Accept lower pay or jobs will go, says Shropshire Council chief
Saturday 27th August 2011, 11:30AM BST.
Scrapping plans to impose a 5.4 per cent pay cut on staff at Shropshire Council would result in “inevitable” job losses its chief executive has warned.
Kim Ryley says bosses would be forced to find £2 million of savings by March alone.
In a letter to staff Mr Ryley pleads with employees to think carefully in response to a ballot for strike action by Unison saying industrial action would cause disruption to local people.
He has also accused union leaders of making “ill-informed” and “provocative” public statements. But Alan James, branch secretary of Shropshire Unison, today claimed the statements had been accurate.
The council and Unison are in dispute over the aut- hority’s plan to dismiss 6,500 staff on September 30 but re-hire them the next day if they agree to the pay cut and reduced terms and conditions.
In his letter Mr Ryley says: “Unison officials have made it clear that they will not discuss these changes, unless the council withdraws completely its plans to introduce them on October 1, even though this would create the need to find alternative ways to save £2 million by next March – and more in the rest of 2012 – with inevitable job losses for current staff as a result.”
Mr Ryley criticised the union’s use of Freedom of Information requests to the council but said he hoped to reach an agreement.
Mr James said the union was happy to talk, adding if any FOI information was wrong it was “wrong because they have given us the information”.
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would the chief executive like his salary to be cut by 5.4% .
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His salary IS being cut by 5.4%. All the staff from the Chief Executive down are being asked to take a cut, unless they are earning less that £13,000.
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When he took the job on a few years ago he was “awarded” a 20+% payrise, he wont notice a 5.4% cut unlike the lower paid staff.
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and the councillors ? oh they had 100% pay RISE on going unitary, some are on £40,000 a year for working part time ! Thats the real joke the democracy costs are just way too high for the benefit of having a couple of laypeople to check on decisions it shouldnt cost that much look at parish councils, police authorities, church schools etc for example of truly volunteer action overseeing things without huge expenses
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No, his pay is not being cut by 5,4%. He and several other top officers are donating 5.4% of their pay to a charity that is being set up to train people to work in Local Govt. This means that his salary and thus his PENSION will remain the same, unlike his staff who will lose 5.4% off the value of THEIR pensions. In addition, what is the point of having a charity to train people when, according to Mr Ryley, Shropshire is having to get rid of staff, most of whom are trained to do their jobs.
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Would he even notice??
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The pay cut applies to the Cheif Executive, he has also already taken a voluntary 5% cut. However, on his appointment he wangled a 16% rise in salary compared to that of his predecessor. So, despite taking the proposed cuts, he has still received a 6% increase in pay.
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As far as I’m aware, the Chief Executive has NOT taken a 5.4% pay cut but instead announced he would be making a ‘charitable donation’ of that amount. Which wouldn’t help the Council Budget at all, but would go in his favour tax-wise.
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Because the roll of election officer was rolled into his job specification (previously over £8k per year).
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He is the Chief Executive. The job description for such a role is extremely wide ranging and it is an expectation that such a role will be expected to take on a wide range of duties for his salary. In fact it is quite normal for a person at that level to be expected to take on a wide range of functions both within and outside the Council without extra pay. Many Chief Executives do not have detailed job specifications as their role is to be responsible for all aspects of the functions of the council.
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The issue here is the staff have been given a choice restructure which includes pay/pension cuts etc or take your chances with redundancies, and when they are made hope it is the guy/girl opposite you.
If it was me me i would take my chances then if it pays off then ok great, if not then the blame is firmly with you you made that choice .What they must realize is cuts are to be made and will be , if the union is telling them something else then they the employee must realize the union rep is not their employer and the employer has the final say.
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seems like a fair offer but seeing as how staff needs to go anyway because of the gross inefficiency there, better just to hold out for pay on the chances your hard working decent and well qualified and probably wont be sacked -surely if jobs go its managers and back office beaurocrats who need to go anyway so you are asking frontline staff to take a cut to keep more inefficient management jobs?
thats just crazy
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Oh but you’re forgetting the one phrase that’s so infamous within such business circles… ‘it’s not what you know, but who you know’…
I’ve worked in the public sector and when the axe was falling every summer, it wasn’t necessarily the dead weight than was cut off. It’s too much like playground clicks I’m afraid at times.
