FOI and NLC



Here's my latest FoI request to North Lanarkshire Council which will shine a light on how NLC chief officials managed to earn a whopping £2 million in good performance bonuses between 2002/03 and 2013/14, i.e the exact same period during which the Council was making a dog's dinner of equal pay.

Latterly, the rest of the North Lanarkshire workforce has been operating under a policy of public sector pay restraint, yet over the past five years NLC's chief officers have received performance bonuses worth £846,632.

The record year being 2013/14 when the top brass received £191,932 at the same time as the Council's case was falling apart at the ongoing Employment Tribunal where North Lanarkshire has been forced to concede major problems and 'mistakes' with its local pay arrangements.

Now quite how that merits a 'good performance' bonus is beyond me.


18 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 salary paid to the Council's chief executive each year between 2004/05 and 2013/14?

Please confirm the amount of any 'performance payments' also paid to the Council's chief executive each year between 2004/05 and 2013/14?

3 Please confirm the number of chief officials (including the Council's chief executive) whose performance was assessed under the Council's Performance Management Scheme (PMS) each year between 2002/03 and 20013/14?

4 Please confirm the assessed level of performance of the Council's chief executive each year between 2002/03 and 2013/14, as per the classification shown below?

Review of Objectives

Full achievement
Good progress and substantial achievement
Limited progress and limited achievement
No progress and no achievement


Please confirm the assessed level of performance of the remaining chief officials each year between 2002/03 and 2013/14, as per the PMS classification shown below? In other words how many chief officials were assessed in each of these four categories between the years 2002/03 to 2013/14? 

Review of Objectives

Full achievement
Good progress and substantial achievement
Limited progress and limited achievement
No progress and no achievement


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


Council Bombshell (19 December 2014)


The latest revelation to emerge from North Lanarkshire Council is that senior officials awarded themselves an extra £2 million (on top of their normal salaries) during the period when they were making a complete hash of equal pay.

Here is the information provided by the Council in response to my recent FoI request asking for a breakdown of the 'performance bonuses' paid to the Council's most senior and highest paid officials:

2003/04 - £73,127

2004/05 - £178,542

2005/06 - £165,889

2006/07 - £223,509

2007/08 - £150,586

2008/09 - £172,787

2009/10 - £184,630

2010/11 - £188,745

2011/12 - £185,607

2012/13 - £167,861

2013/14 - £191,932

2014/15 - £112,487 


GRAND TOTAL - £1,995,702

Now the big picture is really quite shocking if you ask me, but two years in particular are worthy of further comment.

2006/07 was a 'bumper' year with £223,509 being paid in bonuses despite the fact that this was the same year in which North Lanarkshire implemented new local pay arrangements reinforcing the historical pay discrimination against female dominated council jobs.  

2013/14 was the year in which the chickens finally came home to roost and the Council's defence of its actions began to fall apart at the Glasgow Employment Tribunal, yet still its chief officials were paid a whopping £191,932 in bonuses for 'good' performance.

Now I happen to think that the practice of paying these bonuses is a highly questionable use of public money. Because in any well-run organisation the leadership figures are required to show 'selflessness' and integrity', yet these additional payments continued to be made while the rest of the Council's workforce had to put up with a policy of public sector pay restraint.

In replying to my FoI request the Council provided me with a document explaining the details of the performance pay scheme which I will be studying over the course of the next few days, following which I'm sure there will be much more to say.

In the meantime I will also be passing this information on to Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who I wrote to the other day highlighting North Lanarkshire Council's scandalous behaviour in relation to equal pay.

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