Letter: Shropshire Council pay decision ‘puts some staff in poverty’
Tuesday 13th September 2011, 6:00AM BST.
Letter: An increasing number of people in Shropshire feel that Shropshire Council Conservative councillors have been following Thatcherite principles in reducing expenditure.
I would disagree, by some centuries.
On the evidence of their latest decision, to reduce more of their lower paid employees to below the poverty line, I think it is more appropriate to compare their attitude to the period that led up to King John being forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215.
In the late 12th century, peasants’ drudgery provided the means for nobles to maintain the lives to which they had become accustomed.
Shropshire Council’s decision to undermine the earnings of its lowest paid employees was supported by all Conservative and Labour councillors. By cutting salaries below £13,200 by 2.5 per cent and those above £14,700 by 5.4 per cent, they have pushed all council employees currently earning less than £16,500 below the poverty line of £15,600.
On the other hand, council officers earning £100,000 will be reduced to a mere £94,600, with chief executive Kim Ryley being left with only £170,300 of his existing £180,000 salary, or 1,455 per cent of the £11,700 minimum wage.
If our elected barons think this is the way to gain unstinting loyalty among, and encourage greater effort from, their lowly serfs to ensure the affordable and effective wellbeing of taxpaying commoners, methinks it is time they were unelected.
Malcolm Macintyre-Read
Much Wenlock
Most Commented
- Clampdown on Shrewsbury chuggers
- Bishop's gay marriage views do nothing to support bible teachings
- Planners ordered to stay on Newport visit bus
- Letter: Angered by close encounter of the furred kind
- Letter: Alcohol price plans annoy me
- Shrewsbury’s broadband speed one of slowest in UK
- Letter: No sense in overseas job adverts
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Come off it!
Pre-Magna Carta? How about we just go the whole hog and claim that council employees are slaves?
While I am in sympathy with the lower paid employees in the public sector – and we all know that they are the only ones that do any work, the higher one gets the more pay one gets and the less work and responsibility – as in the upper echelons it is ALWAYS someone else’s fault, such ridiculous comparisons as made by the letter writer do absolutely nothing for those having their pay slashed or losing their jobs.
Let’s just give the ridiculous claims a miss shall we?
And I thought that those below 13k were not having a pay cut at all? Is the letter writer saying this is not the case?
Report abuse
Well 6 years ago when i worked for a local college my wages were classed as poverty wages , so i did something about it, left and improved my lot not an option for many low paid workers . However the lowest paid in society nearly always do more work ie put more hours in, i use to watch others there taking the mick especially office staff who seem to accumulate a lot of hours although they stuck rigidly to the set hours .
They were on par with paul daniels i always thought .
I also worked at shirehall back in 1985 for 10 months mmmmmm very interesting.
Report abuse
I get sick and tired of people always trying to compare the lowest paid with the highest, we all started out in life the same, it’s what we make of it that makes the difference.
Are you suggesting that Wayne Rooney should be paid as someone sat on the substitutes bench at AFC Telford? After all they both work in the same trade.
If you don’t like it here there’s always North Korea for you, but even there I’m sure there is disparity between the ranks, comrade.
Report abuse
Not Correct Simon we did not all start out the same we were all born one thing we all have in common but all to different so called classes . Some poor , some middle class and some wealthy hence some have a better start in life than others.
Some are born very bright and do well your view clearly is all are born bright but some do not take advantage of that gift? if so you are rather deluded.
Report abuse
If believing that you only get back what you are prepared to put in is being deluded then I’ll put my hands up to being deluded, guilty as charged.
There were sharper knives in the drawer in my particular school year and I was born and raised in what would probably be referred to as lower working class.
I left school at 16 and worked my backside off, I didn’t spend my hard earned pennies down the pub or on cigarettes ,I used my time to improve myself and offer my employers a better package. The result? I’m now retired at 57.
There are too many people here that constantly whinge that they haven’t got this or that yet Mr X or Ms Y has, if they got off their behinds and did what I did they too could rise up the pecking order, it is only ambition that is stopping them.
Report abuse
Spent it all at the pub and or on cigis behave that’s a bit of an Alf garnet type of rant.
When I left school i worked for one of the biggest land owners in Gloucestershire (no not him) for 12 months and i remember having a chat with him one afternoon and he said you can have a person work long hours all of their lives not a day of sick and they will never achieve a lot, you can have a guy who sits back does not a lot and achieves a lot much of it is down to how bright you are and luck .