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Lead by example Mr Ryley, cut your salary by the same , cut Councillors allowances by the same……you wont have the b…. to do this of course, but thought Id run it past you.
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The staff proposed cuts are 2.7% for this year for those earning over £13600. The further cut of another 2.7% is for the following year, if other savings cannot be found. Unlike UNISON the GMB are working the Council on identifying these savings.
In the meantime senior officers, including Mr Ryley and councillors are taking 5% reductions in salaries/allowances.
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Steve
As has been pointed out many times, Councillors cut their own allowances by a full 5% from this April (staff are asked for 2.7% this year then next)
They also cut out the free dinners that went with a full council meeting, and the sandwhich lunches and teas that used to be served up when they were at mid day and evening meetings.
Travel expenses were also cut to a flat rate of 40p/mile, and for some who have to travel in from, and around South Shropshire, thats a real deep cut in what they were getting.
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Oswestrian, have Councillors cut their allowances by 5% or just cut the “basic allowance” by 5%?
It is my understanding that the leader, Keith Barrow’s allowance is around £45,000 and he is taking a 5% cut on about £12,000 of it.
So not a 5% cut at all, between 1 and 2% cut.
We’re all in this together, heh?
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The flat rate of 40p per mile is the maximum allowed to be refunded as per HMRC for use of your own vehicle on company business
Around 5-7 years ago anyone using their company vehicle but claiming 40p per mile made money out of the repayments due to the low cost of fuel at the time, you reap what you sow!
If you refund anything more than 40p per mile it is classed as a benefit in kind and both the employer and employee is taxed on the excess (more money wastage)
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I think you’ll find they already have cut their own salaries, looks like you need to engage brain before fingers.
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Personally I think the senior management could cope with a substantially higher pay cut, after all with a salary in the region of £180k surely he wouldn’t notice a 10% cut.
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What a good idea,that £18,000 would pay the salary of someone useful to the council ie binman,gardener etc.or alternatively reduce our council tax.What can one individual possibly do each day to justify that amount of money?,I’m not sure but isn’t that more than the Prime Minister gets?
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Using government data there were 122,800 households in Shropshire in 2006, £18,000 equates to 15 pence per household per year,are you really throwing teddy out of the pram over such a miniscule amount?
He may earn more per year than the PM although I doubt if there will be publishers willing to offer him squillions to write his memoirs when his time is done.
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Why are the job cuts inevitable? Mr Riley and his senior managers managed the number of jobs to its current level. If cuts are now required then there forecasts for staff in post must have been incorrect. Therefore they were incompetent. Like most incompetent managers they have to find someone to blame. The tactics used so far have all the hallmarks of the playground bully. The loss of goodwill amonst the Council staff has not been correctly valued but my guess is that it soon will be. Mr Riley appears to know the cost of everything but the value of nothing. Shame on you!
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Compare Shropshire Council to Telford & Wrekin, where actual, large scale redundancies are being made by a Labour administration, with the promise of more to come.
Given the choice, continued employment is the better option. I am sure the 400 workers in Minsterley being made redundant would have loved to have a choice!
You are right, there has been a reduction of 600 posts in Shropshire council in the last two years, with only 30 redundancies, mainly in senior positions.
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Perhaps should use your real name as you are no doubt a councillor. It is really not on for a public official to use a pseudenom in matters relating directly to their responsibilities.
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And ph7 is your real name? A case of pot calling kettle, as you clearly quote from the inside as a UNISON mouthpiece.
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I am not a member of Unison, however, in these matters I tend to agree with the legal advice they have received.
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Councillor, as I am sure you and Oswestrian are,
If you are so convinced that cutting pay is the ‘right’ thing to do why don’t you set an example. You say you have cut your allowances by 5% but that was after a virtual doubling of them 2 years ago. You are demanding of the people who work for Shropshire Council that they take a cut putting them back at least 2 years. You can vountarily take only the allowance that a councillor was entitled to in 2009 for the period when your staff have to take pay cuts AND face the threat of redundancy. It may not save a huge amount of money for the Council – but it will show that you know what you are asking of others.
Somehow I doubt your actions will follow your politics, and by the way I am not a member of Unison and I pay my Council Tax
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The management are not listening to staff who give them valid ideas for saving money. The senior management could all easily take a far bigger fit on salary than they are doing: perhaps they should compare their salary now as a multiple of the lowest earner in the council with the same figure 10 years ago. I would wager the figure is now far higher ie they have had a larger increase than most of the staff.
