North Lanarkshire Update



I'm told that there is a full meeting of North Lanarkshire Council tomorrow (Thursday 2nd October) which should be interesting because I think this is the first meeting the Council has held since the summer due to the Scottish independence referendum.  

So let's see what the Council bosses have to say about equal pay because things appear to be going nowhere pretty fast, given that the original deadline for reaching a settlement of all the outstanding cases was the end of August (2014).

My own view is that the Council is dragging its feet and that no real progress will be made until the Council is forced to face up to the hopelessness of its position by having another round of hearings and witnesses giving evidence at the Employment Tribunal.

Because, as I've said before on the blog site, the Council's most senior officials have an awful lot of explaining to do and the sooner the people involved are put under the spotlight and subject to cross examination, the better things will be for everyone, if you ask me.

My view is that these individuals will not be able to come up with an explanation that can justify North Lanarkshire's behaviour in relation to equal pay and nor will they be able to justify big differences in treatment between traditional male and female jobs.  


North Lanarkshire Update (31 August 2014)


The settlement talks with North Lanarkshire Council have not produced an outcome by the end of August which was the timescale originally agreed by all the parties to get the job done.

The Council has failed to provide concrete offers of settlement which is the only way to bring these talks to a satisfactory conclusion.

Action 4 Equality Scotland (which has by far the largest number of claimants in North Lanarkshire) pushed for all the cases to go back to the Employment Tribunals, but both the Council and the trade unions asked for the settlement talks to be given more time. 

So next week's tribunal dates have been postponed at this stage and the Council has been given more time to try and get its act together.

I have to say I'm now sceptical that North Lanarkshire is serious about bringing these talks to a conclusion without going back to the Employment Tribunal where senior managers can be put on the spot and forced to explain exactly what happened over the scoring and grading of so many council jobs, such as the Home Carers.

Because why else would North Lanarkshire refuse to release the minute of its Corporate Management Team (CMT) meeting dated 11 August 2005 - if the Council really does have nothing to hide?

If you ask me, this feels like history repeating itself.

In the sense that instead of acting openly and transparently, the Council is trying desperately to 'bury the evidence' just as South Lanarkshire did in relation to a previous FoI request which went all the way to the UK Supreme Court.

But as regular readers know, the UK Supreme Court decided unanimously in my favour - and a short time later all of the Action 4 Equality Scotland equal pay claims were resolved on satisfactory terms.     

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