Dear All
Inverclyde Council has suspended four senior local government officials after paying consultants hundreds of thousands of pounds to deliver savings.
Savings that failed to be delivered!
After splashing out £650,000 to PricewaterhouseCoopers, just £250,000 of savings where achieved.
This begs the questions, why did these four people get employment in the first place and why isn’t the expertise in the council already?
It seems that brains are in short supply in Inverclyde Council.
But it gets better, Inverclyde Council has now launched an investigation into why its ‘savings’ scheme delivered a fraction of the anticipated £1.9 million savings.
The upshot is that this will probably see the collapse of the Future Operating Model (FOM) will lead to even more job losses in the economically depressed area.
This is an example of bad management.
And how much scrutiny does the Labour run Council actually have in place?
With cuts coming down the pipeline the council says it needs to save at least £10m over the next two years.
And the easy route when faced with financial implosion is to cut jobs; in this case this could amount to as many as 700 people losing out.
The four officials suspended are corporate director Paul Wallace, heads of service John Arthur and Gordon McLoughlin, and head of IT project management Arun Menon.
They are paid serious money; all receive salaries of between £75,000 and £105,000.
Also the role of chief executive, John Mundell is being looked at and why it has taken almost two years for the failings to be addressed.
Were elected Councillors kept in the dark to what was doing on?
Is it a case that rather than the Councillors running the authority, they have simply let the executive directors do it?
Is this a case of the tail wagging the dog?
And what does it say that a contract worth £300,000 went to PricewaterhouseCoopers without going out to tender?
And where the Councillors told this was happening?
There is clearly a case for investigation not just into the specific incident but how the Council actually functions.
LibDem councillor Luciano Rebecchi said:
“All involved here should have been highlighting the fact that savings weren’t happening. That appears not to have happened. The impact will be on jobs in the area and morale among staff.”
An Inverclyde spokesman said:
“Following a review of the council’s operating model, which forms part of our modernisation programme, four officers of the council have been suspended, as a precautionary measure, pending further investigation. While this investigation is being carried out it would be inappropriate for the council to comment on the circumstances of the individuals involved.”
There appears to be a wider issue here of Councillors just being mere figureheads and executive officers acting in an unaccountable fashion.
It seems that Labour run Inverclyde Council Councillors have a lot of questions to answer in regard to why they aren’t going their jobs properly as elected officials.
Is it because they don’t know what their jobs are in the first place?
People are going to get made unemployed because the Labour Party in Inverclyde Council didn’t take their responsibilities seriously.
Maybe its time the ‘acid test’ was applied to people in the public sector; can you do the job you are paid for?
If they can’t why is the taxpayer paying 5 and 6 figure salaries to them?
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
Inverclyde Council has suspended four senior local government officials after paying consultants hundreds of thousands of pounds to deliver savings.
Savings that failed to be delivered!
After splashing out £650,000 to PricewaterhouseCoopers, just £250,000 of savings where achieved.
This begs the questions, why did these four people get employment in the first place and why isn’t the expertise in the council already?
It seems that brains are in short supply in Inverclyde Council.
But it gets better, Inverclyde Council has now launched an investigation into why its ‘savings’ scheme delivered a fraction of the anticipated £1.9 million savings.
The upshot is that this will probably see the collapse of the Future Operating Model (FOM) will lead to even more job losses in the economically depressed area.
This is an example of bad management.
And how much scrutiny does the Labour run Council actually have in place?
With cuts coming down the pipeline the council says it needs to save at least £10m over the next two years.
And the easy route when faced with financial implosion is to cut jobs; in this case this could amount to as many as 700 people losing out.
The four officials suspended are corporate director Paul Wallace, heads of service John Arthur and Gordon McLoughlin, and head of IT project management Arun Menon.
They are paid serious money; all receive salaries of between £75,000 and £105,000.
Also the role of chief executive, John Mundell is being looked at and why it has taken almost two years for the failings to be addressed.
Were elected Councillors kept in the dark to what was doing on?
Is it a case that rather than the Councillors running the authority, they have simply let the executive directors do it?
Is this a case of the tail wagging the dog?
And what does it say that a contract worth £300,000 went to PricewaterhouseCoopers without going out to tender?
And where the Councillors told this was happening?
There is clearly a case for investigation not just into the specific incident but how the Council actually functions.
LibDem councillor Luciano Rebecchi said:
“All involved here should have been highlighting the fact that savings weren’t happening. That appears not to have happened. The impact will be on jobs in the area and morale among staff.”
An Inverclyde spokesman said:
“Following a review of the council’s operating model, which forms part of our modernisation programme, four officers of the council have been suspended, as a precautionary measure, pending further investigation. While this investigation is being carried out it would be inappropriate for the council to comment on the circumstances of the individuals involved.”
There appears to be a wider issue here of Councillors just being mere figureheads and executive officers acting in an unaccountable fashion.
It seems that Labour run Inverclyde Council Councillors have a lot of questions to answer in regard to why they aren’t going their jobs properly as elected officials.
Is it because they don’t know what their jobs are in the first place?
People are going to get made unemployed because the Labour Party in Inverclyde Council didn’t take their responsibilities seriously.
Maybe its time the ‘acid test’ was applied to people in the public sector; can you do the job you are paid for?
If they can’t why is the taxpayer paying 5 and 6 figure salaries to them?
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
1 comment:
You're a clown! You should really check your facts - as should the so the so-called 'journalists' who wrote the original piece.
You have quoted incorrect salaries and one of the job titles is wrong.
The savings they quote are only the first year savings - the programme is multi year and much of the money to be saved comes further down the line, as is normal with this scale of work.
And you should check your spelling and grammar!
Finally, please don't insult public sector workes, many of whom work extremely hard and are very highly motivated and qualified.
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