Friday 3 September 2010

A Comfortable Retirement



Small logo for Scotland's largest council isn't it?

The Labour run Glasgow City Council has agreed to pay £13 million to 102 chiefs who have volunteered to retire early. A third of the most senior staff, who earn between £47,292 and £132,013 have applied to leave early and are to receive up to 30 weeks salary, depending on their length of service. As well as the payoff, they will receive up to an extra six and two-thirds years' worth of pension on their final salary pension schemes.

The council decided to fund the deal from property ales but the recession depressed the market. An arms-length company, City Property, was formed and borrowed the money from Barclays. It will pay back the funds over the next three years by selling property in the hope that prices recover.

Councillor Paul Rooney (Labour) said: "The Scottish government's budget will lead to unprecedented and brutal cuts right across the public sector but particularly in local government. We simply cannot sustain the number of staff we have".

Firstly, the SNP government must make it clear the cuts are the fault of the last Westminster Labour government. Secondly, why did Glasgow City Council have so many staff in the first place if they can afford to lose them at such a cost?


7 comments:

JuliaM said...

Want to bet some of these take their payoff and walk straight into another council job? Or a quango?

Joe Public said...

".... the SNP government must make it clear the cuts are the fault of the last Westminster Labour government."

But SR - weren't the architects of the fiscal cock-ups both Scots?

Voted into the Westminster government remember, by Scots voters.

subrosa said...

No bets from here Julia. I was tempted to say that in the post but decided against it. My error. :)

subrosa said...

Now Joe. We're not going to get into the debate that many of the high heidyins of the labour party are Scots. Of course they are. That's the Labour party's history and they continue to play on it to this day. Mind you, it's wearing very thin, with the exception of the West.

Joe we are a small nation and about 9% of the UK I believe. Even if the whole of Scotland had voted labour then they wouldn't have acquired the numbers to be the majority in Westminster.

In the Blair years, with his silly feminist agenda, there was a surge, but nobody can say it was only the Scots who were responsible for the Blair/Brown government.

Joe Public said...

SR - I don't claim that the Scots were responsible for the Blair/Brown Government, or, could have prevented a Labour Government.

But if the SNP are to try to shift blame to "the last Westminster Labour government", they have to realise that it was a few thousand Scots voters in two Scots constituencies who elected Brown & Darling. If those two hadn't been elected, it's hard to imagine the entire UK being in such a dire financial mess.

Joe Public said...

That part-time MP (on a full-time MP's salary) who was the prime cause of the UK's fiscal problems has got yet another income stream:

http://www.webfoundation.org/2010/09/gordon-brown-joins-world-wide-web-foundation-board/

The press release states "Dr. Brown will primarily advise the Web Foundation on ways to involve disadvantaged communities"

.....so us in the UK will be well represented then.

subrosa said...

Joe, I was very tempted to write about that this evening, but managed to restrain myself and not come near the computer.

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