Shropshire Council’s £370,000 for four new jobs
Tuesday 15th February 2011, 9:55AM GMT.
Shropshire Council is recruiting people to four newly created jobs at a cost of up to £370,000 a year, at a time when it is trying to slash £30 million from its budget by axing dozens of projects.
The move has “absolutely astounded” the Shirehall’s biggest union whose members are facing sweeping changes to their employment terms and conditions. And it has angered leading councillors in the county’s market towns where planned council schemes may be ditched due to lack of funds as budgets are cut back.
But council chief executive Kim Ryley has strongly defended the need for the new posts, saying the authority needs “excellent managers” to oversee change.
The council has advertised on its website for an area director with a salary up to £110,000, a corporate head of finance and commerce with a salary up to £100,000, a group manager for business growth and prosperity and group manager for public protection, both with salaries of up to £85,000.
The website notice says: “These four roles will be at the core of an era-defining change – one that will see us become leaner, more integrated, more accountable and more creative in our thinking.”
Details of the jobs emerged after the council last week revealed proposals to cut 50 schemes which will save it £31.5 million by 2014/15.
Among the projects to go are a £1 million revamp of Ellesmere market hall and a £100,000 Wem Town Square initiative.
Pat McLaughlin, Mayor of Ellesmere, said the news could cause people in the town to feel “despondent” after it emerged cash for the market hall was now at risk.
“I find it rather amusing that Shropshire Council have been shedding jobs and then find £370,000 for four new staff,” she said.
“That’s more than £90,000 a post. We were looking forward to being able to bring the market hall up to date because it’s in a poor state.”
Patricia Wilson, Shropshire Unison branch secretary, said the union was “absolutely astounded” at the creation of the new roles.
However Mr Ryley said it would be “entirely wrong” to look at the advert in isolation and criticise the council for recruiting to high level posts, as this was part of a review of management which will save at least £4 million a year overall.
He said: “The restructure is removing management layers and bureaucracy, to develop a more efficient organisation delivering good quality, value for money local services for the people of Shropshire.”
By Dave Morris
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That is the problem as with many public sector areas these type of jobs are still being created . With the cuts we need to look at them in a more positive light we as tax payers need to know and have it proven to us that we are getting value for money. We need to use the cuts to stream line the public sector safe guard the low paid in, the public sector as these will face the axe by the over paid management who will chop at the bottom to safe guard themselves.
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More than £80,000 paid to consultants called Penna between June and Dec 2010, for personality tests on the first few senior managers of restructure.
For information on payments over £500: http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/opendata.nsf/open/808B6994597E13CE802577BC005AD654
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Oh dear! We’ve been trying to get my road mended since sometime last century, but the Council haven’t got any money apparently.
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Interesting, isn’t it, that we’re all invited to participate in public service bashing by being allowed to comment on this article, yet on the article below, about Barclays bank increasing it’s overall remuneration budget by 20% – we’re not allowed to comment.
We have been given absolutely no details of these jobs, nor of what the market would be paying if they were being recruited to the private sector – I suspect at the sort of level that would attract a high salary in the public sector, the private sector would be paying a lot more.
Like it or not – the public sector has to compete for highly qualified people, and if the salaries in the private sector are over inflated (and they certainly often are!) it has a knock-on effect.
Anyone else feel the cold hand of political censorship?
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Are you saying the Star’s story is politically motivated? I don’t think it is. It’s a PUBLIC INTEREST story, and one of great concern. It doesn’t matter what party you support.
In THE SUN yesterday, there was a big two-page story slamming Manchester Council for implementing cuts which “will hurt people”, while highlighting recent high-salary council non-jobs in the area. Would they run the same story for Shropshire Council?
Why, of course they wouldn’t! Because Manchester is a LABOUR council and Shropshire is a CONSERVATIVE one. THAT’S where the politics comes into it. This is an issue of public concern that transcends political boundaries – or should do. People in these jobs aren’t even accountable to the public. And as for Labour group squealing, does anyone seriously think they’d be doing any different? Once these people get into power, they’re all the same.
I wonder if your own comments aren’t perhaps just a little politically motivated, Peter?
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The sort of salaries that are on offer here are not at all high when compared with the sort of salaries on offer to private sector employees with similar qualifications. If you want unqualified people running the budgets of our councils, or think you can get qualified people for a pittance then you are deluuded, Salopian.
If you’d bothered to read the job descrioption you would find that the qualifications are:
Degree level education
Approprtiate Professional qualification
(most likely a senior accounting qualification)
Management qualification (probably an MBA).
