Tag: employee

Councillors recommend that they chose who will receive £thousands for sitting on new Pensions Board

Councillors recommend that they chose who will receive £thousands for sitting on new Pensions Board

Councillors recommend that they chose who will receive £thousands for sitting on new Pensions Board

                                                                   

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Above is video of the Pensions Committee meeting of 19th January 2015.

Pensions Committee Wirral Council Merseyside Pension Fund 19th January 2015 L to R Pat Phillips Cllr Geoffrey Watt Cllr Mike Hornby Cllr Chris Carubia Cllr Nick Crofts Cllr Harry Smith
Pensions Committee Wirral Council Merseyside Pension Fund 19th January 2015 L to R Pat Phillips Cllr Geoffrey Watt Cllr Mike Hornby Cllr Chris Carubia Cllr Nick Crofts Cllr Harry Smith

I’ll start this piece by declaring an interest as my father is paid a pension by the Merseyside Pension Fund administered by Wirral Council.

Wirral Council’s Pensions Committee (which form part of the governance arrangements for the Merseyside Pension Fund worth billions of pounds) met yesterday evening. The agenda and reports for this meeting are on Wirral Council’s website.

The first main item on the agenda was the creation of a Pensions Board which I’ve previously written about when it was discussed at a previous meeting of the Pensions Committee last year.

The original recommendation in the report had been “That Members consider the proposals for the Wirral Pension Board set out in this report and the draft Terms of Reference and advise officers of any required amendments before submission for approval and implementation by Wirral Council.”

The Chair of the new Pensions Board will receive £2,751 a year (plus travel & subsistence expenses) and the employer/employee representatives will receive £1375.50 a year (plus travel & subsistence expenses). Just before the meeting started a much more detailed recommendation was handed out. This was agreed at the meeting and is now a recommendation to a future meeting of all Wirral Council councillors. One of the implications of the revised recommendation is that three councillors (who are not on the Pension Committee) will form a selection panel to choose who is on the new Pensions Board.

The complete revised recommendation is below:

“1. Pensions Committee agrees and recommends to Council:

a) the establishment of a Pension Board pursuant to regulations (The Local Government Pension Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2014) in accordance with the Terms of Reference set out in appendix 1, subject to the membership being agreed by Council and the Terms of Reference being amended to confirm that the board shall be quorate providing a minimum of 4 members are present.

b) that the Pension Board shall have the authority to do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the discharge of any of its functions.

c) the establishment of a selection panel by the Council in accordance with appendix 3 to consider and assess applications received and undertake interviews. The selection panel is to make recommendations to Council with regard to appointments to the Board.

d) that the Head of Pension Fund be authorised to implement the administrative arrangements required to undertake a recruitment exercise necessary for the selection and appointment of members to the Board.

e) that the definition of independent member for the purposes of the Board shall be agreed as:

  • not a current elected member or employee of a participating scheme employer
  • has not been an elected member or employee of a participating scheme employer in the past 5 years

f) that in respect of the two active member representatives, the initial appointment to the Board for one of the representatives shall be for a term of 6 years and the other for 4 years; that in respect of the two representatives of local authorities, police/fire/transport authorities and parish councils, the initial appointment to the Board for one of the representatives shall be for a term of 6 years and the other for 4 years.

g) that the Pensions Committee (and the Heads of the Pension Fund and of Legal and Member Services after consultation with the Chair of the Pensions Committee prior to the meeting of the Council in March 2015) may recommend to Council changes to the Board and its Terms of Reference having regard to the final form of regulations and statutory guidance.

2. that the Selection Panel’s Terms of Reference as set out in Appendix 3 shall be that:

  • it shall comprise 3 elected members
  • it shall not consist of current Pensions Committee members
  • There shall be two advisors to the selection panel: the Head of Pension Fund and a representative from the Fund’s external auditors.

3. That the following amendments be made to the Board’s terms of reference set out in appendix 1.

a) Section 3 “Members of the Board shall cease to be a member of the Board if they do not attend two consecutive meetings and fail to tender apologies which are accepted by the Board” be substituted for “Other than by ceasing to be eligible as set out above, a Board member may only be removed from office during a term of appointment by the majority agreement of all of the other members. The removal of the independent member requires the consent of the Scheme Manager”.

b) Section 3 the following shall be added: “In the event of the independent member not being available for a Board meeting, a Vice Chair for that meeting shall be determined by the Board members”.

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Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013: Industrial relations: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013: Industrial relations: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013: Industrial relations: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

                                                                                  

One of the quandaries you face in the press is just what you do over leaked documents. When I was working in print it was easy, the procedure was everything just had to be double sourced. With Wirral Council that has in the past often caused problems as two bits of Wirral Council would flat-out contradict each other over the same facts!

The particular document I am referring to is the Ipsos Mori “Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013”. This contains such classic lines such as:

“The contents of this report are of a commercially sensitive and confidential nature and intended solely for the review and consideration of the person or entity to which it is addressed. No other use is permitted and the addressee undertakes not to disclose all or part of this report to any third party (including but not limited, where applicable, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act 2000) without the prior written consent of the Company Secretary of Ipsos MORI.”

Well thank goodness for a s.30 exemption to the copyright laws for the press is all I can say.

In an “open and transparent” public sector, where Wirral Council wanted to show how it had emerged from the nightmare of its past “industrial relations” issues, here’s just one industrial relations issue that would not be happening:

a) employee appeals/grievance hearings of Wirral Council employees now decided by Wirral Council management behind closed doors instead of councillors (unlike other local councils) at public meetings behind closed doors. Yes it was a Labour administration and Labour councillors that decided to change the constitution and go against the trade unions on that one!

b) excessive secrecy on HR matters (but I’m the press and I would say that wouldn’t I?), however it’s not just me but others that state the same thing?

