15 May (Part 1) - Council jobs to go. Not Tuckley’s obviously
When
it was announced last month that Will Tuckley was the
sixth highest paid town
hall official in the country a Bexley council spokeswoman sprang into action to
defend the waste of money by claiming that the council is the biggest employer in the
borough with a turnover of £500 million a year. I found it rather depressing
that the biggest industry in the borough was bureaucracy, but just how big is it? Previous
attempts
to put a number on the pen-pushers were
inconclusive. While Teresa O’Neill was claiming 2,279 Tuckley was claiming
8,198. As has been said before, don’t expect consistency from liars.
Another search of Bexley’s website produced another new figure.
A month after O’Neill wrote to the Evening Standard with her 2,279 figure, the
Human Resources’ contribution to the General Purposes Committee meeting of 3rd
November 2011 was “Clearly, with an establishment of around 1,600 staff and a
total salary bill of £63m.” It was further explained that some of the
establishment was fulfilled through job sharing so the number of people involved
was 1,933. That's quite a lot of part-timers. “The
level of savings required under Strategy 2014 cannot be achieved without planned
staffing reductions”
the same document proclaimed.
They will presumably be planning to get rid of more staff than in the previous year when
the total was just 37. Maybe they have a cunning plan.
My aim is always to provide supporting evidence and links for what is
written here but occasionally it isn’t possible without betraying sources,
but I hear that behind the scenes the following is being progressed.
• Statutory Services to be merged with Croydon and Bromley by Autumn. So if you
have a noise complaint or a problem trader to report, join a longer queue. £100,000
saved, except that it will need more IT to runs the show.
• Licensing issues to go the same way. I thought we already had quite enough complaints from
publicans without moving their points of contact to another borough.
Fewer staff to run the whole show presumably but further degradation of services almost inevitable.
Those who will lose their jobs will be consoled by the thought that Will Tuckley will have even
less to do. There is still no sign of him doing any job sharing. In
the words of the three Lesnes ward councillors and 2,219
petition signers, “he is paid too much”. Incidentally, Danny Hackett, who was denied an answer to
his question by the filibustering
Teresa O’Neill at last month’s council meeting has had a one word written answer from
the council leader. It is “No”, she doesn't agree with the ward councillors for Lesnes
Abbey. Nice to see dissension in the ranks.