it’s BS and only when it suits the gov. And claim to be a progressive party. yes but not for your own constituents. ie My MP miss monaghan who ignores ever email etc.
M
Now this is a very fair point to make, I have to agree, because the SNP Government did indeed step in and outlawed Glasgow's system of 'topping-up' the salaries of councillors who sat on the City Council's ALEOs.
In effect, large numbers of councillors were being twice for doing their jobs and it I remember council the ALEO 'top-up' bill came to around £420,000 a year until John Swinney response to all the public criticism by outlawing these payments.
More recently the Scottish Government intervened in Tayside with the Health Secretary, Shona Robison, calling for the chair and chief executive of the health board to resign in the wake of a spending scandal.
So there is plenty of scope for the Scottish Government too become more directly involved in Glasgow, particularly as it's very difficult to see how Glasgow City Council can find the money to pay its equal pay compensation bill without government help.
The Scottish Government could also help in other practical ways, for example by providing additional resources via the public spending watchdog, Audit Scotland, to get to the bottom of the WPBR and shining a light on on how this costly, 'unfit for purpose' scheme was procured and defended for so long by senior council officials.
If you ask me, it's a national disgrace that so many senior officials in Glasgow have been so handsomely rewarded over the years and yet have got the City Council into such a terrible mess; some have even been awarded big top-ups to their pension packages and/or been awarded honours 'for services to local government'.
Yet during this period thousands of Glasgow's lowest paid council workers have lost out because of the way these same officials have behaved over equal pay.
First Minister and Equal Pay (24/04/18)
I am a fan of the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, especially after her speech on equal pay at last year's SNP conference in Glasgow.
Equal pay claimants have been writing to the First Minister recently to express their concern about the painfully slow progress in settlement negotiations with the City Council and are receiving a standard response like the one below.
Dear M
Thank you for your email of 8 March to the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP, regarding the settlement of outstanding equal pay claims by the City of Glasgow Council. I have been asked to reply.
Councils are independent of the Scottish Government and are responsible for meeting their legal obligations to their employees, including those on equal pay. Ministers therefore cannot force councils to settle equal pay claims. However, Ministers have repeatedly made clear that delays by councils in settling equal pay claims are completely unacceptable.
Following the resolution of outstanding legal action last year we understand the council has been meeting Trade Unions to negotiate a settlement. Whilst the Scottish Government cannot intervene directly the First Minister said at the SNP conference on 10 October that equal pay will be delivered for women council workers in Glasgow. We hope the Council and Trade Unions will reach agreement and resolve all outstanding claims soon.
I hope this reply is helpful.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Romain
Local Government Division and Analytical Services Division
Now this strikes me as 'Yes Minister' response because the civil servant who wrote this letter doesn't seem to know that Action 4 Equality Scotland, GMB and Unison are all involved in the settlement negotiations with Glasgow City Council.
A point of detail, perhaps, but civil servants are supposed to be very strong on detail, so who knows what's going on.
In any event, the real issue is nonsensical line that "Councils are independent of the Scottish Government......yadda, yada yada".
Because the point is not that people expect the First Minister, or any other politician, to storm the City Chambers and seize the levers of power.
Instead the point is that the First Minister and other Glasgow politicians are perfectly free to speak their mind and speak up on behalf of their local constituents - about the 'unfit for purpose' WPBR pay scheme or its blatantly discriminatory 37 hour 'rule', for example.
Councils are independent of the Scottish Government and are responsible for meeting their legal obligations to their employees, including those on equal pay. Ministers therefore cannot force councils to settle equal pay claims. However, Ministers have repeatedly made clear that delays by councils in settling equal pay claims are completely unacceptable.
Following the resolution of outstanding legal action last year we understand the council has been meeting Trade Unions to negotiate a settlement. Whilst the Scottish Government cannot intervene directly the First Minister said at the SNP conference on 10 October that equal pay will be delivered for women council workers in Glasgow. We hope the Council and Trade Unions will reach agreement and resolve all outstanding claims soon.
