Brian Sweeney was - undoubtedly still is - a very good fire chief in Strathclyde. He was entitled to take his retirement when the time came, lift his lump sum, take his pension and go.
What he wasn't entitled to do was 'co-author' (that is, write) a report on his own pension, which presented only one business plan, the one that allowed him to retire, take his money.....and go straight back to work a month later on the same salary to the same job, this time on a fixed contract.
I don't hold him responsible for this shocking bit of sleight of hand. I'm sure somebody suggested he was the best person to write a report on his own pension and instructed him to do so. No, I blame the local councillors who allowed this to happen and the Audit Commission and the Scottish Government who have the overview of this ridiculous arrangement and have so far done nothing to get back the roughly
£350,000 this has cost us - council tax payers - yep, taken for mugs as usual.
If you want to protest, do what I'm doing: write to the papers, to your councillor, to your MSP and your MP. If we don't protest, then we really are mugs.
Totally agree. I'm going to find out which councillor from this part of the world is involved.
ReplyDeleteBehold, the coonsillors responsible!!! Find them at
ReplyDeletehttp://www.strathclydefireboard.org/info/1/board_members.
The board members on the website above are new. One of the East Ren councillors named there sent me the names of the 2 councillors who were on the board at the time all this happened. One of them, Ralph Robertson, has written back to me. Imo, his email addresses only minor points in my message to him (basically what I've said in the post Fire! Fire! above): Brian Sweeney wasn't allowed to be present when his job was being discussed; he only got access to his lump sum, not his pension. Mr Robertson's justification is that Strathclyde Fire & Rescue faced a staffing shortage when all the people recruited in the 1970/80s reached retirement at the same time and this was an attempt to ensure there would still be senior officers left in post. Oddly, I haven't come across any other local authority service putting in place this kind of creative re-employment scheme, although areas like education and social work have all faced the same demographic challenge. Mr Robertson doesn't address the Audit Commission's criticism of the board in its report published yesterday. The issues of bad management, poor planning and poor value for money still remain.
ReplyDelete