I work at the shirehall. Morale is rock bottom and goodwill has evaporated. I do the job I am contracted to do but no more I am afraid, until the current administration ruined it, the workforce was well motivated and many of my colleagues regularly worked far more than our contracted hours for no extra pay. No more. We are having to look for additional jobs just to pay our bills due to the impact of inflation let alone the cuts.
Rather than shut themselves in their ridiculously spacious and luxurious west wing they should risk a walk round the grotty dirty corridors of the rest if the building and listen to how despondent their staff are.
I took my job because I wanted to use my education and qualifications for the public good. I took a cut in pay pension and holiday from the private sector to do so. What a fool I was to think the councillors and management would value my skills and experience.
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This is the beginning of the end for public sector terms and conditions, many of which have been negotiated over several years. Why not remove a layer of senior management rather than cutting the workers wages?
How does Kim Ryley sleep at night?
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Earlier this year the figure given by Mr Riley’s office for the cost of the consultants senior management had used was 1.4 million. So by now it must be nearer 2 million as there have been several ‘workshops’ with the infamous ‘essence wheel workshop’ being just one of them. It is pretty clear where money is being wasted and therefore where savings could be made.
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There are going to be redundancies anyway. On one hand the council managers say they need to cut the council by 20-25% in the near future but they tell the staff they might not apply the pay cut next year. This is just one example of how their messages don’t add up. Not surprisingly the staff have little faith or trust in what Mr Riley says. The staff of the council are just the first casualty in this. I would urge people in Shropshire to start asking their councillors about their intentions for services. There is no viable opposition within the council so there is no-one to ask what the 20-25% will be made up of.
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if i worked there i would say id rather see jobs go than have my pay cut if they need 20% cuts like the condems want then you have a 4/5 chance of keeping your job and keeping your pay – surely preferable
and ultimately if you do something valuable, frontline, income generating, socially useful or bascially if you are good at your job and truly adding value in any way whatever then surely you should be secure enough to say no, get rid of the excess baggage of managers, team leaders, performance, policy, strategy and pr type non-jobs and then everyone else can keep a decent job on decent pay
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Don’t see what’s wrong with cutting pay. As long as I can sip champagne at the flower show, get me an ipad and a stay at a luxury hotel then I say let’s cut more pay and have more perks for others.
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Don’t know much about this, but it just seems wrong to be cutting pay when other things can be done. Don’t the council own a convenience store and a pub? Why aren’t they selling those first, before making scapegoats of the staff? And for goodness sake, when are they going to tighten their own belts? 5.4% reduction is nothing when you’re on £180K a year. Kim Ryley’s salary should be dropped to at least £150K to show his goodwill to the rest of the staff. Why should he get more than the PM?
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I think £50,000 would be more reasonable, then
the remaining £130,000 could pay the salaries of 5 useful council workers,We at least know
what the binman the electrician and gardener do for their money but what about Mr Ryley ?
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I would like to see both for Kim Ryley – less pay – in keeping with supposed national conservative policy and lose of jobs – namely his! its a scandal that executives in our public sector take so much salary – its corrosive for morale, performace and PR
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The councilors voted themselves a 100% increase in allowances as soon as they had put the unitary council in place – despite most people not wanting it! Nice work if you can get it Boys and Girls!
If the elected members were not taking so much from the pot there would not need to be job cuts and/or pay cuts for the workers.
As for ‘Let them eat cake Ryley’ how can he justify taking more money than the PM ? (note I did not say earn)He is not elected, He can pick his salary, how many people think this is right???
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Oh c’mon shropshire council. You are a bunch of hypocrites. Over the last 15 years you have wasted so much of the tax payers money on schemes that have no or very little relevence for the Shropshire tax payer. If ever your expenditure over this period was disclosed and itemized, the tax payer would be beside themselves. There are a lot of honest working council employees out there, who try to make a difference. Suddenly you are presented with a funding model that tells you to be creative, you can not cope. Instead of tightening your belts at the top, you choose to focus on the mass workforce. The phrase “i’m alright Jack” comes to mind. Absolutely disgusted.