His other pearl of wisdom was you can have a low paid employee who will always have cash in the bank because they know the value of money and you can have a middle class earner who his manager who lives life waiting for the next pay day because they have lost the value of money it takes all sorts .
His view on ambition was on par with yours many who start out with nothing if they have ambition can achieve a lot but again it boils down to an element of luck .
I would take issue with your point “and i am retired at 57″ your ambition was to retire??? at 57? the guy i refer to told me never retire and when you look at the most successful business men and women in life have they retired at 5? do they retire?.
Both my parents still do a bit and they are 78-75, both go on 3-4 holidays a year etc and indulge in hobbies there parents were farmers and never retired either . Why would anyone want to retire from life ?? even a hobby loses its fun if you do it day in day out .
Report abuse
My ambition was not to aimed at retirement but to have enough funds to do what I want and when. I still do work albeit for friends to cover for them when they are on their holidays.
As for me, I had 8 holidays last year and am up to that already this year. Next week we dust off the Triumph and have 4 weeks mingling in the South of France.
I’m just bemused by the usual suspects who get no greater pleasure than portraying themselves as victims regardless of circumstances. You can see them in your mind complaining that they’d only won £6m on the lottery because they had to split a £12m prize.
Report abuse
An excellent comment,very true.
Report abuse
I should have said Simon.
Report abuse
really, lord sugar, richard branson, and many more – all self made as am I and many of my friends who were considered to come from poverty in the 70′s
Report abuse
Isn’t that the key point though, you all gauge success on the basis of what ‘I’ have? Forget the rest, it’s about survival of the fittest.
How much of what you have is based on what you have taken from those around you? After all one’s gain is surely another’s loss?
Most Council staff have a different mentality, they place value on the needs of others and improved quality of life for society, not just on maximising their own incomes.
Sadly its now reached the stage where they have to put ‘themselves’ first and yet they get slated for considering their colleagues, rather than applying the ‘its all about me!’ principle.
Have no problem with seeking efficiencies/savings, but if this is the best management theory a guy earning £180k can apply, I think there’s a far more obvious solution.
Report abuse
For every Branson or Sugar there are 100 failures. I doubt you would be in their success percentile.
This is not about personal success, it is about treating people with honesty and decency. Something Shropshire Council currently knows little about.
Report abuse
This approach may have worked for Councillor Barrow in his own fiefdom of Oswestry, but it is clearly coming as a shock to discover that staff at Shropshire Council are not prepared to be treated like serfs.
The staff are not fooled by the argument that wage cuts are a more palatable alternative to redundancy, because they all know that colleagues are also being made redundant this year, and this will continue in the future unless they stand up to these attacks.
If these pay cuts go ahead the cost to the Council in terms of unfair dismissal claims, and legal costs will make the Quantum Leap fiasco look like small change.
This is not wild speculation it is based on the experience of Southampton Council who have also embarked upon a similar pay cutting exercise, and have set aside £1.5 million for Legal Costs alone to fight the Unfair dismissal claims which are now going through the system.
This is our Council tax which Councillor Barrow is squandering in this idealistic battle, and it must be stopped before the cost to us all is completely out of control.
Report abuse
I have read this thread with some interest. I am old enough to remember the blot on the landscape that is the Shirehall being built. We were invited to marvel at the nuclear bunker beneath which would protect our local officials whilst the rest of us were vapourised in a nuclear inferno. It seems to me that every elected council since has felt bomb-proof from the views of their electorate.
If they continue to treat their own low-paid employees with such disdain who can blame them if they take less and less pride in their work, threatening the future of our public services still further.
I have an idea that may help the council balance their books without selling off all of their assets. The future of the caravan site near Much Wenlock, where I notice Malcolm Macintyre-Read lives, is threatened. How about this as a solution Malcolm, contact the United Nations quickly and suggest they inspect the site as a possible destination for the hundreds of travelers at Dale Farm who are about to be evicted by Basildon Council? One of my better ideas I think.
Report abuse
rubbish, most people at the council are in senior and middle management positions earning in excess of £40 k p.a. you need only observe the range of BMW and Mercedes vehicles parked at the Shirehall, the myth of public sector poverty is now gone because cleaners and bin men are employed by the PRIVATE sector, ergo most public sector workers are paid 30% MORE than the average, they are also under worked AND they get a better pension, it is a scandal and it must end, the fairest thing for the MAJORITY of taxpayers who dont work in this sector is to cut their pay and make them retire later and work longer (like in a real job!)
