Forum Topic

Are 12 Hounslow Council employees salary of more than 100k justified.

The Local Guardian has released information showing that 12 Council Employees have salaries of more than £100,000.  Do people in Brentford think this is justifiable in the present economic climate?  In Hounslow, 128 employees took home more than £50,000 last year – with 12 picking up more than £100,000 and the top wage being between £150,000 and £159,999 – while 98 did so the year before, with 10 earning more than £100,000.http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/richmondnews/4545269.Council_salaries_branded__scandalous_/#show

Jim Pooley ● 6126d31 Comments

Some Councils follow the path you have written. My Council gives you 6 pick ups a years, you phone up and they come and pick up the ribbish. I agree it is all part of the Rates, which is capped. Dumping is very rare. The Council also allows free disposal of rubbish at Council dumps. I just think this should be incorporated into a rate.

Neil Chippendale ● 6103d

I believe in NSW Australia local councils provides clean-up services only every 3 months where you can dispose of unwanted whitegoods, TVs, garden waste etc.  The cost of this services is incorporated into  annual council rates.  In other words only home owners pay the fees not people who are renting.    Rents incorporate water costs & land/council rates so everyone uses the service.  Even if you don’t use the service you will pay a premium.  Most people, however do use the service.  Generally what happens, the council sends out a flyer to all households at the beginning of the year informing them the week numbers of the cleanups during the year.      Everyone puts out their rubbish, if they have a lot they put it out a week earlier.    Second-hand dealers & people looking for treasures generally takes anything worthwhile before the council gets the chance to PU the goods.    You can be fined if you put out your rubbish early but in general most people work within the guidelines.  The council also provides places where you can drop off 2nd hand furniture in good condition & another place for whitegoods etc.    If you use this service you can expect to pay a price.    The Salvo’s also have a place where you can drop off 2nd hand goods in good condition, this is known as ‘Tempe tip’  They sell goods to 2nd hand dealers, sell direct to the public & also distribute to their shops in all area.However I understand that unlike the UK, in Australia  most retail stores don't offer to dispose of your old Fridge, W/Machine, TV etc for free.    This is a new concept, I think Harvey Norman are leading the way but I don't know the exact conditions. 

Steve Taylor ● 6103d

I believe a Council pick up is a great idea. It does tend to stop some of the fly tipping. In Gosford (NSW) the Council introduced a fee and flying tipping increased. The Council had to make it free again but reduced the amount of times you could have a pick up.It would be interesting to see how much the cost, to Council, of picking fly tipped rubbish was based on a before and after analysis.

Neil Chippendale ● 6107d

I am appalled to hear that under the last administration, fridges and freezers could be collected for free by the Council (or at MY expense as a taxpayer) Thank heavens the new administration has done away with this ridiculous and unnecessary freebee. Within the last year we have had to replace our washing machine, cooker  and TV and found that 99% of suppliers will collect the old one free of charge and recycle it responsibly.

Steve Taylor ● 6107d

Oy, Vanessa, don't you start knocking the Tories.Without them, Phil "man of the people" Andrews wouldn't have pocketed £70,000 in the past three years.

Robin Taylor ● 6108d

Talk about rubbish, there are two ways of paying for services, there is the accepted sensible way, via the council tax or there is paying for services that once were covered by the council tax so you can crow about how you are preserving frontline services whilst keeping the council tax at the same level. Once you could get an old fridge or freezer taken away for no fee, since the charge of 25 pounds was introduced there has been a corresponding increase in dumping, similarly it is commonplace to see old sofas, baths, etc. dumped since the previous small fee to get these and other large items taken away underwent a big hike. At the same time the enforcement and investigation of dumping has all but disappeared because so many of the staff who did the work were given their marching orders, on the dubious advice of consultants who cost us all millions. There is no longer a school psychology service, the language service in schools will all but disappear, and don't try paying bills at the civic centre unless you get there before 12 o/c, as the counter shuts then, whereas it used to be open all day. Unless Mr. Giles has poor sight he could not fail to notice the sorry state of Hounslow High St. which is like a tip due to the contracting of the cleansing out to the cheapest bid, and the weeds in many residential roads are appalling. There is no way you can keep council tax held down and say it doesn't affect frontline services, it does. When services are paid for in the council tax they are used, when people are confronted with paying out yet more money such as paying through the nose to have an old fridge removed they just don't want to know, this affects us all and in the long run just costs more, it is a false economy, and it is disingenuous to say the least, to pretend there were hundreds of people lounging around the civic centre doing nothing and that life is just so hunky-dory now. Typical Tory b/s, aided and abetted by the ICG think tank, they obviously know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Vanessa Smith ● 6108d

Colin is becoming as paranoid as Phil Andrews.A worrying sign.

