Corportate Issues Scrutiny
One of the jobs of a back-bench or opposition councillor is to attend scrutiny meetings which examine and comment upon council policies and decisions. I sit upon the Corporate Issues scrutiny committee and have just come out of a two and a half hour meeting of that committee. Today we discussed the council’s job evaluation scheme for its employees which has sprung out of their legal requirement to end unfair gender gaps in pay and conditions. We also looked at draft of the council’s Dignity at Work policy.
A nagging issue for the committee is that, despite there always being an agenda item for it, there have never been any questions from members of the public. Our current workplan for the future is to look at:
- How well the council is managing its programme of planned efficiencies (August);
- How mobile phones and XDAs are used by employees and councillors (August);
- The annual Ombudsman’s letter about complaints against the council (September);
- Corporate Complaints System (September).
The committee is tasked with scrutinising the following areas:
- Customer and Support Services;
- Human Resources;
- Information and Communication Technologies;
- Procurement;
- Complaints;
- Customer Services/Call Centre;
- Equalities;
- Programme Management (whatever that means);
- Marketing and Communications.
If you hae any questions you’d like answered about these areas or issues that fall within them then you can write to the committee via the Corporate Issues Scrutiny Support Officer, Chief Executive’s, Salford Civic Centre, Chorley Road, Swinton M27 5FJ, tel 0161 793 3318. Or you can email me and I will relay your query: steve@stevecooke.org
6:15 am on June 24th, 2009
The management of the Job evaluation process was a shambles. Individual managers (be it the HT or line managers) at schools were never involved in the feedback, so had no advanced warning of the human distress that was approaching over the horizon and were left to pick up the pieces. Losing a grade or two when your on a fat salary is easier to handle than when you are near the bottom of the scales. These people have little or no regard for the individual so it seems.
6:58 am on June 24th, 2009
It was my understanding that the council’s JE scheme covered around 8500 council staff but excluded those in schools. Am I mistaken or has there been a separate JE scheme in schools?
7:42 pm on June 27th, 2009
If you believe what you say about the legitimate role of an opposition councillor being to particpate in scrutiny process why do you persist in ignoring statutory obligation and unreasonably seeking to prevent other councillors from assuming their rightful, and lawful,role on behalf of their constituents?
Contrary to your assertion that only members of political groups of two or more people can particpate ,what’s your excuse now that view has been dismissed by advice from the relevant government deprtment ? Puts your ‘democratic credentials’ a little in the shade don’t you think?
9:13 am on June 28th, 2009
I think it does include school support staff – but the same attitude applied to all departments.
7:35 am on June 29th, 2009
Geoff – that’s garbage and you know it. You know very well that it is the authority not me that decides who gets places on scrutiny panels. There are two points to be made: 1) I disagree with your interpretation of the various acts in this regard, and for that matter so to the legal officers of the council. I intend to take my advice on the law from the city solicitor rather than you, 2) I disagree with your principled point about democracy – you were elected as a Lib Dem; the people of Weaste & Seedley voted for a Lib Dem to represent their interests; you went off on your own because you weren’t willing to contribute to the group. If you’d been elected as an independent I could accept your principled point – but you weren’t; if you were that committed to democracy they you’d stand down and fight an election on your own merits – something I’m confident you’d loose.