Report abuse
No, Johnny B, you’re the one spouting rubbish. Where on earth do you get your ideas from?
“Most people are in senior or middle management earning in excesso f£40K” That gem would be laughable if it were not such a blatant lie.
You appear to base your nonsense around apparently having seen some up market cars in Shirehall’s car park. Oh dear oh dear, maybe some employees do own those cars, or maybe heaven forbid, they have a partner working in well paid employment elsewhere.
Keep taking your daily dose of tabloid crap. Your “observations” speak volumes about you dear boy.
Report abuse
You once were able to see all the salary’s of council employees apart from teachers salary’s can you not still do that??
Report abuse
Nationally agreed pay scales are part of the green book. It can be found on the internet. However, different Councils class jobs in pay bands so there may be variation between Councils. There is also weighting for the South East and London. Shropshire is reassess all posts and downgrade the rate for the job, abandoning the national negotiating structure. It could be interesting as Shropshire has also not finished the single status job evaluations resulting from the amalgamation of technical and clerical grades (they have had over a decade to do this and many authorities finished years ago).
Report abuse
Jonny b bad in my opinion. True there are some whopping salaries but the average public sector pension will be about £4k – £7k and the average salary £26k. £26k! ooh I can feel your blood boiling already jonny. I earn about 26k but if I worked in the private sector I’d earn between 3k and 5k more.
Report abuse
jonny, please provide some statistics or facts to backup your statement, because at the moment, it just appears to be a case of petty jealousy. I pass the Shirehall car parks on my way to work and indeed, there are some “status” cars there. But I also see a lot of very modest cars. Hardly a damning indictment on public sector salaries.
I would also query your assertion that most public sector workers receive 30% more than the average and work less for it. I have had need to work along side social workers in the past, and trust me, if you think that they are underworked and overpaid, be my guest and spend a day in their shoes. Your narrow-minded generalisation would soon be swept aside, though I feel that you appear to be buying into the idea that the public sector brought this country to its economic knees, rather than the (private) banking sector and inflated housing market built on unsustainable levels of debts.
As many may agree, if you think that the public sector has been such a rosy place, why have you not made the very simple decision to abandon the private victorian workhouse that obviously employs you, and move to a cushy management role in the public sector for a life of tea and BMWs?
Report abuse
And how many of the status cars belong to Councillors and Senior Managers? Answer, about 80%. Some do belong to employees at lower level but generally these are female staff members with husbands in well paid jobs.
Report abuse
Well done for conflicting with the whole “unnecessary public sector” idea of David Cameron. Who do you think pays the private sector to do the cleaning and the bins? If you couldn’t find the answer in the tabloids, it’s the PUBLIC sector.
Report abuse
It would be interesting to know how many staff at shirehall, with ten years service, are on anything below £40K, not very may i would say.
The only lie in the JB statement as far as I can see, is probably the fact that they are senoir or middle management.
All the friends that I have working for councils around the country, are on excess of £40K (and have been for years) and some are not middle management.
But perhaps Mark could prove me wrong?
Report abuse
18 years service, below £35,000. Degree and professionally qualified, specialist technical role. All of my colleagues similarly qualified. My 20 odd years qualified, still below £40,000. Answer to your question, the majority of professionally qualified staff earn well below £40,000. £40,000 only starts to apply for experienced senior and middle managers. Then there is a massive jump to Heads of Service.
Report abuse
My wife has been working for Shropshire for 28 years and still earns 21K, several other people that I know earn similar amounts or less.
Report abuse
Prove it how Roadrunner? You could always try a Foi request.
I’ve just reached ten years service and earn just below £22,000. I’m in public sector employment for two reasons: my role really does make a difference to vulnerable members of our community which I find satisfying, and my previous, private sector employment became redundant ten years ago.
It may interest you to know that my earnings took a significant hit when moving from private to public sector work – thousands of pounds a year in fact. I therefore found it necessary to take on additional employment in the private sector to supplement my income, and still do.
None of my colleagues earns anywhere near the fantasy figures dreamed up by JohhnyB. Other than showing you a P60 or a wage slip, you’ll have to take my word for it, as will I with your comment about your friends in council employment earning £40,000 plus.