Robin Taylor ● 6108d

Jim Pooley

Colin Murphy ● 6108d

Who writes under a nom de plume Colin ?.

Adam Beamish ● 6108d

...given that you write under a nom de plume (which the forum owners will ban you for, if alerted)?

Colin Murphy ● 6108d

I have to say David I think the reason you had a serious problem with the previous administration was because it was Labour, nothing to do with value for money, because I doubt you could ever bring yourself to criticise anything 'blue' or praise anything 'red', and the same applies to Robin just the other way round.Looking at it from the perspective of the average person in the street, with the exception of their Council Tax bill not having increased, I doubt they'll have noticed any difference between administrations.  And that's not a criticism of either the current or the past administration, just an 'on the ground' view, whereas I think many politically motivated individuals think that the 'politically active' minority, such as yourself and Robin, represent the feelings of Joe Bloggs.

Adam Beamish ● 6108d

Tony I've sent you a PM.

Carol Ann Smith ● 6108d

wasted our money on a huge scale which is the reason why we voted them out and will vote them out again.If 10 council officers are paid over £100 K each and are doing a good job and giving good value for money and keeping the council tax down, I have no problem with that.Hounslow Council is a large organisation responsible for a large budget and needs to employ  good people at all levels.I had a serious problem with the previous adminstration raising taxes year after year, delivering bad value for our money and employing too many people to do too little work.

David Giles ● 6110d

Lets put it another way John1.Is one of the KPMG consultants now employed by LBH as Director of IT?2.Were Managers salaries increased by anyone?3.Your figure of £17.7m Staff salaries cost reduction is vastly at odds with the figure herein....http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/hounslowchiswick/4559155.Veil_of_secrecy_over_pay_for_council_consultants/

Tony Wood ● 6110d

Jim Pooley'I have heard from a Council worker that one of the consultants at KPMG, who ran the Performance Improvement Plan to remove jobs (and raise managers salaries), made recommendations to remove IT staff and then arrange to install herself as a director of IT on over 100k.'Jim.1,  Not true.2,  PIP didnt raise salaries.3,  LBH Staff Salary costs down £17.7m4,  I confirm my identity. You did specifically seek a response from a Councillor. RegardsJohn

John Todd ● 6110d

Who were these corrupt officers Mr Ellar ? Did they commit a crime ? Were they taken to court ?

Ian Speed ● 6110d

John,just because you say it isn't true twice doesn't negate truth.Can you confirm with details that the IT consultant with KPMG for the PIP is not working for Hounslow as a Director of IT?I can confirm that you are a Conservative Councillor in Chiswick.

Jim Pooley ● 6112d

JimNot true

John Todd ● 6113d

JimNot true

John Todd ● 6113d

I have heard from a Council worker that one of the consultants at KPMG, who ran the Performance Improvement Plan to remove jobs (and raise managers salaries), made recommendations to remove IT staff and then arrange to install herself as a director of IT on over 100k.  Can any Councillor or officer confirm this as it seems hugely inappropriate.  The Council won't release details of the officers on over 100k so I suspect it to be true.

Jim Pooley ● 6113d

Yes I would tend to agree with Colin but I am totally against the use of  'Guidelines, Voluntary Codes, Best Practicable Means' and other such loose or wishy washy 'procedures' which seem to be the flavour of New Labour and are not robust. I sincerely hope the current administration has learnt from this and has not simply adopted the same line as the old administration but have instead put in place legally enforceable procedures.