I hope this reply is helpful.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Romain
Local Government Division and Analytical Services Division
Now this strikes me as 'Yes Minister' response because the civil servant who wrote this letter doesn't seem to know that Action 4 Equality Scotland, GMB and Unison are all involved in the settlement negotiations with Glasgow City Council.
A point of detail, perhaps, but civil servants are supposed to be very strong on detail, so who knows what's going on.
In any event, the real issue is nonsensical line that "Councils are independent of the Scottish Government......yadda, yada yada".
Because the point is not that people expect the First Minister, or any other politician, to storm the City Chambers and seize the levers of power.
Instead the point is that the First Minister and other Glasgow politicians are perfectly free to speak their mind and speak up on behalf of their local constituents - about the 'unfit for purpose' WPBR pay scheme or its blatantly discriminatory 37 hour 'rule', for example.
Now Glasgow's politicians comment publicly on all kinds of things, as they should, on a daily basis and the fight for equal pay in Glasgow is no different, especially as this struggle is taking place in their own backyard.
Yet they seem strangely reluctant to say a great deal even though blatant examples of pay discrimination are occurring every day right under their own noses.
So over the next few weeks (in the run up to 22 May) we should aim to bring out the 'Wild Bunch' side of their personalities because for far too long they've been the 'Quiet Bunch', sitting on the sidelines as spectators.
First Minister and Equal Pay (21/04/18)
Here's an excellent and heartfelt letter which a long-serving Home Carer has written to the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, about the fight for equal pay in Glasgow.
Dear Nicola.
As a woman working in a mainly dominated male environment and getting to the top slot in your chosen profession, I find it so frustrating to see the Scottish Parliament is allowing a long drawn out equal pay claim from GCC.
After having seen the salaries these officials are handing out to each other, what is the SNP going to do about a clear abuse of power in the biggest council in Scotland.
I have been a SNP voter since Margo Mcdonald won Govan in the 60s.
What powers if any, do the elected counsellors have in running GCC.
Having looked at the shambles the officials have created since 2005, if they were employed in the private sector they would have all been sacked for causing their company all the expense that was just disgraceful management in their part.
These officials who are giving themselves these massive pay rises plus pension increases are using the council as their own personal bank.
I have to wonder are there any grounds for the fraud squad to have a look at what they have been up to for years.
I would like to think that as the first minister you could do something to help out all these ordinary working women who are at an age where some of them have actually died awaiting a pay out from these council Oligarths.
So please please help us Nicola we need you.
YOURS SINCERELY
G
Existing Cordia Worker For 22yrs
Now I can't say that I see any grounds for the 'fraud squad' to intervene, but I do take G's well made point that if this had happened in the private sector some of the people involved in Glasgow's decade long equal pay scandal would have paid a heavy price by now.
So I hope G's letter will inspire others to contact their local councillors, MSPs and MPs in the run up to the next settlement meeting with the City Council on 22 May 2018.
Believe me politicians do take these kind of letters seriously and the more people who take the time and trouble to state their case honestly and sincerely - the better it will be for all concerned.
One suggestion I would make is that a group of equal pay claimants from Nicola Sturgeon's local constituency (Glasgow Southside) should get together and ask Nicola for a meeting as the local MSP.
I don't expect Nicola Sturgeon or any other Glasgow politician to barge in somewhere they don't belong.
But Glasgow's politicians are entitled to speak out on important issues on behalf of their local constituents including:
- Glasgow City Council's discredited WPBR pay scheme which Scotland's highest civl court, the Court of Session, has condemned as 'unfit for purpose'
- The WPBR's bogus 37 hour 'rule' which was deliberately designed to disadvantage female dominated jobs in Cordia and elsewhere within the Council
- The nonsense of senior officials refusing to disclose vital information on the WPBR because this might cost Scotland's largest council more than £600.
So let's hope that Nicola and other Glasgow politicians come off the fence, find their voice and start to speak up on behalf of local constituents who have been treated as second class citizens for years.
First Minister and Equal Pay (10/10/17)
Well Nicola Sturgeon certainly delivered the goods in her leader's speech to the SNP conference earlier today.
