Council blows youth services on exec pay-out
News in from Children and Young People Now that Sheffield Council has spent most of the £700k it is cutting from youth services on pay-offs to three senior council officials.
The council has spent nearly £670k on redundancy pay-offs to three assistant chief executives, just as compulsory redundancy notices go out to 50 Connexions staff, all of whom will receive the statutory minimum – capped at £11,400.
The three senior executives who received bumper payouts are:
- Liz Bashforth – assistant chief executive for legal and governance – £331,867
- Ken Green – assistant chief executive for organisational development and communications – £200k
- Ron Barraclough – assistant chief executive for policy and performance – £125k
Unison regional officer Kevin Osborne told CYPN:
There is clearly a policy of ‘us and them’ at the city council. At a time when public sector workers are having their wages frozen and facing redundancies, these payments are unacceptable.
Unison is currently balloting its members for industrial action over the job cuts at the Liberal Democrat-controlled council.
As commentary, I don’t think anyone’s arguing that if there are to be cutbacks, highly paid senior managers should be well ahead of frontline staff in the firing line for redundancy.
What I don’t know is whether the terms of the three executives’ contracts meant that the council was legally obliged to pay them £670k.
If the council was obliged to make these payments under the contracts, then they clearly agreed to some pretty daft contracts for senior management. If the council wasn’t obliged, then it is showering these executives with extraordinary largesse, regardless of how competent they were in their roles.
Either way, it’s a mess.
Ed Miliband is the only candidate looking to expand Labour’s coalition
Of the two Miliband brothers in the race, the common charge made against Ed Miliband is that he appeals to the “heart” versus the “brain” choice that is his brother David. In other words, while Ed is happy to tell Labour members what they want to hear, it’s David who will win the election by sticking resolutely centrist.
It’s a simple narrative David’s campaign is happy to propagate – pushed in past weeks by luminaries such as Peter Mandelson who masterminded a stonking 28% vote share.
But this narrative doesn’t stack up to the electoral math, which is now loaded against Labour.
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Boris says Ed Balls could be right on economy!
The Telegraph today has an extraordinary column by London’s occasional Mayor Boris Johnson, who writes to essentially agree with Ed Balls.
First, the personal tribute:
Whatever you say about Spheroids, he not only has balls. He has ideas. He has conviction. He has a grasp of economic history, and as he showed in his Bloomberg lecture last week, he knows how to mount a compelling argument. Balls is like one of those Florida weather forecasters who has just seen something terrible on the long-range radar.
And then Boris goes on to admit that Ed Balls may actually be right on the economy:
It must be admitted that his words are finding an audience, even among those who might normally be counted as state-shrinking free-marketeers. There was Martin Wolf in last week’s Financial Times, warning that “Ed Balls’s critique is right”; and blow me down, there was a leading article in the normally pur et dur Thatcherite pages of the Sunday Times. “An awful thought,” ran the panicky headline, “but what if Ed Balls is right?”
If the Right-wing commentariat is getting nervous about the depth of the cuts, what about the Left of the Coalition? What about the Lib Dem rank and file?
He goes on to say that the consensus around “drastic and immediate” deficit reduction is “in danger of breaking down”.
He’s the first senior Tory to admit that.
He goes on to say he hopes and believes that Balls is wrong about the double dip recession. But doesn’t sound very convinced on either.
Could new Labour members help Ed Miliband win?
There has been a sharp increase in Labour party membership – around 32,000 people have joined the party since May.
Estimates of total membership suggest this is between 160,000 and 170,000, though the number of ballots to be issued remains open until September 8th, since anybody who joins the party before then can vote in the election.
So new members now make up a striking 19% to 20% of the party membership, and so over 6% of the whole electoral college. They are also slightly more likely to vote, both because some have joined specifically to vote, and more prosaically because a small proportion of long-standing direct debit members would not have updated their current address details.
So could they decide the election? The answer, in principle, is yes.
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Watch: Murdoch dodges phone-hacking… on Fox
Rupert Murdoch was last night year interviewed on the Fox Business channel.
Andy Coulson and the News of the World is the first question the interviewer brings up. Murdoch immediately dodges it.
It looks like the interviewer then decided his job wasn’t worth it and immediately moves on. Brilliant journalism from Fox as usual.
Update: Apologies, it turns out the exchange took place after the story first came to light, not recently.
How Scotland Yard is back-tracking on the phone hacking case
This morning three newspapers report on their front-page that Scotland Yard is looking into re-opening the phone-hacking enquiry.
Putting Coulson aside for a minute, their approach to this investigation stank from the beginning and this u-turn is no different.
Late last night the New York Times also hit back at the Met – saying outright they obstructed the paper’s own investigations.
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NYT: Scotland Yard has evidence they ignored
The New York Times has today hit back hard at Scotland Yard over the phone hacking case.
In an article that covers developments since their investigative piece was posted, the newspaper published a strident statement by its executive editor Bill Kellner.
Kellner is quoted as saying:
Scotland Yard has declined our repeated requests for interviews and refused to release information we requested months ago under the British freedom of information law.
After our story was published, Scotland Yard expressed renewed interest in the case and asked us to provide interview materials and notes; we declined, as we would with any such request from police.
Our story speaks for itself and makes clear that the police already have evidence that they have chosen not to pursue.
His comment was made in response to a statement last night by John Yates, assistant commissioner of the Met Police, who said the police would consider reopening the criminal inquiry if fresh evidence of wrongdoing emerged.
Rod Liddle: Scots are alcoholics & druggies
Here is Rod Liddle’s latest “column” in the Sunday Times, which insults Scots. (via Graeme Stirling)
No doubt it’s political correctness gone mad that you can’t insult or disparage Scots without any comeback.
Four simple reasons why the Government’s economic policy is wrong
contribution by Owen Tudor
Ed Balls made a speech to Bloomberg last week, and Martin Wolf commended his argument in the Financial Times today.
Both are worth reading in full, but for the time-challenged, here’s a summary. Government policy rests on four pillars: Labour is to blame for the UK’s economic problems; the Government needs to cut expenditure massively because the markets are nervous of continued borrowing; lower government expenditure will lead to increased private sector spending which will create growth; and people who disagree with the Government are ‘deficit deniers’ who would wreck the recovery.
All four are (at least probably) wrong.
continue reading… »
Is the BBC working with the government on cuts coverage?
Concern is growing over Mark Thompson’s visit to Number 10 to discuss the BBC’s coverage of government cuts on Thursday.
The BBC’s Director General was pictured in Downing Street with a memo from Helen Boaden, his Head of News, detailing what would be covered in a forthcoming series on the cuts, called “Making it Clear”.
According to the Press Association, the memo also reported on a meeting Ms Boaden had had with Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s spin-master, where he had said that the BBC should give “context” in its coverage of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
continue reading… »
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