Plaid Cymru AM Lindsay Whittle has warned that more chief officers could quit Caerphilly County Borough Council in the wake of a pay row after it was announced the director of social services was leaving for a job with the Welsh Government.
Albert Heaney, Corporate Director Social Services, has been appointed as the Welsh Government’s new Director of Social Services, Children and Families. He was one of the 21 chief officers given a pay rise by a secret council committee.
Director-level salaries went up from a maximum of £100,000 a year to more than £119,000. The decision to push up salaries by up to 30% may now be reversed after the Labour group, which runs the council, apologised for the way the decision was made.
The pay rises have caused huge anger among ordinary council staff.
Mr Whittle, who is a former leader of the council and a current councillor, said: “I congratulate Mr Heaney on his new role. He may not be the last chief officer to bail out of the council with morale at rock bottom. A bad taste has been left in many people’s mouths by the Labour leadership’s ‘fat cat’ pay debacle and this will take a long while to dissipate.
“But I’ve also been made aware that there is an unhealthy atmosphere in the council offices which I don’t think is all down to the pay issue. I can’t put my finger on it but staff can contact me confidentially to tell me of their concerns.
“The way Labour is running the council is an absolute shambles – the residents know it, council workers know it and even Labour councillors know it. Many people who supported Labour at the last council election are already discovering and now regretting the consequences of their actions.”
Caerphilly Borough Council`s Plaid Cymru group,including Lindsay Whittle have every right to question the processes, which allowed huge pay increases to a select number of officers of our council, but, as I understand it from information printed in the press, including these pages, there was no opposition voices raised at the full council meeting when these decisions were `waved through`, without comment, in fact, it has been reported that members did not even recognise the issue being amongst the meetings papers. It can therefore be assumed that the council did not make any legal or procedural errors in making these awards. It does not take an expensive `Independent` legal opinion to confirm that, and with a large group of Qualified Solicitors working ` In House` already in the legal section of the Chief Executive`s Department it would be really alarming if the Council could not even get a procedural issue right.
Much of course will depend on the ` Question` which the Council ask the ` Independent` legal brain to pontificate on, if they ask whether the Council broke the rules or the law, the answer will most certainly be `NO`, any other answer would mean that the people who benefit from these rises, and upon who`s submissions they were based, will be guilty of misleading the Council, and for both the Chief Executive, and, the council most senior legal officer, who were both present when the original decisions were made, and who`s job it is is to ensure the Council and its members do not `err` in law, would be made to look like they did not know how to do their jobs, and god forbid that should happen, particularly when they were promoting the fact they were underpaid.and the increases were meant to reflect the fact that the new salary would maintain in post the ` best people` for the job.
The real question the council should ask, these two officers, and forget the `costly ` independent` legal opinion, is, under the council`s Constitution can we rescind these decisions?, decisions, which both Labour and Plaid Cymru do not agree should have been made in the first place, the answer to that question is YES they can, the process for doing so is contained in the council`s own Constitution, and the instruction how to do so is laid out in clear terms.
The process is that if any decision was made using delegated authority, which is the conditions under which the Remuneration Panel was established, then that decision can be `CALLED IN` by the council and on a majority of members can be reversed. No cost to the Ratepayers, and the entire thing is consigned, in Lindsay's words, "To the wastepaper bin". Job done. But, do the council have the ` Will` to do so I wonder?.
I share Trefor Bond's doubts as to whether the council will ask the correct question. As I have mentioned the statement issued, after the meeting of the Labour group, allows too much 'wriggle room' for my liking.
There is only one question, "is it legal to rescind a pay rise". The answer to this is yes, whatever is decided by councillors using delegated authority can overturned by full council.
My fear is that the question asked of the lawyers will not be the direct one but a carefully worded enquiry which will generate a long winded legal opinion which will conclude that these ridiculous pay rises are legal and irreversible. This will not satisfy the council tax payers, council workers or the bulk of Labour councillors.
Apart from the staggering stupidity of the remuneration committee in agreeing to the pay increases, voters should also be very concerned that the full Council meeting then voted through the increases! Some Councillors have said they didn't realise what they were voting for – Blimey,so they are saying they vote through things they don't understand – or did they think the increase may be for them, so they all voted for it.
Gosh, If it wasnt for us old Plaid members, who canvassed places like Fochrhiw in the rain, forty years ago, there`d be no Welsh Government jobs for the ex Director of Social Services to go to, perhaps my time was wasted.