Tag: Liberal Democrat

Wirral Council: Proposal not to pay £250 to employees earning less than £21000

Wirral Council: Proposal not to pay £250 to employees earning less than £21000

Wirral Council previously agreed back in March of this year (2012) (when it decided the Budget for 2012/2013) to pay all its employees earning less than £21,000 (which comes to over 2,000 employees) an extra £250 (net of National Insurance, Income Tax, pension contribution etc) in December 2012.

It was put thus in the budget and £600,000 was put aside for it. I quote from this document (which is the agreed Budget for 2012/2013, as agreed by Conservative and Lib Dem councillors (36)), but not the 29 Labour councillors.

“Our staff are those who are best placed to point out where we are failing and to tell us how we can improve the services that we will deliver. We are therefore investing to ensure we listen and properly engage with them in the future:”

…..

“We recognise the importance of leading by example as an employer and we will again make provision for a payment of £250 for our lower paid workers – those earning under a full time equivalent of £21, 000.

£600,000”

Now go forward to now and there’s a proposal to the December Council meeting not to pay this £250 to 2,470 employees earning less than £21,000. The linked document goes into the detail and shows it affects a higher proportion of their female employees (calling this an “unintentional disadvantage”), a higher percentage of black and ethnic minority employees, a higher percentage of non-Christian employees, a higher percentage of transgender employees and a higher percentage of its young (under 30) employees.

So what have they done to mitigate the impact of this? They state they’ve written to the 2,470 employees that would be affected by this and they’ve discussed it in meetings with the trade unions.

As to the reasons why it’s being done, as the music hall song chorus goes:-

“It’s the same the whole world over,
It’s the poor what gets the blame,
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure,
Isn’t it a blooming shame?”

However if last March is a guide, then the Labour councillors will vote for this proposal and the Conservative/Lib Dem councillors will vote against. Labour have seven more councillors (plus Cllr McLaughlin can now vote as she’s no longer the Mayor). Conservative and Lib Dems have seven less. So whatever Labour decide will happen… and they tend to go by what the senior officers of the Council tell them to do.

This proposal (if it goes through which seems likely) just makes a small dent in the currently projected £13.2 million overspend. Quite what awaits the staff in the New Year is probably a much reduced workforce…. as to who is for the chop we’ll just have to wait and see.

Employment and Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) 24th September 2012 Part 1

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Present

Councillors on Employment and Appointments Committee

Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Peter Kearney (Conservative)
Cllr Andrew Hodson (Conservative) deputy for Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative), spokesperson
Cllr Mark Johnston (Liberal Democrat), spokesperson
Cllr Paul Doughty (Labour), Chair
Cllr Phil Davies (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour)

Officers
David Armstrong, Acting Deputy Chief Executive
Tony Williams, Acting Employee Relations Manager
Chris Hyams, Head of HR and Organisational Development
Surjit Tour, Legal adviser
Andrew Mossop, Committee Services Officer

In attendance:

Cllr Adrian Jones (Cabinet Member for Corporate Services)
Two members of public

00:08 to 00:15
The meeting started with the Chair, Labour councillor Paul Doughty welcoming people to tonight’s meeting.

1. Members’ Code of Conduct – Declarations of Interest 00:15

He asked if the councillors had any interests to declare? No declarations of interest were made.

2. Minutes 00:28

The minutes of the meeting held on the 12th July 2012 were agreed.

3. Managing attendance 00:55

Linked report, Appendix 1, Appendix 2, Appendix 3

The Chair, Labour Cllr Paul Doughty asked Tony Williams, Acting Employee Relations Manager to introduce the report.  Tony Williams said it was a regular report to update the Committee on attendance and referred to figures in the report.

Cllr Harry Smith (Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Transport) and Cllr Chris Meaden (Cabinet Member for Culture, Tourism and Leisure) arrive.

Tony Williams said the report showed that health issues were the highest cause of absence, which they were doing work to address, with an example being given of stress awareness. He also referred to the absence rate at the Department for Adult Social Services. He asked if there were any questions?

Cllr Paul Doughty said the report was for noting, so it was noted.

4. Update on Managing Workforce Change and Redeployment 03:20

Linked report, Appendix 1

The Chair, Labour Cllr Paul Doughty asked Tony Williams, Acting Employee Relations Manager to introduce this report.

Tony Williams said there were now fourteen employees on the register, he said at the last meeting there had been six, but five of these had been resolved. He said three on the register had complex circumstances, with two of these being due to disability, he referred to exempt appendix 12.

The Chair, Labour Cllr Paul Doughty referred to exempt appendix 12. He asked if anyone had any questions?

Cllr Mark Johnston, Liberal Democrat spokesperson asked about the reason behind the increase in employees on the register from the Department of Law, HR and Asset Management?
Tony Williams answered Cllr Johnston’s question by saying it related to a graduate trainees program. Cllr Mark Johnston asked a further question to Tony Williams. Tony Williams replied.

Cllr Lesley Rennie, Conservative asked about a point she had raised at the briefing. She wondered if the senior management restructure would lead to people’s jobs being subject to risk. She asked if in future members of the Committee, Leaders and Deputy Leaders could receive updates more regularly, such as fortnightly?