Here's what the MSP for Glasgow Southside had to say although let me add that the First Minister's words were also delivered with real passion and conviction.
"For decades, Glasgow has been run by Labour.
In May, that came to an end.
The cronies and time-servers are out.
Fresh ideas, Susan Aitken and the SNP are in.
The difference is already clear.Under Labour, a bitter school janitor dispute rumbled on for months.
Within weeks, it was resolved by the SNP.
For years, under Labour, women were denied the equal pay they are entitled to.
Conference
It may take us a bit of time to fix Labour’s mess, but I make this promise today.
Fix it we will.
The injustice suffered by low paid women in this city will be put right.
Equal pay for equal work, denied for too long, will be delivered by the SNP."
I happen to be near a TV this afternoon so I am going to listen to Nicola Sturgeon's speech to the SNP's 2017 annual conference which is being held in Glasgow - the First Minister's political backyard.
No doubt this will be a wide ranging speech, but I will be interested to hear if the First Minister mentions the fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council which has been raging for the past 10 years.
I certainly hope the issue comes up because Glasgow is the First Minister's political backyard and if you ask me, the thousands of low paid women council workers who have been cheated and robbed of their rights for years deserve the active support of their local MSPs and MPs.
First Minister and Equal Pay (07/10/17)
I've had lots of feedback to my recent posts about the First Minister and equal pay - here are just a few examples.
"Tweet sent"
"I sent Nicola Sturgeon an email and a group of us are going to ask her for a meeting"
"I’ve already sent one to her last month and the reply I got was basically it’s up to individual councils how they deal with it!"
Glasgow City Council, of course, is quite entitled to ask Audit Scotland for practical assistance and presumably the Scottish Government would have no problem in supporting such a move, especially as the council is having such difficulty in getting its finger out.
So sending a message to the First Minister seems perfectly reasonable and sensible in all the circumstances, all the more so if you agree that Glasgow's behaviour over the past 10 years is a national disgrace.
And if you ask me, it's high time Glasgow's MSPs rose up and really started getting behind their local constituents in this long-running fight for equal pay.
Messaging the First Minister (06/10/17)
The SNP's 83rd annual conference gets underway this weekend at the SEC Centre in Glasgow and will hear from Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, a local Glasgow MSP for the 'Southside' constituency.
Glasgow City Council (Scotland's largest local authority) has a largely female workforce who have been cheated and robbed their rights to equal pay for years which is a national disgrace, if you ask me.
The new SNP led administration has pledged to sort this mess out, but the Council's WPBR pay arrangements are still shrouded in secrecy despite being described as 'unfit for purpose' by the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court.
So why not send a message to the First Minister, via email or Twitter, calling on Glasgow City Council to commit itself to openness and transparency over equal pay:
Please highlight the fight for equal pay at SNP 2017 and urge Glasgow City Council to 'come clean' over its WPBR pay scheme?
Readers can send a message to Nicola Sturgeon at the Twitter address below or via email
Twitter@NicolaSturgeon
Email
FirstMinister@gov.scot
Nicola.Sturgeon.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
As a Glasgow voter and council taxpayer I will be messaging the First Minister this weekend and I hope that lots of readers, and their families, will do so as well.
First Minister and Equal Pay (04/10/17)
A number of readers have taken the initiative and written directly to the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP, about the fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council.
A civil servant has responded on the First Minister's behalf and here's what the chap (Anthony Romain) had to say:
October 2017
In a second case, decided in August, the council is reported as having sought leave to appeal. However it is reported Council Leader Susan Aitken has now stated that any remaining legal proceedings are to provide clarity and will not be used to delay settlement of any outstanding claims. We understand the Council has already begun meeting Trade Unions. We hope the Council and Trade Unions will reach agreement and resolve all outstanding claims quickly.
I hope this reply is helpful.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Romain
Local Government Division and Analytical Services Division
Now the first point to make is that Action 4 Equality Scotland (A4ES) represents over 80% of the equal pay claimants in Glasgow.
