Monday, April 08, 2013

HR Update - New fire fighter posts in West Yorkshire !!!!

 Well OK, we confess there has only been ONE. 

Was it a "coal face firefighter" at  £28k a year 

NOPE

Was it  middle ranking officer at about  £50k a year 

NOT THAT EITHER 

The only recruitment that has taken place is for an 

Assistant Chief Fire Officer 

at a whopping  £120k plus 

figures from  WYFRA HR Committee 12th April 2013 


Now call us old fashioned but surely IF the number of stations is reducing, staff numbers being cut and  things according to Simon Pilling are all looking good, (fires down, smoke alarms saving people from burning buildings etc) 

Why do you need to replace an ACO?   

We know Martyns gone off  to play trains, a hobby he has pursued since being a teenager,  but  surely the top table should take a large dose of its own medicine and embrace the concept of not filling vacant posts due to retirement.  

Don't forget we are due another ACO retirement later in the year Craig McIntosh retires (and is  probably due to spend more time with his bagpipes) and then  Steve Rhodes hops into his  empty post on  July 1st 2013. This was all decided way back in September 2012. 

Perhaps its time to consider a 
"fundamental review"  of  the top table. 


Actually the HR report for April 12th is a cracking good read, and we will be blogging more about it the coming few days.Staff Cuts, job re profiling , compromise agreements, redundancies, compulsory and otherwise make shameful reading especially when this has all be implemented by a Labour controlled authority. 

Mind you Politicians also line their nests with money from the public purse,  we asked way back in September if people knew how much fire authority councillors receive as an allowance. And many councillors receive more than one allowance  from varying sources.  Click here to see what we wrote way back in Sept 2012. The chair of the fire authorities income is a fascinating read, he must have at least 30 hours in every day to pack it all in, and thats not counting the FOI investigation  he has been involved with recently! 

We are currently researching how much some of the WYFRA members get from the public purse to carry out their various duties.   It's quite an interesting  topic,  while  many of their constituents lose benefits, and get clobbered by bedroom taxes etc  politicians don't seem to be suffering at all ..............and the more "posts" you do, the more money you get. 

But surely the more you do 

 - the less time you give to each! 


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Again you slight politicians without substance, what FOI investigation?

Sarah Covell said...

Stepped on line but didnt cross it !!!

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2012/12/11/kirklees-council-leader-mehboob-khan-cleared-on-foi-tampering-claims-86081-32405642/

Sarah Covell said...

The tribunal ruled Clr Khan “did step on the line” but didn’t cross it in relation to his treatment of a junior officer in the council’s FOI team.

The tribunal found:

In relation to seven FOI requests he did not breach paragraph 4(b) of the Code of Conduct (You must not prevent another person from gaining access to information to which that person is entitled by law).

In relation to nine FOI requests he did not breach paragraph 3.2 of the Code of Conduct (You must not do anything which compromises or is likely to compromise the impartiality of those who work for, on in behalf of, your authority). Nor was he in breach of paragraph 6 of the Code of Conduct (You must not attempt to use your position as a member improperly to confer on or secure for yourself or any other person, an advantage of disadvantage).

He never asked for work on FOI cases to be suspended or discontinued, but the council had a practice of sometimes doing so.

The tribunal failed to establish how it came about that proposed responses were put to the council leader and how it came about that he was asked to approve them. The tribunal ruled it was unfair to criticise Clr Khan for that.

The tribunal noted some of the messages from Clr Khan were “tersely worded” and a side effect of them being written on a mobile phone in the course of a busy day.

The report adds: “It would take some courage for an officer outside the senior ranks to stand up to a leader of the council when he queried whether the officer should have commented to him as she had.”

The tribunal found the junior officer was not well supported by senior staff but the report adds a more “wide-ranging enquiry than that available to the tribunal would be needed to establish whether this incident was symptomatic of a bullying style of political leadership rather than simply that of someone prepared to enter into robust discussion.”

Anonymous said...


Oh how we laughed at this

(You must not attempt to use your position as a member improperly to confer on or secure for yourself or any other person, an advantage of disadvantage).

He never asked for work on FOI cases to be suspended or discontinued, but the council had a practice of sometimes doing so.

Sarah Covell said...

my concern is he was only investigated in his role as Leader of KMC!

fairplay for khan said...

The trumped up complaint against him was dismissed but you cannot seem to accept that . what a warped world some of you are in