Report abuse
Working in the public sector with a PhD and MSc in a technical medical lab role which keeps farmers and farms open and safe I earn £26,000 p.a. – in a previous role in the private sector I was (admittedly in London) earning almost twice that but I wanted to do something socially useful and get away from the big smoke, I am lucky to have inherited property but I am certainly not rich and I drive a Citroen C1 for your information!
Report abuse
Reading jonny b’s remark made me think back to the time, a few years back, when I was looking for work. I ended up being employed by a finance company, specialising in financing car purchases for all and sundry.
Part of assessing finance applications involves asking who employs the applicant.
Interesting to me was that it was possible after several months to look at approved applications on the office “scoreboard” and be able to determine without reference to the paperwork, which applicant was in private sector work and which was in public sector.
Inevitably, and with very, very few exceptions, the more luxurious, expensive cars were being purchased by public sector employees – the difference in purchasing power between the two sectors was notably different.
It was so noticeable that it was on several times to topic of conversation during our coffee breaks.
Report abuse
Jonny B, you’re right – over paid, BMW-driving wastrels as the latest job vacancies from Shropshire Council demonstrates:
Apprentice care assistant £95 per week
Kitchen assistant £6.38 per hour
Apprentice Administrative assistant £95 a week
Apprentice Receptionist £95 a week
Mobile relief cleaner £6.38 per hour
Cashier £6.38 per hour
Assistant cook £7.63 per hour
Kitchen assistant £6.38 per hour
Catering assistant £6.38 per hour
Catering assistant £6.38 per hour
Non Executive Directors voluntary
Project Support Assistant £7.63 per hour
Volunteer Coordinator – Museums £7,862.50 per annum
Project Manager £24,646 per annum
etc etc. If I was a kitchen assistant, I would be whiling away my evenings, wondering how I was going to spend the vast fortune I was amassing from my £6.38 an hour job at Shropshire Council…….
Report abuse
You prove my point though sorry but £6.38 is a good wage in shrewsbury, this is a poor area and catering work is not well paid anywhere so sorry but try quoting some of the other jobs there which are paid £40,000 a year to sit in the office
Report abuse
hardly poverty is it, most of the bin men, street sweepers etc all get about £8 an hour, in the private sector it would be minimum wage work with no pension for the same job
Report abuse
Your bin man works for Veola, a private company who Shropshire contract the work out to. So do road sweepers. The road diggers work for Amey, another private contractor. The Council is now looking to privatise IT and other backroom functions. As part of this privatisation 25% off the staff in these areas are to be made redundant.
Check the facts before commenting.
Report abuse
The simple facts are that now is not the time for anyone to try to find a higher paid job and that, in these budget stretching times, expecting someone on low to medium wages to take a pay cut is a personal finance disaster.
Council leaders might have got away with a pay freeze, even for two or three years, but don’t seem to have the brains to realise that ordinary working people will have to fight to keep what they have because they just cannot afford to take a pay cut which will have an ongoing effect on their pay and future pension.
Report abuse
Electricity up 11%, gas up 18%, petrol at rip off levels and these morons expect staff to take a pay cut to prevent redundancies, which are coming anyway. If they told me my name, I’d check my passport.
Report abuse
It’s Paul W. Check your passport.
Report abuse
not true,
my mate used to work for the private company that did the recycling bins in shrewsbury, when he transfered across to the council they went from minimum wage which was just over a fiver then straight up onto about £6.50 an hour – more than a pound pay rise overnight! You cant argue with that because it was for the exact same same job and they got a pension for the first time and all the other perks, coffee breaks and stuff, so i would say defo at the lower end of the payscale in particular council is overpaying workers for what it needs to
Report abuse
Errr Shrewsbury is not a poor area! I Moved here after 10 years in the valleys of south Wales. Some people have no idea how good they have it. Saying that, these changes to the public sector could change that. Less staff, many on poor wages (cf private sector) considering their qualifications, ability and performance. Give it a year for these changes to have a massive impact on services, then see if people are so quick to devalue public sector workers.
Report abuse
so shropshire councils pays £6.38 for minimum wage workers – why ?
that is typical council paying more than the going rate – its 6% more than is needed, why pay more than is neccessary, indded its 6% more, so a 5% cut means they are STILL overpaid even after the cut
Report abuse
At the end of the day are you not all earning what you are worth??.
Report abuse