The reason being that the local Trade Unions lost all credibility over the fight for equal pay after:
Yet the First Minister's spokesperson says he hopes "the Council and the Trade Unions will reach agreement and resolve all outstanding claims quickly" which suggests to me that the Scottish Government is very badly out of touch with what's happening on the ground.
Now I don't expect the First Minister or any Glasgow politician for that matter to 'tell' the City Council what to do, but they can and should express their opinion, for example, on the need for Glasgow to 'come clean' and explain how the men's earnings were 'looked after' under the WPBR pay scheme.
Hence my recent suggestion that Audit Scotland be asked to provide help to get to the bottom of this mystery if City Council officials either can't or won't do the jobs themselves.
The bottom line is that for the first time ever Glasgow has an SNP led City Council with an SNP Government leading the Scottish Parliament.
So this is simply not good enough if you ask me, because the cvil servant's 'pass the parcel' response reads like something out of Yes Minister rather than a call to action on behalf of thousands of low paid workers in Glasgow who have been cheated and robbed of their right to equal pay for years.
Just look at what Anthony Romain had to say back in February 2017 when Glasgow still had a Labour run City Council - and the worrying thing is that he is speaking for the First Minister not for himself.
All of which means that it's time to give more time and attention to the politics surrounding the fight for equal pay in Glasgow because it seems that many local politicians seem to regard this as a spectator sport - rather than a big issue which demands their attention and active support.
February 2017
Dear xxxxxxxxxx
Thank you for contacting the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP, regarding your employment with Cordia and Glasgow City Council. I have been asked to respond.
I am sorry to hear of your concerns, however councils and their Arm’s Length External Organisations, such as Cordia, are independent of the Scottish Government and are responsible for meeting their legal obligations to their employees, including those on equal pay. Ministers therefore cannot force councils, or Cordia, to settle equal pay claims; but they have repeatedly called on them to do so immediately and not continue to keep thousands of people waiting for their settlement. Ministers have repeatedly made clear that delays by councils in settling equal pay claims are completely unacceptable. Many claims go back to 2006 or even further; there can be no justification for taking so long to resolve this.
You may like to know the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government for 2016-17 contained a commitment to consider a system of penalties for local authorities that haven’t settled outstanding equal pay claims, or are still not paying equal pay by April 2017.
In the context of that commitment, the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities, Angela Constance MSP, wrote to local authorities on 24 October to find out just how many equal pay claims are outstanding. In addition Audit Scotland is carrying out an audit of equal pay in Scottish local authorities, with the aim of publishing a report in Spring 2017. We are keeping in close touch with Audit Scotland officials on this work, which when completed should provide an informed and authoritative view on the volume and cost of claims across local government. When we have that information we should be better placed to decide how we will proceed with encouraging councils to meet their obligations.
The Scottish Government has also agreed to give councils time to plan for the funding of equal pay claims, and to allow them to use capital receipts to fund the costs of claims. It is up to councils to manage their resources effectively, including meeting costs of equal pay claims: but Ministers cannot agree to these outstanding claims continuing to remain unsettled.
I am pleased to hear you won your Employment Tribunal. But in the meantime I would advise you to contact your employers directly and ask them to provide you with an update on what is happening with your claim and when they may be able to resolve it.
I hope this advice is of some help.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Romain
Local Government Division and Analytical Services Division
A number of Home Carers have been in touch to suggest launching a petition to help persuade Glasgow City Council to get its finger out over equal pay.
If you ask me, the current crop of senior officials are in this up to their necks and they have an obvious vested interest in dragging things out for years on end - by which time they will have all left the Council and/or retired on their final salary pensions.
So I've drafted some words below which people can use to build support amongst the City Council workforce and wider public.
In my view, the behaviour of Glasgow City Council is a national disgrace and it's high time that the Council's pay arrangements were brought out into the open
Nicola Sturgeon rightly condemned this 'foot-dragging' behaviour by Scottish councils back in 2016 and now she has the opportunity to do something about it in her own back yard.