I’m assuming that all of those criticising the salary a) have all these qualifications, and b) are prepared to take this role for £20k per annum perhaps. Why aren’t you applying then?
If you think that none of these people have ever worked in the private sector you’d be wrong (I’d suggest you read rather less of the Sun and the Daily Mail!!) – many senior council execs have extensive private sector experience behind them and have actually taken significant pay cuts to go into the public sector.
It’s also a lie to say that they are not accountable – they have the highest of ethical stadards applied to them, and in the case of financial incompetence or misbehaviour, they can be held personally financially liable.
This is yet another article that seeks to denigrate public servants in general. The vast majority of public sector employees are low paid, and their allegedly ‘gold-plated’ pensions yield less than £7k per annum on average. The Star will always pick upon the tiny number who are well-paid and allow their tabloid-addicted readers to assume that this applies to all the rest too – they all want to propagate the lie that ‘public is bad, private is good’. If we look at some of the previous privatisations we find that’s not true – remember Railtrack for example? How about any of the public utilities? Do you really think we get good value for money from them?
It’s been many years since public sector workers had any salary increase in excess of the rate of inflation, and many now face a pay freeze at best, and of course loss of many thousands of jobs as our essential public services are slashed.
Personally, I’d rather have well-qualified people undertaking senior financial and accounting roles within councils, and if we have to pay for them then so be it.
There are clearly some rather simplistic folk here who actually believe that councils will simply run themselves, and that any job involved in ensuring hteir managment is a ‘bureaucratic non-job’. Presumably on that basis you’d regard anyone who had been to Boots and bought a first aid kit as a qualified doctor?
If you look at the directors of FTSE 100 companies, you’ll find that at the same time as they have been cutting jobs for their employees and reducing terms and conditions of employment, they’ve awarded themselves pay rises and bonuses far in excess of inflation right through the recession. Are we really ‘all in it together’? I think not! Is that scandal not also ‘in the public interest’?
And, as I’ve pointed out before – I’ve experience of both public and private sector employment – unlike many who post here. I was in the public sector, but have been in private sector employment for many years now – and thanks to my good public sector grounding I haven’t ever found myself out of my depth!
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Peter – I have worked in the private sector and am now in the public sector, I too have seen both sides of the fence and I stand by every word I have written
p.s. I read neither the SUn nor the Mail
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Oh dear another sad SUN reader might as well try the beano for your information.
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dream on, £110k per annum just for having an MBA, you can get an MBA for £9grand, we would all do one if it really boosted your pay that much
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‘Highly Qualified’ dont make me laugh, these people have never been out in the real world, they just slide further up the greasy pole promoting and glad handing each other.
I spoke to some district council employees just before the glory days of Shropshire Council started, 3 of them we being redeployed into new posts in SS as regeneration officers, they freely admitted that they had no idea what the job involved or how they would do it but they were getting a pay rise – ‘Highly Qualified’ ?????
The argument about similar rates in the private sector is a red herring they have been hiding behind for years, none of them ever leave the featherbed at Shire Hall for the private sector as they know they would be way out of their depth.
The senior managers in the council and many of the councilors (who are able to vote on their own allowances and expenses) are parasites living off the back of ordinary workers
Will the group manager for public protection have a more difficult job than a dustman? No he will just have a different job so why should he be paid 4 times more than the dustman?
And how does Kym Riley justify being paid more than The Prime Minister? Is running Shropshire Council a greater responsibility than running the entire country?
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As I write this comment, the full story is not on the web site, but this is typical of what the government have been saying all along – rather than cut waste, bureaucracy and over-paid jobs, councils prefer to take the more cynical route of cutting services that affect their customers (you and I), most likely in order to make sure that we voice concern about “government cuts” even though public spending has kept on rising since the coalition came to power – there have been no “government spending cuts” yet, but there has been a reallocation of money away from bloated councils, with said councils being told to buck their ideas up. Their subsequent actions prove they have their own interests at heart rather than the interests of the public. It also shows that they have little idea of how to efficiently run a large organisation.
As I said, I don’t know what these jobs entail, but in a recession when many skilled and highly experienced people are being made redundant in both private and public sectors, I don’t think that the excuse that they’re paying the market rate can be considered valid any more.
They may well still have to pay the market rate, but the market rate is NOT what they are paying – there are people who would do these jobs for less money, “less” NOT meaning for a pittance, but for a decent wage rather than a bloated one.