Chris Hyams answered.

The Chair Cllr Paul Doughty asked the Committee if they were happy to note the contents of the report? The report was noted.

5. Workforce Monitoring 2012/2013 Quarter 1 06:53

6. Restructure of Human Resources and Organisational Development 10:00
7. Monitoring Use of Compromise Contracts 29:25
8. Appeals SubCommittee 30:24
9. Employment and Appointments SubCommittee Minutes 14/6/12, 28/6/12, 4/7/12, 5/7/12 31:33
10. Any Other Urgent Business Approved by the Chair (Part 1) 31:46
11. Exclusion of press and public 31:52
12. Exempt Appendix – Update on Managing Workforce Change and Redeployment
13. Exempt Appendix – Monitoring Use of Compromise Contracts
14. Any Other Urgent Business Approved by the Chair (Part 2)

Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee 20th October 2011 PACSPE Call-in

Tonight’s meeting was as the Cabinet decision of the 22nd September 2011 on the PACSPE contract had been called-in by Cllr Jeff Green, Cllr Tom Harney, Cllr Dave Mitchell, Cllr Lesley Rennie and Cllr David Elderton.
At the end of a 3 1/2 hour meeting the voting went as follows.

Labour Amendment to Conservative motion

This amendment upheld the original decision.

Votes For         : 5 (Labour councillors)
Votes Against : 5 (Conservatives councillor plus one Liberal Democrat councillor)

Abstention       : 0
Casting vote of Conservative Chair: AGAINST

Votes For        : 5 (Labour councillors)

Votes Against: 6 (Conservatives councillor plus one Liberal Democrat councillor) + Chair’s casting vote
Abstention     :  0

AMENDMENT FAILS

Conservative Motion

Votes for          : 5 (Conservative councillors plus one Liberal Democrat councillor)

Votes against: 5 (Labour councillors)

Abstentions   : 0

Casting vote of Chair: For

Votes for:          6 (Conservative councillors plus one Liberal Democrat councillor) + Chair’s casting vote

Votes against: 5 (Labour councillors)

Abstentions:  0

MOTION PASSES (Proposed Cllr John Hale, seconded Cllr Don McCubbin)

Text of Motion:

This committee notes that:

    • The Cabinet appeared to ignore, and did not even mention, the findings of the Office of Government Commerce Gateway Reviews that the Parks & Countryside Services Procurement Exercise (PACSPE) had been subjected to.
    • No attempt was made to publically question officers from the Finance Department, the Legal Department and the Procurement Unit who were members of the PACSPE Project Board as to whether the “risk” identified by District Audit, and made such play of in the Cabinet resolution could or had been satisfactorily mitigated.
    • No discussion was had by Cabinet Members of the risks of not awarding the contract.
    • No mention or discussion took place regarding stakeholder management or the views of key stakeholders about the benefits of clear quality improvements that were built into the procurement exercise. In fact, other than the view of the Council’s Trade Unions, the results of the consultation and the views of the park users and user groups were not even mentioned in a single Cabinet meeting.
    • No reference was made to the new post of Community Engagement Manager to work with Friends, stakeholders, user groups, and local Area Forums or the new key performance indicators developed through PACSPE to reflect the change to a more customer and community focused service.
    • Insufficient account seemed to have been taken of the reduction from costs of £8.1 million per year to £7.4 million per year already achieved by the PACSPE process with the potential to reduce costs by a further circa £500,000. Indeed, it is hard to understand how the Leader of of the Council characterised a £1.2 million per annum potential saving arising from PACSPE to be sufficiently marginal to be ignored.
    • No effort appeared to be made by Cabinet Members to discuss or evaluate the additional costs to Council Tax Payers of purchasing what has been accepted as worn out equipment requiring immediate replacement (circa £2.5 million) or the TUPE costs of bringing current contractor staff into the Council workforce and pension scheme, per annum or over the 10 year period.
    • No mention was made of the training and development programme for staff and volunteers or the three to six new apprentices to be created as part of PACSPE.
    • No explanation was given at Cabinet regarding the opposition to a 10 year contract that would reduce annual costs by circa £1.2 million and improve the quality of our parks and countryside, other than the expressed need contained in the resolution to reduce spending by £85 million over three years.
    • Therefore we believe that the decision to refuse to award the PACSPE contract would see the ever decreasing quality of a service starved of investment by this administration which is already characterised by going for the quick fix instead of making the difficult but necessary strategic decisions in the interests of Wirral residents.

The Committee recommends to the Cabinet

*Editor’s note will have to check rest of resolution due to noise preventing taking it down*

My guess is that the rest of it is “reconsider the decision”.

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In the interests of openness, John Brace lives opposite Bidston Hill which is covered by the PACSPE contract.

Election Results (NHS Foundation Trust Governor) Bidston ward

These are the results for the governor election for Bidston ward.

Total eligible to vote: 366
Total voted (52): 14.2%

Those 52 votes were split as follows:-

John Brace (Liberal Democrat) 21 (40.3%)
Jean McIntosh (Labour) 31 (59.6%)

As there was one position, Jean McIntosh was elected with a majority of 10 votes.

I wish Jean McIntosh the best of luck for her next three year term as governor starting in September.