The key point of the petition is that if Glasgow's officials are being deliberately awkward or if they are claiming not to have sufficient resources to 'come clean' over the City Council's pay arrangements, then the Scottish Government can send in some outside help.
No doubt this would help to concentrate minds and get to the bottom of things and explain just how the male jobs were 'looked after' by council managers and the trade unions once the WPBR/EDC pay scheme was introduced in 2007.
Nicola Sturgeon's contact details are:
Email
FirstMinister@gov.scot
Nicola.Sturgeon.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
Twitter
@NicolaSturgeon
Readers of the blog site can also help by spreading the word by 'Sharing', 'Liking' and 'Retweeting' this post on Facebook and Twitter - and by raising these issues directly with local councillors, MSPs and MPs.
Remember - many hands make light work and so the more people who get involved the sooner this business will al be over.
"We, the undersigned, call upon Nicola Sturgeon to use her authority and influence as a Glasgow MSP and First Minister to bring about a speedy resolution to Glasgow City Council's outstanding equal pay cases.
"We note that the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court, recently judged Glasgow's WPBR pay arrangements introduced in 2007 to be unfit for purpose with Lady Norris (one of the judges) commenting that the City Council 'looked after' the interests of the men.
"We also note that while there is clear evidence of preferential treatment being given to male dominated jobs, council officials seem unwilling or unable to 'come clean' and explain the details of these secret pay deals and what effect they had on the pay of Gardeners, Gravediggers, Refuse Workers and so on.
"We call upon the First Minister to help ensure that Glasgow City Council's pay arrangements are fair, open, honest and transparent going forward - based on the principle of equal pay for work of equal value.
"To that end we also call upon the First Minister to send in Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission (Scotland's public spending watchdog) to work with the City Council leadership to uncover, as a matter of the highest priority,how the higher paid groups of male workers were 'looked after' when the WPBR/EDC pay scheme was introduced in 2007."
In May, that came to an end.
The cronies and time-servers are out.
Fresh ideas, Susan Aitken and the SNP are in.
The difference is already clear.Under Labour, a bitter school janitor dispute rumbled on for months.
Within weeks, it was resolved by the SNP.
For years, under Labour, women were denied the equal pay they are entitled to.
Conference
It may take us a bit of time to fix Labour’s mess, but I make this promise today.
Fix it we will.
The injustice suffered by low paid women in this city will be put right.
Equal pay for equal work, denied for too long, will be delivered by the SNP."
Now it's been a long hard fight to get where we are today and, at times, it certainly did feel as if the bosses, bullies and bureaucrats would get their way.
So I won't be mothballing the A4ES campaign or standing down my blog site anytime soon because the job's not done until it's done - which means a settlement of all the outstanding equal pay claims.
Nonetheless, the First Minister's words are bold and unequivocal and for that Nicola Sturgeon, Susan Aitken and the SNP all deserve great credit.
The task now is to get down to serious negotiations on how to best deliver equal pay for work of equal value in Glasgow which was, of course, the original intention of the landmark Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement in 1999.
For this to happen City Council officials need to come clean about the WPBR pay scheme and how it has 'looked after' the interests of traditional male jobs over the past 10 years.
And if there are any 'cronies or time-servers' who are tempted to frustrate this process, my advice is to get out of the way while you still can - because the winds of change seem to be blowing through the corridors of Glasgow City Council at long last.
Glasgow and Equal Pay (10/10/17)
I happen to be near a TV this afternoon so I am going to listen to Nicola Sturgeon's speech to the SNP's 2017 annual conference which is being held in Glasgow - the First Minister's political backyard.
No doubt this will be a wide ranging speech, but I will be interested to hear if the First Minister mentions the fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council which has been raging for the past 10 years.
I certainly hope the issue comes up because Glasgow is the First Minister's political backyard and if you ask me, the thousands of low paid women council workers who have been cheated and robbed of their rights for years deserve the active support of their local MSPs and MPs.
First Minister and Equal Pay (07/10/17)
I've had lots of feedback to my recent posts about the First Minister and equal pay - here are just a few examples.