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What the Council are not telling the public is the number of jobs that have already been filled under the new management structure. £370,000 is just a drop in the ocean compared to the salarys being paid.
Don’t forget the consutants fees for implementing all these changes!
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The very people who waste our money are tasked with saving it. Come on Coalition Government if you think your Public Sector cuts are going to reduce waste then I suggest you rent the “Yes Minister” series of highly entertaining TV drama and realise you have asked “Humphrey” to effect your political will. You are so naive>
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I’ve said all I have to say on this on a couple of other STAR stories recently published (eg the list of proposed cuts etc), so no point in rehashing it here.
I know the Council have a difficult situation to deal with, but I fail to understand how the council can justify creating senior manager posts with big salaries (and expenses and pensions to match) while telling everyone else in the County how hard times are. And that’s not just council tax payers (the recipients of the council’s services and the ones who are paying the salaries) but also council employees lower down the chain.
How can savage cuts to disabled services (millions of pounds) be justified while money can ALWAYS be found for jobs like these (which is the sort of thing Mr Cameron was supposedly out to prevent..)?
Amid the stream of constant carefully prepared PR statements (“Its FANTASTIC news the council will be investing £170+ million a year…” and so on), it’s the things they DON’T want to tell you that tell the bigger picture.
And it’s no good the Labour group trying to play politics by suggesting it would all be different had they been in power. Because it wouldn’t, so don’t insult our intelligence.
Lastly, considering that many council employees have been aware of these job advertisements for some time, I am rather cynical as to the union’s statement that they are “astounded”. I wonder what sort of representation council staff are actually getting, if the union really has been that taken by surprise. And of course – if they DID know, why didn’t they speak up publicly?
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I guess they will say that these are management jobs with great responsibility.
Maybe you should ask them to justify it to council tax payers.
Would it not have been prudent to spend that money recruiting staff on £20K per annum? That would equate to approx 18 full time posts in the real world!
What the Council don’t realise is or maybe they do that the average wage in Shropshire is no more £16K!
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Presumably they couldn’t get people with the skills and qualifications required in order to do the job. I don’t think that 18 jobs at £20k per annum could cut it if you required the skills to work at a senior level. Not sure how you would divide the senior roles up either between more people???
I keep reading on here comments from people who berate the council because they get things wrong yet quibble about paying to get the right people in the job. You can’t have it both ways.
Of course I realise you all will have scrutinised the job descriptions and considered the key responsibilities of the roles before commenting won’t you? Because you wouldn’t want to be seen criticising without being fully informed would you…?
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They are only senior because they have decided they are, councillors and managers work only to support each other and to ratchet up each others pay and allowances by inventing new and grander titles each year.
A company in the private sector would never run with the top heavy management and councillor structure that Shropshire has and when times were hard a private company would reduced either from the top down or across the board. If you try to trim a tree by cutting away the roots it will die.
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I appreciate the need to throttle the stories on the web site so that people do actually go and buy the physical Shropshire Star. However a few facts here would be nice, rather than just three sensationalist paragraphs which tell us nothing rather perceived outrage.
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They have to pay this to attract the talent. Bullship!! Market forces and a bit of panic and uncertainty should attract the ‘talent’ and drive the salaries down. But not in cloud cuckoo Common Purpose world obviously.
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The vacancies reported are described here on the council’s website:
http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/vacancies.nsf/open/120D1084F459B40F802578250054B672
Funny how the council will happily start axing primary schools to save a measly £100k each, some of which have been serving their communities for centuries, whilst simultaneously electing to blow the same amount of OUR cash on just one of many new bureaucratic non-jobs that they have managed perfectly well without, until now.
If anyone needed any more evidence that the council exists purely to serve it’s own agenda, whilst showing pure contempt for taxpayers (except those lucky few on the council payroll and pension scheme), this is it.
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Just access the Shropshire Council website and look at the payments and allowances to councillors. They are receiving more than most workers in Shropshire. What became of serving the local community. Are these councillors serving the community or just in the role to make money?
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i totally agree the councillors need to be cut and their pay too so they feel the pain, atleast david cameron had the cuts to cut his pay by 5% before asking public sector workers to take a 20% pay cut
keith barrow should do atleast the same
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i think you mean cameron had the guts will
i tend to agree, local politicians could do well to learn from the PM
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its not leading by example is it, its just poor leadership to not be equal and fair with all peoples pay
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The issue here is also could these jobs have been incorporated in to some one already in a high paid position within the council ie “do more for your money”.