Steve Taylor ● 6120d

After reading the allegation made against a Labour administration that I was part of, in approving some form of corruption carried out by council officers with the tacit approval of members, I have to offer a few words of caution. There were certainly corrupt officers in Hounslow council a few of which we had to work very hard to have ejected from their very secure jobs that they defended against all the evidence of their corruption.However any suggestion that senior labour councillors were in any way complicit in allowing "consultants" to profit is well clear of the mark. I remember the Labour group agreeing a set of guidelines that specifially banned any officer leaving the employ of the council to come back as a consultant for a lengthy period. This was to stop any collusion between officers to line their "mates" pockets.I would like to know if the present administration has taken the same firm line against corruption and bad practice.

Colin Ellar ● 6120d

Shouldn't they be offering to work for a month for nothing?

Karen Adams ● 6121d

The only part of the original story which angers me is the 'defence' about how the numbers of those employees earning more than the various thresholds is a consequence of the nationally agreed percentage pay increase of whatever % it is/was (3 or 3.5% I believe).Meanwhile, with the obvious exception of the banking sector, there's a sizeable proportion of professionals who've either received no pay increase over the last few years, or indeed a reduction in salary/less working hours etc.  So I don't buy an argument that public sector workers should have this expectation of receiving an annual pay increase, regardless of whether it's 0.25% or 10%.

Adam Beamish ● 6121d

"1990's/early 2000's a certain Senior Officer at LBH walked before he was pushed after he basically did a favour for a developer, but was then often used as a consultant to the Chief Exec." Sounds about right for the old administration - jobs for friends! Lets hope the current administration has taken a strict line on this type of behaviour.

Steve Taylor ● 6121d

Something like that Adam.

Karen Adams ● 6121d

Well often Councils bring in external consultants from time to time.  Planning wise for example some Councils, if officers recommend approval of an application to a committee and the Members decide to refuse the application, bring in extenal planning consultants to represent the Council at appeal rather than have the case presented by the same Officers who recommended approval in the first place.Of course, allegedly (as it's before my time and I do not know the validity of this), according to an old edition of Private Eye, back in the late 1990's/early 2000's a certain Senior Officer at LBH walked before he was pushed after he basically did a favour for a developer, but was then often used as a consultant to the Chief Exec.

Adam Beamish ● 6122d

Is there any truth in the unsubstantiated rumours I hear that there are pathways for former employees to come back as consultants? Can think of one incidence where this appears to have happened.

Karen Adams ● 6122d

One has to assume that Paul is saying that no compulsary redundancies were made and that no actual frontline sevices have been cut

Steve Taylor ● 6122d

Paul,I would of thought you were in a better position to answer your own question. Or are you saying that Vanessa's claims are incorrect?

Philip Walsh ● 6125d

Paul,I take your point but isn't it correct to say that many employees received formal notice that their jobs were at risk of redundancy, and were offered a voluntary redundancy package (so they walk away with a financial package that tides them over for a fair while during which they can look for another job) as an alternative to hanging around to see if their job got cut and then after a far shorter notice period they'd have no income and no job ?.

Adam Beamish ● 6125d

YawnVanessa you never answer the question I have asked you on many occasions on how many compulsary redundancies were made or what actual frontline sevices have been cut?

Paul Fisher ● 6125d

Of course this cannot be justified in the light of hundreds of redundancies over the last year. All this nonsense was part of the Tory/ICG 'efficiency savings' programme for which they paid consultants from KPMG millions in fees. A three year old with a rudimentary knowledge of numbers could have worked that out, cutting frontline staff is the laziest and easiest way of cutting costs - efficient? I doubt that. It hardly needs consultants to advise you unless you haven't a clue how to run and manage a local authority. But to then give pay rises that ups the wages bill enormously is some sort of a sick joke, these are the people who would have conspired to make the redundancies. No-one seems to give a fig that there have also been subsequent cuts in services. People in Chiswick have been up in arms about the parking permit scam, they just don't get it, that to keep council tax at the same level something has to give, if they won't pay through council tax then they will pay by other means, parking, charging for services that were previously free, education budget cuts, you simply cannot have it both ways. One way or another councils have to get money from somewhere, this lot have chosen stealth. It's always the same, ordinary frontline staff that are the ones to go whilst management look after their own and proliferate, it's a bloody disgrace.

Vanessa Smith ● 6125d