"Tweet sent"
"I sent Nicola Sturgeon an email and a group of us are going to ask her for a meeting"
"I’ve already sent one to her last month and the reply I got was basically it’s up to individual councils how they deal with it!"
"I got one saying that too ... disgrace"
Now the point of the exercise is not to make impossible or unreasonable demands of the City Council or Nicola Sturgeon, either as a Glasgow MSP or as First Minister.
Now the point of the exercise is not to make impossible or unreasonable demands of the City Council or Nicola Sturgeon, either as a Glasgow MSP or as First Minister.
But the fact of the matter is that the City Council is still refusing to come clean and explain how the interests of the bonus earning male groups were 'looked after' under the WPBR pay scheme.
And if you ask me, that's a national disgrace especially as we're talking about Scotland's largest and best resourced council which has cheated and robbed low paid women workers of their rights to equal pay for years.
No one is asking the First Minister, the Scottish Government or Glasgow MSPs to take control of the City Council - all that's being asked is that local politicians raise their voices and speak out about this terrible secrecy and refusal to shine a light on Glasgow's furtive pay arrangements.
I am absolutely prepared to accept that the new SNP led City Council is genuine about its desire to reach a negotiated settlement of the outstanding equal pay claims, but the evidence suggests that this mindset is not exactly shared by senior officials.
Individuals employees with equal pay claims going back 10 full years could ask that Audit Scotland (Scotland's public spending watchdog) gets directly involved, but this request would carry much more weight if it were supported by local councillors, MSPs, MPs, the First Minister and so on.
And if you ask me, it's high time Glasgow's MSPs rose up and really started getting behind their local constituents in this long-running fight for equal pay.
Messaging the First Minister (06/10/17)
The SNP's 83rd annual conference gets underway this weekend at the SEC Centre in Glasgow and will hear from Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, a local Glasgow MSP for the 'Southside' constituency.
Glasgow City Council (Scotland's largest local authority) has a largely female workforce who have been cheated and robbed their rights to equal pay for years which is a national disgrace, if you ask me.
The new SNP led administration has pledged to sort this mess out, but the Council's WPBR pay arrangements are still shrouded in secrecy despite being described as 'unfit for purpose' by the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court.
So why not send a message to the First Minister, via email or Twitter, calling on Glasgow City Council to commit itself to openness and transparency over equal pay:
Please highlight the fight for equal pay at SNP 2017 and urge Glasgow City Council to 'come clean' over its WPBR pay scheme?
Readers can send a message to Nicola Sturgeon at the Twitter address below or via email
Twitter@NicolaSturgeon
FirstMinister@gov.scot
Nicola.Sturgeon.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
As a Glasgow voter and council taxpayer I will be messaging the First Minister this weekend and I hope that lots of readers, and their families, will do so as well.
'People make Glasgow' after all and the more who get involved in this campaign the better.
First Minister and Equal Pay (04/10/17)
A number of readers have taken the initiative and written directly to the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP, about the fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council.
A civil servant has responded on the First Minister's behalf and here's what the chap (Anthony Romain) had to say:
October 2017
Dear XXXXXXXX
Thank you for your email of 20 September to the First Minister about equal pay for Glasgow City Council employees. I have been asked to reply.
Councils are independent of the Scottish Government and are responsible for meeting their legal obligations to their employees, including those on equal pay. Ministers therefore cannot force councils to settle equal pay claims. However, Ministers have repeatedly made clear that delays by councils in settling equal pay claims are completely unacceptable.
Audit Scotland published on 7 September an audit report on equal pay in Scottish councils that included setting out actions that councils should take. The report is on the Audit Scotland website at http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/news/councils-yet-to-resolve-long- standing-issues-with-equal-pay. Ministers expect each council with outstanding claims to take note of this report and take urgent action.
As you may be aware, in May the Court of Session ruled in favour of the claimants in an equal pay case against Glasgow City Council described as affecting around 6,000 female workers. In response, the new Leader of the Council was reported as saying that the council would have open discussions with those workers and their representatives about how to give effect to that ruling.
