‘Silent treatment’ is no way to treat staff

1:31pm Thursday 20th November 2008

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I have been working hard recently with council staff affected by the job evaluation / equal pay problems which have been much documented.

The reasons for pay reduction are many and complicated, and no one factor alone can be blamed. I think all political parties wish this wasn’t happening, and have enormous sympathy for the staff losing out. The council’s Conservative leadership though, has a responsibility to handle the process in an open fashion. They continue to fail in this responsibility.

Many staff have contacted me with specific questions on the process, having failed to get a satisfactory response from their managers. I have relayed these questions to the leader of the council, but have received no response despite numerous requests.

I asked the leader almost two months ago to detail the number of posts which had been moderated downwards. Despite half a dozen reminders, I have received no answer from him. I have asked similar questions a similar number of times, and remain in the dark over many. No word from him or his officers. Meanwhile the rumours continue, the morale drops further, and the suspicion that somebody’s hiding something just won’t go away.

This type of silent treatment is no way to run a democratic organisation. It is personally annoying that the leader treats a fellow elected representative this way. But it is far worse that he ignores the honest questions of a frightened staff, faced with potentially crippling salary cuts. Amidst his ignoring of our questions and his refusal to attend meetings and answer questions at them, where is his respect for the fact that the council is a place where voices should be heard, not silenced?

I appreciate that this is a desperately difficult situation. There is no easy way out. But we should be working together to make things as open and clear to the staff as possible. Rumours and half-truths are continuing, made worse by the leadership’s ongoing refusal to answer reasonable questions.

The executive report on December 3, recommending a way forward on this issue, may result in an agreed approach, but it will not put right the damage that continues to be inflicted on relationships between officers and councillors that are caused by the refusal to answer questions.

Refusing to answer questions is, sadly, becoming typical of the Conservative administration. Having severely restricted the rights of councillors and the public to ask questions at council meetings, this policy of secrecy now appears to extend to even the most serious issues affecting the council.

I appeal to the leader to do the right thing and answer the questions raised about this process, and to consider his administration’s increasingly out-of-touch policies towards answering questions in general.

Richard Baum Councillor St Mary’s Ward