NLC Update (16/01/15)



Lots of people have been in touch over the past 24 hours to ask whether the ongoing settlement talks with North Lanarkshire Council (NLC) are likely to reach agreement. 

Well the honest answer is that I don't know for sure, but if I were to hazard a guess I would say 'No', because up till now the Council has been unwilling to accept the size of the hole it has dug for itself over equal pay.

Nor has the leadership of the Council accepted responsibility for the way in which a new job evaluation scheme (JES) and new local pay arrangements were introduced in 2006/07 - resulting again in the discriminatory treatment of many female dominated jobs.

So the evidence suggests to me that North Lanarkshire is still trying to resolve these issues  on the cheap and is not yet ready to 'fess up' and put things right.

Now I had dealings with every single council in Scotland during my time as Unison's Head of Local Government. I also enjoyed a close working relationship with COSLA (the employers' body) and the Local Government Staff Commission which was responsible for 'migrating' 300,000 employees to new single tier councils (like NLC) in 1996.

But I can honestly say that I've never come across a council that has handled the whole business of equal pay as badly as North Lanarkshire Council, and that's saying something.

If you ask me, the present deadlock is unlikely to be broken without some further independent scrutiny of NLC's actions over the past 10 years. This can be done, in part, at the ongoing Employment Tribunal hearing which is due to reconvene in Glasgow next Monday, 19th January 2015.

The tribunal can call the most senior council officials to account and given other recent developments, I think this should probably now include North Lanarkshire's chief executive, Gavin Whitefield.

My latest FoI request to North Lanarkshire (which is attached below) is due to be answered on Tuesday 20th January and the Council has also been directed to provide me with a copy of its Corporate Management Team (CMT) report from 2005 on Thursday 19th January, following my successful appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner.

If the response to my FoI request and the CMT report suggest there is any evidence of deliberate wrongdoing, I will not hesitate to refer the matter to Police Scotland which would be a whole new ball game, as they say.   

So we shall see what happens, but either way we will know soon whether next week's tribunal hearing is proceeding.

If so, I plan to have a front row seat.



NLC Update (20 December 2014)


Here's another FoI request I've submitted to North Lanarkshire Council requesting further details about the 'missing' Appendix 5 from a crucial report to the Council's Corporate Management Team in August 2005.


Now I don't really understand how, in this day and age, such an important document can mysteriously disappear from the Council's file which surely cannot rely solely on paper files and must be 'backed up' somewhere within a security conscious computer-based IT system.

If you ask me, North Lanarkshire Council, Scotland's fourth largest council, is in danger of becoming a laughing stack over the issue and if the investigation into the document's sudden disappearance suggests that this was done deliberately, maybe it is time to call in Police Scotland. 


15 December 2014
Gavin Whitefield
Chief Executive
North Lanarkshire Council


Dear Mr Whitefield

FOISA Request 

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

Please confirm the identity of the Council official responsible for conducting the investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Appendix 5 from the report to the Council's Corporate Management Team dated August 2005?

Please confirm which Council officer was responsible for writing the original CMT report and with whom?

3 Please confirm the details of the 'distribution list' for this CMT document and the identities of the various individuals to whom the report was sent?

4 Please confirm whether the information contained in Appendix 5 can be reconstructed, in full or in part, from other documents (in draft or other form) which are still in the Council's possession? If none of the information can be reconstructed or recovered from other sources, please explain why? 

Please confirm the details of what steps the Investigating Officer took to obtain a copy of the missing document? 

6 Please confirm whether the deliberate removal or theft of Appendix 5 has been considered as a possible explanation for the document's sudden disappearance?

Please confirm whether Police Scotland have been invited to investigate the deliberate removal or theft of the CMT document as a possible case of misfeasance or malfeasance in public office? Which is, of course, a criminal offence.

8 Please provide me with a copy of the Investigation Report referred to at Point 1 above along with copies of all internal correspondence (including emails) relating to the Council's investigation into this incident?        

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


Mark Irvine

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