Thank you for your email of 20 September to the First Minister about equal pay for Glasgow City Council employees. I have been asked to reply.
Councils are independent of the Scottish Government and are responsible for meeting their legal obligations to their employees, including those on equal pay. Ministers therefore cannot force councils to settle equal pay claims. However, Ministers have repeatedly made clear that delays by councils in settling equal pay claims are completely unacceptable.
Audit Scotland published on 7 September an audit report on equal pay in Scottish councils that included setting out actions that councils should take. The report is on the Audit Scotland website at http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/news/councils-yet-to-resolve-long- standing-issues-with-equal-pay. Ministers expect each council with outstanding claims to take note of this report and take urgent action.
As you may be aware, in May the Court of Session ruled in favour of the claimants in an equal pay case against Glasgow City Council described as affecting around 6,000 female workers. In response, the new Leader of the Council was reported as saying that the council would have open discussions with those workers and their representatives about how to give effect to that ruling.
In a second case, decided in August, the council is reported as having sought leave to appeal. However it is reported Council Leader Susan Aitken has now stated that any remaining legal proceedings are to provide clarity and will not be used to delay settlement of any outstanding claims. We understand the Council has already begun meeting Trade Unions. We hope the Council and Trade Unions will reach agreement and resolve all outstanding claims quickly.
I hope this reply is helpful.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Romain
Local Government Division and Analytical Services Division
Now the first point to make is that Action 4 Equality Scotland (A4ES) represents over 80% of the equal pay claimants in Glasgow.
The reason being that the local Trade Unions lost all credibility over the fight for equal pay after:
- Keeping their members in the dark for years over the huge pay gap between traditional male and female jobs
- Supporting the introduction of the WPBR pay scheme in Glasgow in 2007 which the Court of Session has now judged to be 'unfit for purpose'
- Agreeing with council management to place an arbitrary 'cap' of just £9,000 on the financial compensation available to equal pay claimants
- Excluding thousands of council workers (e.g. former APT&C staff) from receiving compensation even though they had perfectly valid equal pay claims
- Seeking special and more favourable treatment for bonus earning, traditional male jobs such as Gardeners, Refuse Workers and Gravediggers
- Betraying the interests of thousands of low paid women who were supposed to get a new deal under the landmark 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement
Yet the First Minister's spokesperson says he hopes "the Council and the Trade Unions will reach agreement and resolve all outstanding claims quickly" which suggests to me that the Scottish Government is very badly out of touch with what's happening on the ground.
Now I don't expect the First Minister or any Glasgow politician for that matter to 'tell' the City Council what to do, but they can and should express their opinion, for example, on the need for Glasgow to 'come clean' and explain how the men's earnings were 'looked after' under the WPBR pay scheme.
Hence my recent suggestion that Audit Scotland be asked to provide help to get to the bottom of this mystery if City Council officials either can't or won't do the jobs themselves.
The bottom line is that for the first time ever Glasgow has an SNP led City Council with an SNP Government leading the Scottish Parliament.
So this is simply not good enough if you ask me, because the cvil servant's 'pass the parcel' response reads like something out of Yes Minister rather than a call to action on behalf of thousands of low paid workers in Glasgow who have been cheated and robbed of their right to equal pay for years.
Just look at what Anthony Romain had to say back in February 2017 when Glasgow still had a Labour run City Council - and the worrying thing is that he is speaking for the First Minister not for himself.
All of which means that it's time to give more time and attention to the politics surrounding the fight for equal pay in Glasgow because it seems that many local politicians seem to regard this as a spectator sport - rather than a big issue which demands their attention and active support.
February 2017
Dear xxxxxxxxxx
Thank you for contacting the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP, regarding your employment with Cordia and Glasgow City Council. I have been asked to respond.