The whole ninety-page document that is the Wirral Council Employee Survey 2013 (before you get to the appendices) is the kind of thing that councillors, the public, employees and others should be able to read, but I’m sure management would rather not like to ever see the light of day.

However considering management’s view on leaks, especially matters that relate to Graham Burgess, I will just remind people of part of the Chief Executive’s job description as Head of Paid Service:

“To act as Head of Paid Service to the Council and to provide workforce leadership for the Council.”

In other words the buck stops at him. OK answerable to the public then are councillors who are Cabinet Members, but from an officer perspective ultimately Graham Burgess (or whoever replaces him after the end of this year) sets the culture of the organisation when it comes to workforce matters.

For example is Wirral Council an organisation where councillors, management and the trade unions work harmoniously in partnership or is it one where senior officers (backed up by councillors) make veiled threats to cancel a meeting because of industrial relations matters in an attempt to somewhat avoid legal protections in order to damage openness and transparency?

It was during Graham Burgess’ tenure as Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service that the changes to the grievance and appeals procedures were changed. One of the reasons given at the time was that with large-scale redundancies, councillors would’ve been snowed under dealing with employee appeals.

That may be a legitimate reason to put forward for the change (and yes I have heard at least one former councillor moan during a public meeting about how terribly long-winded some employee appeals/grievances were). However taking councillors out of grievance appeals meant that any future whistleblowers would only be heard by management. Then management have a vested interest in making sure issues are resolved behind the scenes (such as paying off whistleblowers to leave and keep quiet) and then the underlying issues are not talked about by councillors in public meetings (making life easier for management) or indeed written about in the press.

I think it is about time I published some of the Human Resources related invoices to do with Employment Tribunals and employee issues so that the public can see how expensive to the public purse it is to not have effective internal processes to deal with employee matters. Previously such procedures (despite their flaws) relied not on the more independent decisions of councillors but now it’s purely officers who decide instead. I’m not saying councillors would make decisions that were less likely to result in large expensive legal bills, it’s just I personally disagree (a rare political point on my part) with the lack of political oversight in employee matters as it means councillors are less likely to know what’s going on.

I fully realise matters have been dealt with behind closed doors, but there is a point where too much secrecy can be counter productive in the public sector as it results in no one being personally accountable for the results of their actions.

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Cllr Simon Mountney: “Now I don’t know, I’ve asked, no one will tell me what the issue was that caused that employee to be paid that large amount of money”

Cllr Simon Mountney: “Now I don’t know, I’ve asked, no one will tell me what the issue was that caused that employee to be paid that large amount of money”

Cllr Simon Mountney: “Now I don’t know, I’ve asked, no one will tell me what the issue was that caused that employee to be paid that large amount of money”

                           

Continuing from yesterday about last week’s Audit and Risk Management Committee meeting, Cllr Simon Mountney’s further comments start at 24:22 in this video clip and continue in the clip below.

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Cllr Mountney said, “Chair, thank you. Chair your comments about fraud are interesting because I don’t know of one councillor that would not support an employee who followed the procedures, made the decision but got it wrong. I think that’s what happens I hear every day of the week that’s important.

Perhaps they need training, perhaps they need guidance, whatever they need but not one councillor I don’t think has called for that person to be sacked, or fired or disciplined as they have with other council employees in the past and that’s the difference.

Steve you had an analogy about people given legal advice that you found yourself up against all this legal advice. That was probably because you’d done something wrong.”

Cllr Steve Foulkes said “I got divorced.”

Cllr Simon Mountney continued, “Whatever the case may be, it’s difficult to prove a wrong. You can get away with something, you can prove an innocent but you can’t prove a wrongdoing err the main reason you can’t frame people because now people find out about it down the line.

No one’s calling for employees to be dragged out and flogged publicly for making mistakes. That’s not what we’re asking for. Importantly as if you like a director of this company being a councillor, I want to learn the lessons that need to be learnt so that we can improve it.

Now, what we’re not doing is that process. An employee of this Council has just been paid tens of thousands of pounds for something that was done to them. Now I don’t know, I’ve asked, no one will tell me what the issue was that caused that employee to be paid that large amount of money. How can we therefore learn the lessons? We’re not. So page after page after page has been written here to say we did wrong and we’re improving. No we’re not, because we’re not learning the lessons which have been learnt clearly from all these issues because we’re still doing it!

Please somebody tell me that the level of rigour, robustness and due diligence was in force against the payment of that large amount of money recently to a Council employee as is being applied to the Martin Morton issue, because I tell you that is impossible, impossible!? Two years that process has been gone one, two years! He’s been dragged through every last ditch, the man is at the edge and hang on, I haven’t finished, I’ve not said anything that’s wrong.

He’s been dragged through every ditch, he is at the end and yet we can find a large amount of money to pay for an individual in this Council within what appears to be, appears to be weeks. Now that same level of robustness and diligence cannot have been applied to that case as indeed applies to Martin Morton and therefore your comments about I want everyone to be treated the same is not happening in this Council! All these lessons which we’re supposed to have learnt, not one! Thank you.”

Cllr Jim Crabtree (Chair): “Surjit would like to come in.”

Surjit Tour, head of Legal and Member Services said, “I would advise it’s not appropriate for Members to discuss or go into detail about any particular case and I appreciate what Cllr Mountney has said.

What I would say however, I agree with Mr. Morton, he has legal advice, he has a legal adviser and matters are being dealt with through his solicitors.”

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