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Kim Riley critisising FOI requests. Fantastic. FOI was set up to call public bodies to account and is obviously working well at Shropshire because they top brass are running scared. If an organisation is well run and decisions made are right and proper and in the best interests of the public there should be nothing to fear from FOI.
What are you hiding Mr Riley?.
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Brilliant. They provided the info under a freedom of imformation request and then say they’re not happpy about or its wrong.
Is it true that the chief exec is on a performance related bonus?. I’m sure I read an FOI to that effect?. Performance would be related to thrashing terma and conditions and wages and making staff redundant would it?.
It’s high time Shropshire went ‘Cooperative Council’. We don’t need a highly paid chief officer.
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what do you think the CEO of the Co-op gets paid Tame Shrew?? or LV or other social enterprises?
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Just to put this into perspective, in the twelve months to December 2010, the CEO of the Co-operative Group was paid £2.12m, up from £1.56 the previous year. His basic salary is £900,000. All of his top team earn more (many substantially more) than Kim Ryley.
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Saint, perhaps you should read my comment.
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Maybe Mr Ryley and chums should come clean and explain that the pay cut is the beginning not the end.
If they push this pay-cut through, redundancies and out-sourcing (privatisation) will follow.
Hopefully enough people will stand up to this dodgy bunch and they’ll start to do things properly.
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Could not agree more with Brian Moreley comments. The Freedom of Information legislation was introduced to enable any interested party the ability to seek answers to matters that concern them either as an individual or on behalf of any other group of people or organisation.It would seem that Mr Ryley does not like to have to justify his actions nor even have them questioned either by staff ,the union or the general public.
At the time of his appointment I assume, but stand to be corrected, that the Chief Executives salary was to a degree based on the number of staff he is responsible for and also the number and standard of services that are provided by the Council.Therefore if a substantial number of staff leave the Authority and are not replaced and/or services are outsourced so they no longer come under the Councils control will Mr Ryleys salary be reduced accordingly.Similarly this situation could also apply to Heads of Department appointed in the last twelve months on higher salaries than previous departmental heads following restructuring of the Council designed to save money .
It would also be interesting to know exactly how much money has actually been saved by the restructuring and did it meet the outside consultants expectations.Perhaps someone will make a FOI request.
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Why does the UK need CEO’s on £200,000 with responsibility for emptying bins, street lighting, local planning?
It’s a straightforward job, no shareholder pressure, comfortable pensions, long winded meetings before any decision can be made.
Where’s the urgency, time pressure, challenge, risk of being sacked?
There’s NO competition in the public sector whereas private companies compete against each other for business so more strategic decision making is required by their CEO’s.
While it’s true that decreasing the pay of CEO’s would cover the cuts to council funding, it’s also true that they’re escaping relatively unscathed from the very cuts they’re implementing.
Front Line council workers on low pay are losing their jobs while others are being transferred to the private sector where their terms and conditions will be even lower.
CUTS should happen from the top down, starting with those bloated CEO salaries.
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No 20
Should read: While it is true decreasing the pay of CEO’s WOULDN’T cover the cuts…….
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well in my opinion there are just too many people in shirehall if they worked a few more hours like we have to that could save some money! its just not fair they are closign all these services but not addressing the real issues, they are over staffed! they closed a disabled care home in shrewsbury just to save £200,000 thats peanuts in their budget how many staff would need to go to keep that open only about 4, thats the reality there thousands of men in grey suits underemployed costing a fortune and they have the audacity to cut front line services like waste collections when they could just cut waste in shirehall instead
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The standard working week is 37 hours, roughly comparable with most service sector jobs. I do not know a single colleague who works strictly to the contracted hours and most work far more. Loss of flexi credit was the norm before Kim and his pals got rid of it and I know one colleague who had over two hundred hours time in leiu of overtime which he was unable to take due to the demands of his job. Working weeks over 40 hours were the norm. Why do you think the Council dropped the proposal to cut the working week to 35 hours and chose to keep the same contracted rate with lower pay?
Answer, because they would have to employ more staff to take up the slack.
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actually matty about 75% of the people in shirehall are women, most doing administration jobs on about £15,000 a year, the majority of this relates to schools, educational services and adult care, social work and care homes which i think most people would agree is valuable work
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Is your learned opinion based on actual experience Matty?. The vast majority of officers do a fantastic job. Admittedly there are a few at the top who we would be better off without. I’ve said it twice and I’ll say it again – SHROPSHIRE COOPERATIVE COUNCIL!