I am sorry to hear of your concerns, however councils and their Arm’s Length External Organisations, such as Cordia, are independent of the Scottish Government and are responsible for meeting their legal obligations to their employees, including those on equal pay. Ministers therefore cannot force councils, or Cordia, to settle equal pay claims; but they have repeatedly called on them to do so immediately and not continue to keep thousands of people waiting for their settlement. Ministers have repeatedly made clear that delays by councils in settling equal pay claims are completely unacceptable. Many claims go back to 2006 or even further; there can be no justification for taking so long to resolve this.
You may like to know the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government for 2016-17 contained a commitment to consider a system of penalties for local authorities that haven’t settled outstanding equal pay claims, or are still not paying equal pay by April 2017.
In the context of that commitment, the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities, Angela Constance MSP, wrote to local authorities on 24 October to find out just how many equal pay claims are outstanding. In addition Audit Scotland is carrying out an audit of equal pay in Scottish local authorities, with the aim of publishing a report in Spring 2017. We are keeping in close touch with Audit Scotland officials on this work, which when completed should provide an informed and authoritative view on the volume and cost of claims across local government. When we have that information we should be better placed to decide how we will proceed with encouraging councils to meet their obligations.
The Scottish Government has also agreed to give councils time to plan for the funding of equal pay claims, and to allow them to use capital receipts to fund the costs of claims. It is up to councils to manage their resources effectively, including meeting costs of equal pay claims: but Ministers cannot agree to these outstanding claims continuing to remain unsettled.
I am pleased to hear you won your Employment Tribunal. But in the meantime I would advise you to contact your employers directly and ask them to provide you with an update on what is happening with your claim and when they may be able to resolve it.
I hope this advice is of some help.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Romain
Local Government Division and Analytical Services Division
First Minister and Equal Pay (20/09/17)
If you ask me, the current crop of senior officials are in this up to their necks and they have an obvious vested interest in dragging things out for years on end - by which time they will have all left the Council and/or retired on their final salary pensions.
So I've drafted some words below which people can use to build support amongst the City Council workforce and wider public.
In my view, the behaviour of Glasgow City Council is a national disgrace and it's high time that the Council's pay arrangements were brought out into the open
Nicola Sturgeon rightly condemned this 'foot-dragging' behaviour by Scottish councils back in 2016 and now she has the opportunity to do something about it in her own back yard.
The key point of the petition is that if Glasgow's officials are being deliberately awkward or if they are claiming not to have sufficient resources to 'come clean' over the City Council's pay arrangements, then the Scottish Government can send in some outside help.
No doubt this would help to concentrate minds and get to the bottom of things and explain just how the male jobs were 'looked after' by council managers and the trade unions once the WPBR/EDC pay scheme was introduced in 2007.
Nicola Sturgeon's contact details are:
FirstMinister@gov.scot
Nicola.Sturgeon.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
@NicolaSturgeon
Readers of the blog site can also help by spreading the word by 'Sharing', 'Liking' and 'Retweeting' this post on Facebook and Twitter - and by raising these issues directly with local councillors, MSPs and MPs.
Remember - many hands make light work and so the more people who get involved the sooner this business will al be over.
Glasgow and Equal Pay
"We, the undersigned, call upon Nicola Sturgeon to use her authority and influence as a Glasgow MSP and First Minister to bring about a speedy resolution to Glasgow City Council's outstanding equal pay cases.
"We note that the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court, recently judged Glasgow's WPBR pay arrangements introduced in 2007 to be unfit for purpose with Lady Norris (one of the judges) commenting that the City Council 'looked after' the interests of the men.
"We also note that while there is clear evidence of preferential treatment being given to male dominated jobs, council officials seem unwilling or unable to 'come clean' and explain the details of these secret pay deals and what effect they had on the pay of Gardeners, Gravediggers, Refuse Workers and so on.
"We call upon the First Minister to help ensure that Glasgow City Council's pay arrangements are fair, open, honest and transparent going forward - based on the principle of equal pay for work of equal value.
"To that end we also call upon the First Minister to send in Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission (Scotland's public spending watchdog) to work with the City Council leadership to uncover, as a matter of the highest priority,how the higher paid groups of male workers were 'looked after' when the WPBR/EDC pay scheme was introduced in 2007."
