[Acrylic-bob]

Anone read this in the Observer?

"Golden handshake cap plan scrapped
A cost cutting plan to cap Golden handshakes for council staff has been scrapped after top council officers slammed it as unfair.



An investigation was ordered after it was revealed that Hundburn Council spent a whopping £300,000 last year on lump sum payments for early retirement and voluntary redundancy.

A 10 point plan was drawn up by a cross party group, which decided such payment should be capped at a one mid point rate for all staff of £356 multiplied by the number of weeks’service.

But the Cabinet rejected the move after its management team – made up of managing director David Welsby, regeneration boss Nigel Rix, Community services director Steve Tanti and other chief officers – argued that their lump sums would be calculated well below their weekly rate.

Councillor Graham Jones, a member of the advisory panel, blasted the news and said it was in everybody’s interest to cap payments.

He told last week’s meeting of the full council: “This is a really serious issue and something like that should stand out like a sore thumb. Not capping at this level means that fewer blue collar workers and lower paid staff will be able to afford to retire. Higher level officers are more likely to be able to afford to retire because they have been earning more over the term of employment.

“Surely this is a prejudicial issue too because management have been involved in the decision making. Capping would have meant that higher paid staff would have thought twice about leaving.”

But outside the meeting Councillor John Griffiths, portfolio holder for corporate governance, hit back. He said: “I agree with the management team’s response. It simply isn’t fair to cap at this level.”

“We don’t want to be going down the road of redundancies anyway. Even if it was an issue we would look to redeploy staff rather than let them go.”



(John Fahey. Accrington Observer and Times , 6 August 2004.)

So, I got my trusty calculator out. A person under the plan that was scrapped retiring after ten years service would have been eligeable for a lump sum payment of £189,800.

Not bad on top of the state pension and the council pension.

But the thing that really got my goat was Rix and his buddies complaining that it would REDUCE their eventual lump sum payment!

Oh dear me, we can't have that can we? especially after all the things Mr Rix hasn't been able to do for us. All those splendid grant applications that he has managed to misunderstand and loose for us. The marvellously cack handed town centre regeneration that he has mismanaged to such unspectacular effect. How could we be so ungrateful as to deny him his vastly inflated retirement lump sum. I am sure that all our pensioners would agree this would be an injustice too far. I am not surprised that he feels justified inno longer bothering to reply to electors letters. I can well imagine Age Concern will want to open up a special collection, just for him!

Just how much are we paying these greedy, incompetent, half-wits anyway??