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IMHO the Council should cut back on redundant assets and costs such as energy, paper, phone bills etc first and foremost because this hurts noone really (except maybe share holders of the major utlities) but its really harsh to ever make people redundant or cut pay or things like that because it really hurts families
However a word of caution for the workers, if you do accept lower deals make sure that you get it in writing that this will be zero compulsary redundancies because those people running the counicl ryley and barrow are clearly very untrustworthy characters and so I wouldnt trust them to honour this deal
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i think its really important here to differentiate between real workers who sweep the streets, do the bins, clean the toilets etc, i have absolutely no truck with them what so ever, thats for me what the public sector is there for, that needs to be done and i dont mind paying taxes to keep litter picked up etc
what i cant stand and i think needs a big axe taking to it is all the suits at shirehall shining their chairs all day long on their backside
its the diversity officers, the climate change officers, the regional development managers, the capacity building co-ordinators, the soft jobs and the lazy teachers who get 11 WEEKS holiday a year, yes you read correctly 11 weeks, these lot are the ones who should be sacked not the bin men
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what i want to know is why didnt they do this ten years ago? Every year council tax goes up 5% actually more than that on average – its doubled in ten years – so why not restrain pay then so we could do without?
then of course the other question is if they can freeze council tax with a 5% cut, why not give them a 10% cut so we can all pay tax
there are 500,000 people living in shropshire – only 6,500 are being affected – so i say do more – give them 10 or 20 % so the MAJORITY of people can be better off
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You can blame Gordon Brown for the increases in Council Tax. To enable the reduction in the base rate of income tax, at the same time central government went on a massive spending spree, often off the books via PFI, Gordon and his chums reduced the revenue support grant, they also targeted significant sums towards inner city labour voting constituencies as opposed to leafy Tory or Lib Dem Constituencies. Reduction in the revenue support grant left many councils with no option but to increase the Council tax to retain services. The reduction in direct taxation was not made up by increases in indirect taxation.
The current government has an aim to reduce the national debt caused by Labour’s spending and in the longer term reduce taxation. Tjis is going to result in a massive decease in the sevice local government provide and massive outsourcing to the private sector.
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easy for him to say from his mansion and safe in his job and loaded and ready for retiremnet on a gold plated pension
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in reality any one working at the council is clever enough to figure out that they are very likely to get made redundant in the next couple of years, given that, why would they “agree” to have their redundancy package cut by 100%?
I think they think we are stupid?
if you want to get rid of staff, pay them a fair settlement and they will go, but it takes several months to organise a new job so its only fair that they get a few months pay to compensate them for the inconvenience and cover their mortgage whilst they are on the dole
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Shropshire Council took the decision to reorganise management first. So managers that were made redundant received a generous package.
Now that they’re moving further down the ranks with redundancies they propose reducing the cutting redundancy packages.
The senior management at Shropshire Council seem to have got is sussed – look after themselves then poop on the rest.
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I feel that staff already on low wages shouldnt be forced to take a paycut when the council is blatantly wasting tax payers money on IT equipment that will probably never be used.
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If you bothered to read the other comments you would see that the lower paid are not affected by the pay cuts.
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Simon, the lowest paid not the lower paid escape the pay cut. Anyone paid less than £13,189 a year will be affected.
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The Chief Executive and the present administration seem to take pleasure in being at war with their own employees. How will morale be once these pay cuts come into being? What evidence do employees have that further cuts are not in the pipeline?
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they are tories observer, this is a once in a generation chance for them, this is exactly what they got into power for, they are foaming at the mouth with excitment at the chance to break up the public sector because their thatcherite religion makes them believe it is honestly in the interests of the majority, the fact that they will have to pay less tax and get some nice business options too is just a bonus
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Calm down boyo!
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They’re asking the staff to take a paycut or else they will be forced to make 20% of staff redundant?
Ok so if you need to make 20% of staff redundant, where from? What happens to the work that those several hundred people currently do? Who does it in the future and how can the same level of services be maintained??? Answer is, that it can’t, those services will suffer, and the council won’t be doing its job in providing services.
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Further cuts are already in the pipeline – consultation on Finance, IT and Human Resources will begin on the 29/9/2011 – they are hoping to find 20% savings (which equates to 50 jobs). In the same month I am supposed to agree to a 5.4% cut to save 400 jobs I am being told I might be on a redundancy list!!! Definitely a no win situation.
