Do the Tories really have it in for council staff? (rhetorical).

Edinburgh’s Evening News runs a story today that Tory councillor Susan Webber backed the public sector pay freeze (as did her party) but took an even more punitive lunge by saying of public service workers on WhatsApp: “I was thinking of a vote-winning policy called salary sacrifice where they only get 80 per cent and have to struggle like the others on furlough. Then they might want this sorry state to get resolved faster.” https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/politics/edinburgh-tory-candidates-whatsapp-messages-spark-concerns-over-suitability-to-become-msp-3161957

I’m not sure many Edinburgh council workers will actually see that as a vote-winner.

Her reported comment - so bizarre I had to check her social media for any rebuttal - displays an astonishing ignorance of (or disdain for) the roles of the staff her council is responsible for. Council workers across Scotland have been involved in a host of essential tasks including distributing food/medicine/essential items, protecting/caring for our vulnerable and elderly, protecting and caring for children, collecting waste, staffing temporary mortuaries, staffing the hubs of keyworker children, keeping schools and early years open, and staffing asymptomatic testing sites.

Add to that Environmental Health and Trading Standards Officers enforcing public health and wellbeing, Mental Health Workers with increased caseloads, Housing and Craft workers who have been working in tenants homes, those who have been processing and issuing emergency support grants, and many more.

And let’s not forget the so-called backroom staff staff who support these workers. Backroom is a misnomer, they are the engine-room of so many functions.

The comment may come as no surprise as we get more and more used to off-the-wall right-wing pronouncements by Tories but the level of hypocrisy must at least raise an eyebrow. For the same councillor Webber voted in December 'to salute the heroism' of front line employees, including 'our own hardworking Council staff.’ https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/documents/b17508/Motions%20and%20Amendments%2010th-Dec-2020%2010.00%20City%20of%20Edinburgh%20Council.pdf?T=9

However, the Tory group as a whole do seem to have a thing about council staff and feel the need to have a poke at them from time to time, not least in Tory leader Iain Whyte's recent piece in the Evening News calling for, among other things, 'flexibility' to cover for cuts and compulsory transfer of staff to winter maintenance. 

This was rightly and angrily criticised by UNISON in a statement saying: 'the public would have questions to ask if staff were taken off tasks like child protection or environmental protection to clear pavements'. It accused the Tories of 'clapping workers on the Thursday then slapping them on the Monday' https://unison-edinburgh.org.uk/edinburgh-tory-hypocrisy-as-they-clap-workers-on-a-thursday-and-slap-them-on-monday-says-unison/

In recent times, the way that a previous Director of Children and Families was treated abysmally stands out in memory. A widely respected leader in her department, she was effectively hounded out, despite being the first boss in ages to bring the department’s budgets (set by councillors) in on target.

In one of the issues surrounding that, we had Tory councillors deliberately naming staff in a public council meeting in the full knowledge that those staff were prohibited from responding or defending themselves. We couldn’t even win a standards complaint on that one so there remains a risk that it’s open season on council staff if councillors choose to cast aspertions about them.

And today’s council meeting had an interesting question from Tory leader Iain Whyte about why the council leader has only had one annual appraisal meeting with the chief executive since 2017. https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=32183

I'm sure we all want the chief executive to be accountable and it would be reassuring to think that the Tories were intervening to champion staff development best practice, but on past record that may well be a thought too far. 

There is some validity in the question though, since the chief executive reporting directly to the council leader sits alongside an SNP tendency to centralise power. However, the balance is that the chief executive reports to the whole council and there is an uneasiness about councillor Whyte wanting this ‘one to one’ staff appraisal to be shared with all the political leaders. 

This may well just have been be a poke at council leader Adam McVey, whose verbal response was less than elucidative. But if I were chief executive, I’d be getting a tad nervous at what might be in the air.