FOI and NLC (01/02/15)



I submitted an FOI request to North Lanarkshire Council recently regarding the formerly 'secret' report to the Council's Corporate Management Team (CMT). 

I wanted to know who had written the CMT report and the which senior NLC officials were members of the top management team at the time - and here's what the Council had to say: 
  • The report is in the name of the Head of Personnel Services, Iris Wylie with officer input from the Project Manager.
  • Members of the Corporate Management Team were Gavin Whitefield, Jim Dickie, David Porch, Mary Castles, Russell Ellerby, Paul Jukes, Alistair Crichton, Michael O’Neil and John O’Hagan.
So it seems that Iris Wylie was advising the CMT in her capacity as Head of Personnel and I presume Iris must have signed off on all the appalling mistakes contained in the report, as well as taking responsibility for the advice on bonus and job evaluation etc.

As far as I know Gavin Whitefield, Paul Jukes and Alistair Crichton are the only 'surviving' members of the CMT who are still around today, but I remember John O'Hagan contacting me back in 2005 and complaining bitterly about what I had to say about North Lanarkshire Council in relation to equal pay.

How strange it feels all these years later to be proved absolutely right.  

More Sloppy Work (27/01/15)



Here are some more examples of the sloppy work that went into writing the 'secret' report to North Lanarkshire Council's Corporate Management Team in 2005. 

Paragraph 2.6

"..., pay model NLC5 was more attractive as a long-term workable structure and one which appear (s)to offer competitive salaries,..."


Paragraph 2.7

Quite incredibly Paragraph 2.7 which comes after Paragraph 2.6 is numbered 2.5 - can this possibly mean that the document has been interfered with in some way?


Paragraph 6.8

"This should reduce the cost currently associated with the trainee technician's in the department."

Now I was always taught that if you take great pride and care over all the little things, then the big things tend to take care of themselves.

But this kind of slapdash approach to what was a hugely significant report to the Council's Corporate Management Team suggests there is an awful lot more still to come out. 

I mean, honestly, how is it possible for a major report to the Council's most senior managers to contain such a whopper of a mistake as having two Paragraphs with the same numbering (2.5)?

If you ask me, it makes North Lanarkshire Council look like the local government equivalent of the once famous 'Keystone Cops'. 

Sloppy Work (24/01/14)



One of the shocking things about the formerly 'secret' North Lanarkshire Council Corporate Management Team report is that some people on really fancy salaries seem unable to punctuate their sentences properly.

Here are a few examples to illustrate what I mean: 

Paragraph 2.3 

"....., the Corporate Management Team at it's meeting on 24 May 2005 agreed that the preferred pay model for North Lanarkshire Council would be NLC5C."


Paragraph 2.5

"An option of five year's cash conservation for 'red circles' has been included in the costings."


Paragraph 2.8

"In the opinion of the Corporate Management Team at it's last discussion, pay model NLC5C was more attractive.............."

And that's only in the first two pages!

But what does it say about senior officials who are paid salaries worth tens of thousands of pounds a year when they don't even know how to use an apostrophe.

The reference on the report, by the way, is 'IW/LD" so I'm assuming that Iris Wylie, who is now the council's head of human resources, signed the document off.

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