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Can Shropshire Council afford to pay for 500 redundancies? I think not! Saying there is going to be job cuts as a result of the pay drop is a bluff, they couldnt possibly afford to pay redundancy costs/pension strains for 500 employees!
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No, they will do what they are currently doing, offer staff a demotion as ‘suitable alternative employment’and if staff refuse they will be made redundant with no compensation.
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i would rather see more asset sales from the council because this would stimulate the private sector too and provide land for much needed affordable housing development – the capital receipts could cover soem redundancies but mainly be put into a high interest account to reduce the pressure on revenue budget
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I have never come across a management style that takes such delight in destroying staff morale. The Chief Exec is writing to all staff complaining about Unison using FOI requests …. I’m sorry, but why isn’t Unison given the opportunity to hijack the staff e-mail system to give their point of view? And listening to the ranting Leader bashing the workforce on the radio isn’t helpful either. A shameful way to conduct staff relations. And no, I’m not a union member – but I’m a taxpayer, a service user and feel sympathy for anyone working under a tyrannical regime.
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Well welcome to the private sector reality council workers! when the recession hit in 2008, many private workers went onto part time or reduced pay to help but the NHS workers got 2.5% per annum pay rise every year! These workers must have never done a hard days work in their life with their massive summer holidays and short hours, they deserve to be paid less as they are unproductive, inefficient and generally have an attitude problem
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Crikey, it must be really difficult to function with the cognitive reasoning skills of of a rabbit.
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But you’re not bitter though.
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Didn’t you used to be in the Carry On films? It certainly appears that your intellect matches their level of humour!
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Or… sack the board, slim down the management team, flog off all the old district council buildings that are sat empty at the mo, let everyone over 60 retire early, get a commercial manager who can generate trillions in income for the council, start running services which used to make a profit for the council like commercial rubbish collections, be enterprising and business like and stop providing loss making services people no longer use like rural libraries which get one customer a day
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If I worked there I would give them the two fingered salute! These things can be negotiated but you have to replace pay with something e.g. more holiday, less hours, some kind of longer term security deal or something like that you cant just cut pay and thats it, its supposed to be about a settlment not an Anschluss!!!!
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There is no business brain at the council that is the problem! They sold the Crematorium which was bringing in £1,000,000 a year whilst they choose to keep the Theatre which is costing them £5,000,000 a year as an in-house operation!!
They need to run more services which make money this is not an evil concept because its not for profit its to plough money back into the coffers to run the charitable and social work side of things which is always going to make a loss
How can they not make more income when they own all those assets. They actually have a licence to print money in effect that they can buy agricultural land on the cheap and then grant planning permission for it to be sold as housing development, this would help create more homes too so its common sense!
Also they dont do somethings which other councils do to make money – so like my mum lives in herfordshire and they charge her to pick up her garden waste – as I live in a flat with just a balcony – I would say happy to do that for folk who can afford it but its not just that its loads of services they do for businesses like planning and licencing and bin collections and things which if you go to some of the better run councils like in Birmingham they run these as a business unit from within the council and earn the council MILLIONS every year for it
Why can’t Shropshire council learn from some of these better run councils?
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#34 Leon I agree but one of the tax payers/Shropshire Council’s assets (that is a reasonably large area of land) in Abbey Foregate has been leased to a minority railway society.
This piece of land could have been developed for housing so providing much needed housing in a sustainable position and putting around £300,000 into the council kitty.
Ironically the chairman of the society wanting this museum we are to be lumbered with is a local councillor who could not, it appears, get lottery funding for their group.
Quite a few council employees wages there don’t you think?
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how about they dont and fight for their rights in a court of law instead?
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sounds like a fair deal to me, less pay or get sacked, its a win win option for the taxpayer! LOL
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It isn’t a straight choice between a pay cut and a job for many of us, an awful lot of staff work in departments that are subject to outsourcing which we have been told will led to redundancies even once we have agreed to the oat cut. And yet more work in teams which are going to be subjected to shared services which we know will lead to job losses but the bosses aren’t admitting that yet.
Why should we agree to a paycut when the only effect for us will be to reduce our redundancy pay? At the same time valid ideas for working more efficiently are being ignored by the management.
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