Having pledged to look into the wide range of concerns surrounding the Job Evaluation process for Torbay Council staff, Torbay MP Adrian Sanders has today written to local trade union branches and a number of staff who contacted him with the results.
The evaluation process, which stems from an agreement between trade unions and local councils over 10 years ago, has been widely criticised for cutting the pay of some of the lowest paid council workers while ignoring soaring salaries of top managers. The nature of the original agreement has seen councils under threat of legal action if they have not acted appropriately.
Despite some general assurances from Torbay Council, there remain serious concerns from workers that appeals have ignored new information put forward, that staff were denied proper access to the documentation surrounding their evaluation and that many evaluations failed to match staff members’ current roles with their new job descriptions.
Adrian said: “The response from the council on this is far from convincing and rather patronisingly blames their own staff for the uproar by not being able to understand the process.
My discussions with the Local Government Minister have unfortunately revealed that the Government has absolutely no interest in the mechanics of job evaluation and if the council continues to ignore the reasonable concerns some staff have, it may unfortunately result in costly legal action.”
dear Adrian
i voted for you yesterday (and took my ten year old son with me as he was interested), i have voted lib dem before but i can assure you if you make a deal with the tories i will never vote lib dem again. i have also contacted Nick Clegg and stated the above.
please provide your assurance that you will not be making a deal with the tories so i can let friends and family know that you have the integrity that i voted for!
Posted by: Jacqui Flaherty | 08/05/2010 at 09:22 AM