Tag: Wirral Council

Labour ban filming at public meeting of Wirral Council’s Pensions Committee

Labour Chair of Pensions Committee Cllr Pat Glasman bans filming at public meeting

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In extraordinary scenes tonight, Labour councillors at Wirral Council (where else?) chose to ban filming during a public meeting of the Pension Committee. The Pension Committee has eleven Wirral Council councillors on it, along with a councillor from each other Merseyside local authority and a trade union representative. Wirral Council are the administering authority for the £4.7 billion Merseyside Pension Fund, which at its last valuation had a £1.3 billion deficit. Quite what are the real reasons behind this move we’re not entirely sure, although it makes the public wonder what they’ve got to hide (agenda and reports on Wirral Council’s website here)?

I quote from this letter from their previous Director of Law, Bill Norman dated 22nd July 2011 “Finally, I can confirm that, since Monday 28 February 2011, blogging, Tweeting and the use of video cameras have all been permitted during meetings of the Council. Indeed, a number of people were using some of these technologies in the meeting on 1 March. Wirral Council was the first local authority in Merseyside to respond to the request by the Government to take this step to allow greater public scrutiny of meetings and decisions.”

The below was also agreed as Wirral Council policy (agreed unanimously on 12th December 2011),

(2) Reaffirms its commitment, made last year by the previous Conservative Liberal Democrat administration, to ensure that any member of the public who wishes to film or broadcast from a public Council meeting is encouraged to do so.

However since taking over in May, some Labour councillors seem determined to make decisions that ride roughshod over agreed policy or decisions they don’t agree with (such as the Budget for 2012/2013 agreed by the former Conservative/Lib Dem administration). Certainly the last time the former Chair of the Planning Committee, Cllr David Elderton tried this just over a year ago, there was a U-turn within a few days.

It’ll be interesting to see (pun intended) what happens next.

Employment and Appointments Subcommittee 13th November 2012

Employment and Appointments Subcommittee 13th November 2012 Appointment of a Strategic Director (Families and Wellbeing)

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Present
Cllr Tom Harney (Lib Dem)
Cllr Simon Mountney (Conservative)
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Phil Davies, Chair (Labour)
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour)

Officers
Graham Burgess (Chief Executive)
Chris Hyams (Head of HR and OD)
Andrew Mossop (Committee Services Officer)
Unknown female officer

Press/public
Johnathan Swain of  Penna PLC
John and Leonora Brace

Well the Employment and Appointments Subcommittee, part of the final process to select a strategic director (Families and Wellbeing) following the officer interviews today, was predictably short (well the public bit anyway). Jonathan Swain of recruitment consultants Penna PLC once again stayed for the exempt part of the meeting, even though as far as I know being a private sector employee working in the private sector would be classed as part of the “public” (unless they’ve temporarily made him an officer).

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Wirral Council Consultation: What Really Matters (Part 2)

An opinion piece on staff cuts at Wirral Council and the current consultation.

English: Wallasey Town Hall, Wirral, England a...
English: Wallasey Town Hall, Wirral, England as seen from the promenade. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

OPINION BY JOHN BRACE: Well as promised at last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, Wirral Council has published its option papers for part two of the What Really Matters consultation.

As explained on the website the options are about 25% more than the savings required (so the consultation is really about the 25% of things Wirral Council does in the options the public would like to save). Despite stating on their website that the consultation lasts until January 31st 2013, some decisions will be have to be made at the special Cabinet meetings on December 20th 2012 to comply with legal requirements on consultation with the workforce.

There will be more unspecified “consultation events” and of course staff/trade union consultation too. What does this mean for staff working in service areas identified as a budget option? It means basically one of two things if you’re an employee in a service area that’s become an “option”:-

(a) you’ll could be lucky this year and end up in the 25% of options that aren’t cut, due to public/staff support in this current consultation or other reasons (but this doesn’t rule out your post being cut in future years),

(b) once the special Cabinet meeting (followed by the Employment and Appointments Committee) of 20th December 2012 meets your job could be at risk under the new (recently approved) less generous redundancy scheme

How many jobs will go at Wirral Council as a result of this? Well the law requires this kind of consultation for over twenty redundancies, the real figure partly depends on a bunch of decisions yet to be made, however if you add the predicted shortfall of £25.4 million next year to the current required in-year savings of £13.2 million, you get £38.6 million.

Obviously not all the £38.6 million will be staff’s salaries and some staff are directly employed by schools. These figures are based on full-time equivalents, as Wirral Council employs a lot of part-time workers, the real figures could be higher than this estimate.

However by my rough estimates it would be around 154 to 1,026 FT employees that will need to go to balance the books. With those types of numbers involved it won’t just the normal reasons people leave and there will have to be redundancies. The specifics of who, how many and which service areas has yet to be decided (apart from some Executive Team decisions on the current in year savings).

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Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012: Workforce Change and Consultation Part 1

Report on Cabinet meeting of the 8th November 2012 Part 1 with video.

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Wirral Council: Trade Unions Protest at Labour Cabinet’s Decision to Consult on Future Job Cuts and Changes to Terms and Conditions

Last night’s Cabinet meeting was so well attended, that the room venue had to change at the last-minute from the Council Chamber (capacity fifty) to the Civic Hall (capacity hundreds). Its usual venue of Committee Room 1 is being used for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections.

Unusually both the Civic Hall and the balcony were packed following a picket at 5pm outside Wallasey Town Hall.

In scenes that haven’t been seen at a Cabinet meeting since the Labour/Lib Dem Cabinet tried to close Wirral’s libraries (which led to the public inquiry led by Sue Charteris), the Labour Cabinet Members were booed on entering the Civic Hall. The first video (part of a longer playlist of the meeting) shows the first three items of the meeting, which are Declarations of Interest, Minutes and Workforce Change and Consultation and the report for this last item can be found on Wirral Council’s website.

There was a change to the original recommendation proposed and seconded by the Labour Group which was circulated to those at the meeting. This amendment (which was agreed) is below:

Proposed amendment

Agenda Item 10
12.1 a) 4. The potential impact on staff of the officer budget options including redundancy

b) Immediately suspend applications to the council’s existing employee enhanced Voluntary Severance Scheme

————————————————————————————————–
Revised recommendations (agreed)

12.1 That the Chief Executive is authorised to:

a) Open formal consultation with Trade Unions and staff under TULRCA (Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992) and as a matter of good practice on:

1. Changes to the council’s enhanced discretionary severance scheme policy under the Local Government (Early Termination of Employment) (Discretionary Compensation) (England and Wales) Regulations 2006.

2. Changes to the local conditions of service.

3. The terms upon which to implement the final stages of Job Evaluation, under the 1997 National joint agreement.

4. The potential impact on staff of the officer budget options including redundancy.

b) Immediately suspend of the council’s existing employee enhanced Voluntary Severance Scheme.

12.2 To recommend to the Employment and Appointments Committee that this report is considered and the Chief Executive is authorised to open consultation as outlined in Recommendation 12.1 (a) and that Recommendation 12 (b) is implemented.

The Chief Executive will report back on the progress of consultation the special budget Cabinet on 20 December 2012.

Below are links to the various videos of this Cabinet meeting.

Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Part 1 Workforce Change and Consultation
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Part 2
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Part 3
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Part 4
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Playlist

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.