This is what could be stopped with the so called big society the general public must get more involved, must start to ask more questions, and demand answers and demand value for money.How many low paid public sector workers have been given the push to pay for these and a few of the other jobs not published.
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These are not new jobs. The senior management is being restructured and these posts fall into what was once Assistant Director positions. Where the Council may be getting into serious trouble is that they are making people redundant at Assistant Director level and at the same time trying to recruit to that level externally. It could be argued that these posts should be offered to staff being made redundant as opposed to employing someone from outside the Council. As far as I can see, there are staff internally at the Council who can take up these roles and there is no need for external recruitment.
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So really, when the council claims it’s sharing the pain by restructuring to become leaner etc (to use all the platitudes that the Corporate Team will quote via the carefully prepared PR responses). all it’s actually doing is re-arranging the deckchairs and moving money from one place to another. And changing the job titles of course.
A lot of this bad publicity could have been avoided if they were more open about what they’re doing, instead of just publicising what they want to publicise and hope the rest stays hidden. The public aren’t as stupid as our well-paid councillors and their senior managers seem to think.
Makes you wonder what the Union reps are actually doing here – presumably looking after their own jobs and staying schtumm???!!!
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Union reps looking after themselves first? NEVER, sorry folks but union fees are money down the drain and has been for the last 20 years at least, remember scargill he felt the pain didn’t he.
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I imagine they are being adversised internally as well as externally. There’s nothing stopping any existing members of staff applying for those posts. A lot of larger organisations have a policy of recruiting from within in preference to recruiting from outside, subject to the necessary skills and experience, of course.
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These jobs are not being advertised internally; plenty of lowly paid jobs for catering assistants and cleaners though.
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And, of course, giving redundancy payments to those leaving at the same time, so if they’re getting rid of assistant director level staff and then hiring more staff at the same level, they’re wasting money several times over. if they found the originals to be hopeless, they could have sacked them. if this was not the case, they could have retained them or made them redundant with replacing them.
I have direct experience of this – a colleague of mine worked for Shropshire Council until quite recently. When he was just 4 weeks from his retirement date, they (or rather, the human resources computer) sent him a letter in which a generous redundancy package was offered. So instead of letting him get to retirement in a month’s time and then leave at no additional cost to taxpayers, they decided to throw a wedge of money at him as well.
I cannot say that I blame him for rushing to the head of the queue. He was made redundant with a week to spare (EXTENDING his period of employment in the process because he was subject a decent notice period as well) getting a rather large pay-off one day and then started to draw his generous pension the next week. Couldn’t believe his luck.
Oh yes, he now works in an advisory consultancy role to the self-same employer. he started back again the week after his pension kicked in.
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But these aren’t REAL jobs, though. The real jobs are the ones being cut, sadly…
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I saw the town council’s mini bus exiting Asda this morning and I thought why do we actually need to bother with them?
Ok they threw out the incinerator proposal, on our behalf apparently.
The proposal was supported by the planners so presumably as they are the trained and qualified professionals the application must have met government guidelines and policies.
Veolia have taken legal advice which was also available to the planners and councillors before it went to committee.
So we pay a lot of well reimbursed, ordinary citizens/councillors to throw it out with no doubt great panache and their taking the moral high ground, so it can then cost us the appeal and most likely still get permission.
It may have been the county councillors who signed the contract with Veolia in the first instance or at least supported it that put them in this powerful position regarding the incinerator.
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what are you going on about eva? this story relates to the awful waste of money on managers wages, not the awful waste of money on that white elephant incinerator
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The councillors were responding to massive public opposition to the incinerator,
eva. I know you don’t like it, but that’s democracy.
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it really makes me angry than some poor cleaner or admin worker will have to get laid off and then read about this shocking level of salary in an institute which is tax payer funded as well
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i dont blame the managers im sure they are very well qualified and of course they are going to say they need extra staff arent they,
no i blame the councillors who signed this off, we elect them as guardians of the public purse they should be vetoing these jobs or at very least filling the vacancies with internal candidates to make other posts redundant
the whole council is top heavy with managers of managers of managers, its just not delivering services or adding any value, why oh why would they sign off on this cost in a recession
it makes me sick to think this could have kept that disabled centre in shrewsbury open
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frankly… this takes the P%^$
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Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said he wanted to “democracy proof” the award of “mega” deals for council executives.
Appointments on more than £100,000 a year will in future require the approval of the full council.
