24plusnews.co.uk Rotating Header Image

Tameside’s jobs for the boys

Jun 23rd, 2011
by Liam Billington.
Comments are off for this post

Back in 2010 in Tameside, we had a leadership battle between Labour councillors with the then incumbent leader Roy Oldham and Councillor Kieran Quinn. At the time Roy was suffering from cancer and had little time to rally support and ended up losing the leadership in May last year. He died just two months later. I always had respect for Roy, but we also had our disagreements. One of them was over political assistants, a position highlighted by the TPA as a non-job.

I remember Councillor Kieran Quinn’s first speech as leader where he promised that he’d change several things which would please Tameside’s bloggers who, at the time were questioning the need for political assistants in the face of incoming budget cuts. To Councillor Quinn’s credit, he removed both Labour and Conservative political assistants which saved the council £67,438 per year.

Mike Kane (right) with Ed Balls

However, a year later it seems political assistants are creeping in under a different name. Tameside Council has just appointed Mike Kane as a “Senior Executive Assistant” to work in the leaders office. Kane has moved from working for Stalybridge and Hyde MP, Jonathan Reynolds as his office manager, a job he inherited when former Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell stepped down from the seat. He also briefly served as a Labour councillor for the Northernden Ward at Manchester City Council.

Mike Kane is a political assistant all in name. Senior Executive Assistant may sound like a jumped up PA (which is probably what he is), but there is no denying Kane’s close links with the Tameside Labour Party and you have to ask if this was the reason he was brought in to work for the council. It stinks of jobs for the boys. It clearly shows the lack of judgement shown by Tameside’s Executive Council Leader, Kieran Quinn. On one hand he complains about the lack of money for frontline services, yet somehow he can find the money for more backroom staff for his own personal benefit and increased trade union funding.

Union Funding at Tameside Council Rockets Up 48%

May 31st, 2011
by Liam Billington.
Comments are off for this post

Last year, the TPA blew the whistle on how much councils were wasting on paying full time union staff. In 2009/2010 Tameside Council employed 8.4 full time equivalent union staff at a cost of £227,469. A year later the Daily Mail published an article which gave the figures for 2010/2011 and revealed that Tameside had employed the same number of full time equivalent staff, but at an increased cost of £336,718. This places Tameside Council fourth in the country for the highest union spend.

What’s worth noting is that despite all the cuts to public spending, union grandees at Tameside Council have had a 48 per cent pay rise! The average union rep in Tameside is paid £40,085. This is almost double the salary of what the average person earns in Tameside.

Yvonne Cartey

Yvonne Cartey

We can all be thankful that the figure next year will be less as long time union stalwarts, Unison’s Anne Keighley and GMB’s Yvonne Cartey, have both taken a nice voluntary redundancy payment. And Yvonne Cartey hasn’t really left the council at all as she’s now a Labour councillor for the St. Michael’s ward. I think it stinks that any council employee could take redundancy and then cosily jump aboard to become a councillor for their previous employer. I have asked Councillor Yvonne Cartey in the local press how much she got from Tameside Council in her redundancy package and if she actually plans on rightly returning her redundancy money to the taxpayers of Tameside. So far she has ignored my letters and not responded.

Tameside Council’s Executive Leader, Councillor Kieran Quinn, who was until recently a trade union representative for the Communications Workers Union, did a webchat with the local paper, the Tameside Advertiser. One person asked:

“Why are council taxpayers funding councils employees’  union representatives, when large companies will only fund a works convener?”

Kieran’s response was:

“Many UK and international companies understand the magnificent amount of work trade unions and workers representatives bring to these organisations assisting these companies to make key financial and planning decisions. Tameside Council also accept a huge amount of support given by trade union and workers reps, and as far as I’m concerned, if the help and advice given was removed Tameside would be a poorer place for it.”

Tameside is already a poorer place by the tune of £336,718, and many large companies don’t bother with trade union reps anymore. They went away in the 80′s and only linger in former nationalised industries. Whilst I am not against employees having trade union representation if they so wish, this should come out directly from their union subs and not from taxpayers’ cash.

I asked Kieran as to why union staff got a 48 per cent increase whilst others had their pay cut. He responded not by answering the question, but instead chose to smear the TaxPayers’ Alliance:

“I dispute the TaxPayers’ Alliance figures. This organisation is continually shown to be wrong with the figures they quote, however that never gets reported because the story has moved on. Tameside has a reputation for using taxpayers’ money well. We are the only excellent Council in Greater Manchester, getting the highest possible score for value for money in how we use taxpayers’ money and that will continue as we face up to the largest ever cuts in our budget forced on us by the Tory led government.”

The figures for union funding given to the Daily Mail came directly from a freedom of information request to Tameside Council. So any figures which are wrong, must be due to a response from a council employee. Tameside may well have a gleaming report from the Audit Commission, but we all know that this is a four star ticking exercise.

I know that Kieran and the council’s press office monitor posts made on this blog, so come on, tell us why union pay has gone up by 48 per cent? Tell us how much your union reps are getting in redundancy pay and if one of your councillors will be returning that pay?

How Tameside Council Spent £5,000 on Teaching Staff how to Walk

Feb 15th, 2011
by Liam Billington.
Comments are off for this post

The so called “cuts” haven’t hit Tameside as of yet, as demonstrated by further waste in taxpayers’ money. Tameside Council has forked out £4,995 on training and leaflets for staff and councillors giving them guidance and tips on how to walk as part of the council’s wellbeing strategy. The scheme was carried out by a private company named Urbanwalks which also carries out work for other public sector organisations. For £4,935, Urbanwalks carried out a risk assessment along with the mapping of six local walking routes for staff and 5,500 leaflets to be printed for each member of staff. An additional £60 was spent on a day’s training for two staff to become “walk leaders”. When I asked what training was involved for a walk leader, I was given this response:

“The course comprises of theoretical study including the health and safety implications of leading a walk as well as a practical element where an example walk will be undertaken by all the course participants.”

In addition to the two walk leaders, Tameside has 16 additional ‘wellbeing champions’ who ‘promote wellbeing initiatives aimed at a healthy and happy workforce’. Staff such as the council’s legal officer, environmental health team leader, and work group manager have taken the opportunity to skive off. A full list of staff titles can be viewed in the document below. Tameside Council says that staff mostly carry out these duties in their own time such as lunches and before and after work. When I asked for a cost of the time that staff had spent co-ordinating and how many had participated in these activities, I was told that Tameside Council doesn’t monitor this information, despite the council stating that the urbanwalks scheme was well received. Tameside Council states that the funding came from cash for the council’s ‘Older People’s Project.’ This is a disgrace as the money should have gone on providing care for the elderly, not on some self-serving pet project for staff wellbeing. These are clearly the priorities of the council which has been vehemently  attacking the government’s deficit reduction plan.

There also seems to be some major porkies contained in the FOI response as Tameside Council’s HR department claims the scheme was open to any member of the public and delivered to locally based walk leaders. I didn’t even knew we had any in the area. Yet the training was only taken up by Tameside Council’s very own HR Manager and Senior HR Practitioner. The leaflets printed also explicitly state that the scheme is for council staff and elected members with no mention of the public getting involved. I bet your dying to have a look at these leaflets. Well, Tameside Council has said that Urbanwalks have requested the leaflets not be published due to copyright. However, we believe it is in the public interest to publish the leaflet – which taxpayers paid for – and it can be found below:

Tameside Freedom of Information request

Urban Walks leaflet

Switch to our mobile site