Richard Baum

Last night’s emergency meeting of the Council on Job Evaluation saw the Conservative Executive miss yet another opportunity to ease the turmoil that a lot of our staff are going through.

I am sad this morning because their tactics denied an already fearful staff any respite whatsoever.

Conservative conduct, in consistently seeking to defend their mis-handling of the process, was so arrogant that it bordered on the callous. Where the Leader should have been humble, he was aggressive. Where the Conservative’s should have been striving for openness and honesty, they voted for secrecy and allowed no progress.

I don’t care who’s to blame for us being in this mess. I don’t care what political capital might be lost by some kind of “climbdown,” and neither should the Tories. They would gain far more from working together to find a common solution.

I think staff are perfectly right to feel incredibly let down by the Council this morning.

The evening started at arguably its lowest point. Council presented the Conservatives with a motion, given without notice, to allow for 30 minutes of questions from the packed public gallery. Labour and the Liberal Democrats voted for the motion, but the Tories opposed it, and their overall majority of 1 meant that it was was defeated.

I simply don’t understand why the Tories are so unwilling to face questions on this issue. Their arrogance in seeking not only to deflect criticism, but to prevent it being levelled at all, goes beyond annoying and becomes really quite upsetting.

Our staff have the right to be heard, the right to question their leaders, and should not have had that right denied them last night. That the Leader cannot publicly defend his policy is shameful.

Thankfully this disappointment did not completely prevent the staff’s concerns from being raised. Labour’s motion criticising the conduct of the Executive was proposed by Cllr Trevor Holt, my colleague on Resource and Performance Scrutiny Commission and a long-time Trade Unionist and supporter of the staff cause. That he remained calm and dignified against the blank-faced intransigence of a Tory group so clearly in denial over their errors is to his credit. His speech plainly illustrated the heartache that so many staff face.

Regardless of blame, the facts remain. That they were not even acknowledged by the Leader is something I just cannot understand.

The debate itself too often lapsed into party bickering. Cllr Bibby’s statement was shockingly partisan and aggressive. His approach failed both to tell us anything new at all, and also to help the staff in any way. As Cllr Holt remarked at the end, it was completely devoid of humility. The Conservative Group, with their copies of the statement in front of them, flicked through the pages with the Leader, seemingly unable to grasp that this was just not the time for points-scoring and for firing anti-Labour jibes.

Cllr Walton, the Executive Member for HR, once again sought to distract attention from the substance of the issue by picking tiny holes in the wider argument. His actions - querying the small details whilst ignoring the bigger issues - might bring him closer to the safety of the end of the debate, but again do nothing to help the staff. His actions throughout the meeting, prowling the Tory benches whipping votes, again suggested that the leadership were putting politics before people.

That the Tories would reject the Labour motion was not surprising. It was gratuitously critical of the Leader in a way that was unhelpful. So the Liberal Democrats amended it, retaining calls for a fair and open pay review, and for an all-party approach to moving the issue forward. All negativity was removed, only the promise of progress remained.

Cllr Tim Pickstone, my Lib Dem Group Leader, spoke only briefly but captured in a couple of minutes what it had taken the others half the night to ramble towards - that staff are not helped in any way by bickering, and that the only solution lies in cross-party working towards a common goal.

Cllr Pickstone followed equally hard-hitting and perceptive comments by Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate for Bury South Cllr Vic D’Albert, who’s analysis of the issues was just as apt. He was spot on when he said that the Tory arrogance was digging an enormous hole for them, for reasons beyond understanding. His frustration at the tone of debate was palpable and understandable, and it was no surprise that his remarks, like those of Cllr Holt and others on the Labour benches, were met with applause from the gallery. 

The behaviour of the Tories was as remarkable for its illogicality as Labour’s passion was commendable for being so genuine. But without a firm committment to progress, all the passion in the world was no use to the staff.

In the end, even our amendment (supported by Labour) was defeated by a Tory group hell bent it seems not only on disappointing staff but on damaging for years to come the relationship between the staff and us Councillors. Remember, it contained nothing but a re-affirmation of support for fair pay, and a call for an all party approach to taking the issue forward. Why it was deemed worthy of rejection is a mystery.

Staff remain in the limbo they’ve been in for months. But in a way that isn’t even the worst of it. The staff wage issue will be finalised, for better or worse (and now, it seems, it’ll be for the worst) in a few months time. But the wider problem that the Tories have created will last far longer.

The trust between employees and the Council as an employer has broken down completely, and none of us know what that will do to services in the Borough. The office of Leader has been brought into disrepute by tactics which are at best arrogant, at worst just cruel. Party politics, suspicion and petty-minded rivalries have got in the way of progress.

When it comes down to it, there are no easy answers to the issue. But when the Leader of my Council remains unmoved by a member of our staff losing 40% of her salary, and will not consider working with the opposition even to help her, simply because of his arrogant superiority, he and his group should hang their heads in shame. That this is happening to thousands of staff, and still the Tories are unmoved, is a level of callousness that I don’t like to see in this Borough.

My heart goes out to the staff this morning. Let down again by politics.

Rick