The move, as part of the Localism Bill, is the latest of a series of attempts by Mr Pickles to increase transparency and reduce costs in local government.
The salaries of town hall senior managers are thought to cost more than £600 million a year.
Mr Pickles has already called on chief executives on more than £200,000 to take a 10% pay cut and those earning £150,000 to take a 5% pay cut. Prime Minister David Cameron earns £142,000 a year.
The new legislation will force councils to publish a statement on the pay of chief officers – possibly including bonuses and annual rises – which will be put before the elected chamber for approval.
Mr Pickles said: “Councils need to make sure they don’t sully their reputation by taking decisions behind closed doors to reward chief executives when they should be focusing resources on protecting frontline services.
“The changes we are introducing will mean that local government jobs will now have to be ‘democracy proofed’ before mega salaries are paid out. I think the democratically elected leaders of any council should make sure they have their say on pay and that £100,000 is the place to start that.”
Mr Pickles told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “This is just part of the checks and balances so that it allows every councillor to consciously make a decision with regard to senior pay. It just seems to me to be a reasonable thing to do.”
Read more: http://www.shropshirestar.com/uk/uk-news/2011/02/16/town-halls-get-mega-salary-veto/#ixzz1E7ErJ7FT
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i wish to apply for the position of area director, for 110k, i think i may be able to help salopians with extra savings by combining the other 2 jobs advertised for 125k.
being resident in devon the jobs may be done via webcams, facebook and twitter. floreat salopia aj
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Peter is typical of the public sector, employees mindset. He criticises people complaining about the ridiculous salary of £110k by saying you wouldn;t get these people for £20k, as if these are the only two pay scales in existence.
Maybe these people are worth more than £20K but are they really worth more than £60K?
There are sensible pay scales and then there are ridiculous pay scales, which are to be found in public sector jobs, which just aren’t needed or worthy of the pay.
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[it makes me sick to think this could have kept that disabled centre in shrewsbury open]
We probably could have or still can Billy if the ridiculous Abbey Foregate museum is scrapped.
I suppose the reason I have not had a reply from the council on their ‘join the conversation’ section of their website is that the Railway Heritage Society were given a 25yr lease on the site in 2003.
If the council managed to remove the covenant on the Gay Meadow site then I am sure that they can sort this one out. The problem is lack of motivation when a councillor happens to be the chairman of this particular enthusiast society.
Shouldn’t the council be more enthusiastic about serving the homeless or disabled people?
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lets put it to a vote in full council like pickles says and make every member named and shamed if they think we need to pay public servants more than 100k
this makes me physically sick that they can do this with our money and there is nothing we can do to stop it, until the elections at least, i thought we elected these people to be more prudent with our pennies, i wont vote for the tories ever again after reading this i can promise you that
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the people making these decisions must live in a complete bubble from the real world, surely they can see this is a PR disaster and a timely u turn is needed, they must be able to fill these roles from within exisitng roles surely they employ thousands of people
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Add into the equation that the senior managers are now saying they won’t be taking a cut in hours or pay in line with the proposals for other staff, and that demonstrates the backwards thinking on this. Why claim that the cuts are intended to protect frontline jobs, then cut the hours of the frontline workers, but keep the hours of the managers as they are?? With the Chief Executive being paid £180k p.a , a cut from 37 to 35 hours would realise nearly £10k p.a . Replicate this across all these new senior posts, and thats going to save at least £50k p.a., meanwhile, leaving the frontline workers to actually get on with the proper work.
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very good point there must be huge scope for savings just on the salaries of the top 50 earners. rather that that cutting secretaries and bin mens pay
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im flabberghasted!lost for words, how do we stop this going ahead?
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You cant mate, you dont get a say, they know whats best for you, just get on a pay your taxes
IF YOU WANT AN OPINION GET YOURSELF ELECTED!!
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you cant your are a mere pleb, just hand over your taxes and keep quiet
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what a slap in the face for all middle income families and right minded people this is
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if there is no young bright manager at the council who wont step forward and do this for half the price just to get a food on the executive ladder i’ll eat my hat, if shropshire council really hasnt got anyone in house talented enough for this role then they must have a really weak team of execs and should probably all be made redundant too because if they’re not capable of running services like public health and safety and finance then they shouldnt be a senior manager in any department should they now
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good point , well made
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I agree with road runner the sort of jobs and qualifications Peter seems to think deserve such high pay are not extraordinary at all.
The difference is the private sector has to sell a product or service whereas the public sector will get paid whatever by the taxpayer.
The majority of local govt jobs are not particularly well paid but as you climb higher up te LA hierarchy so the relationship with the well reimbursed layman/ councillors becomes more intimate. Each are therefore going to look after each others interests which is not always that of the taxpayer.
Councillors need to be more brought to account for their actions.
I see today in the Star that they are going to have to justify their stance on the incinerator decision at a public inquiry.
It is not suffiient for councillors to garner brownie points by going against their own officers recommendations on a planning application. They have to answer to costing the public purse when the council’s own legal department must have advised them that Veolia would have a good case which in itself was probably due to a contract signed with the council sometime earlier.
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Do you think that a £60m 27-year PFI contract, which went against the local waste plan, should have been signed without any public scrutiny if the legal department gave it the thumbs up, eva?
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whats that got to do with the price of bacon? or the price of these obsenely paid executives ?
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I was just responding to eva’s point about listening to legal advice and ignoring the Shrewsbury public’s very real concerns about the incinerator.
This thread is focusing on a sum of money which is completely dwarfed by the cost to the taxpayer of the incinerator.
It must be encouraging to everyone who supports democracy that the councillors, who rejected the incinerator, listened to the public.
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I dont suppose
understanding of finances
being in touch with local people
or caring about public relations
feature in the job descriptions of any of these fat cat positions?
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which ever councillor authorised these job adverts in a recession should resign or be sacked
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A cap has got to be introduced of £50k maximum
people falsely think high salaries mean top quality people,look at the Stafford hospital fiasco the top man on £100k plus,Baby P case in London £100k plus,Kaira Ishack case in Birmingham £100k plus need I go on.
These people get the big salaries but they are not up to the job,then walk away when it’s all gone pear shaped.
Things ran smoothly years ago in the public sector and the people who worked there got nothing like these kind of wages.
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its too high for this area, in london yes, but here its cheaper to live, housing costs less and local wages are low so it should reflect that with these too
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m8 thats just dumb, if we want shropshire to be richer you dont try to go to the lowest common denomenator
look what ever they do, we need more well paid jobs in shropshire to help everyone have more money in their pockets
would you rather all council workers got £12 grand a year so they couldnt recruit anyone but tesco till assistants ?
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Barry, I’ve never heard so much codswallop in my life.
Firstly, these people aren’t going to “make shropshire richer” or to “help everyone have more money in their pockets”, how are they?
Secondly, these people aren’t on anywhere near £12k per year but approximately 10 times that.
Theres a big diiference in pay from the average tesco worker to the average council worker and there’s an even bigger difference from them to the Chief execs, who probably don’t work as hard and often would have to work a lot harder in the private sector, to justify those crazy wages.
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by that rationale fire man in northern ireland and inner city leeds would be paid about 10 grand a year for the same job as a firefighter in london who earned 100grand, do you really think thats a sensible idea adam or did you just not think it through??
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this makes me want to punch some body, the cheif executive of the council earns more than the pm and these new posts will be paid with my money its disgusting, they are so out of touch, come the revolution they will be hung in the street or tar and feathered and i will pray for some egyptian spirit in the shropshire people soon we should march on shirehall drag them out in to the street and show them how much they are worth
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stupid stupid shropshire council, yet another pr disaster which a undergraduate media studies student could have predicted would result in damage to their reputation.
who on earth is managing this process it seems to have been botched completely to say the least
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“The website notice says: “These four roles will be at the core of an era-defining change – one that will see us become leaner, more integrated, more accountable and more creative in our thinking.”
Well that’s going to be a contradiction of terms for a start then!
And the person in charge of this shambles is on £180K, so if he is worthy of his pay why go ahead with such rubbish?
Obviously we are not getting our moneys worth from these “jobsworths”.
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“by that rationale fire man in northern ireland and inner city leeds would be paid about 10 grand a year for the same job as a firefighter in london who earned 100grand, do you really think thats a sensible idea adam or did you just not think it through??”
So is the cost of living in London,ten times that of N. Ireland, Victor or did you just dream that up?
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is it any suprise then that the page opposite is titled “low morale at shropshire council”
lol
these reaks of poor leadership
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im gutted that we’re not getting what we voted for, we want a conservative administration in shropshire, one which values taxpayers money and pays lower wages to these public sector fat cats
why cant councillor barrow get a grip on this and put conservative policy into practice in a conservative council now
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its time for these adverts to be closed down and the work filled in my internal people who if they want to keep their job will do it for nothing
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