Tri-borough: The Bold New Plan: Staff Cuts... Again

The Tri-borough project which aims to combine various services across the three local authorities Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham and Westminster Council was hailed as the great saviour of libraries and other public services in the age of austerity. According to both the BBC and the Guardian, not a single library would close due to the groundbreaking savings that would come from this bold new project.

So now that St James' library has closed, and Hammersmith and Fulham has relinquished responsibility of two libraries we all sit with baited breaths waiting to see how much more Tri-borough can save. The plan is that across all three boroughs, the Tri-borough project will save £33M per year across all affected services and emphasis has been put on savings being generated by combining purchase contracts and sharing services.

In Libraries the expected saving is £1.1M per year across the three local authorities since the service is already very inexpensive, most of those savings will come from further reducing staff numbers across all three boroughs... bold?... Yes... New... No!

Every Library across all three boroughs that now has a self-service machine has seen a reduction of staff due to the introduction of those machines to the detriment of the level of service Westminster prides itself on. As the project announces progression towards its first £1M saving and in Libraries this would be through staff reductions, one can only hope that the architects of these great new remember the service's obligation to the public above financial conveniences and profit.

Eric Pickles! Save our libraries, not our bins!

Courtesy of Digital Democracy a discussion ensues which yet again challenges the Government's position with regards to the economic viability of maintaining public services.

The arguement has always been that the money is simply not there, yet 'Suddenly the government has found £250,000,000.00 to spend on weekly bin collections while our services are cut!' Digital Democracy suggests as a Solution that the executive should Instead save our jobs, libraries, universities, soldiers + sailors + pilots, leisure centres, social services, coastguards, Policemen, youth centres, lollipop people, pothole repairs and road gritting.

Join the debate

WESTMINSTER CONSERVATIVES SPEND £2.5 MILLION ON 10 ‘TEMPORARY’ STAFF

WESTMINSTER CITY COUNCIL LABOUR GROUP

PRESS NOTICE

4^th August 2011

WESTMINSTER CONSERVATIVES SPEND £2.5 MILLION ON 10 ‘TEMPORARY’ STAFF

Westminster Council has spent almost £2.5 million on 10 ‘temporary’ staff, nine of whom who have worked for the Council for over two years, according to Council figures revealed by Labour Councillors. Of the 10 ‘temporary’ staff, only two, an Environmental Health Officer and a Deputy Services Manager in the Family Recovery Team, could be said to be working in front-line services.

In addition, the Council employs 34 temporary staff earning over £300 a day.

Earlier this week, Labour Councillors revealed that Westminster Council is spending £186,000 a year on a 6-person 'Campaigns Team', while at the same time they say that they do not have enough money to afford £4,100 a year to give 50 partially sighted people free access to the RNIB Talking Book. The 50 partially sighted residents had their free access to the RNIB Talking Book axed as part of the Council’s cuts.

And in June, Westminster Council agreed to spend £960,000 on five ‘Transformation and Change Management’ consultants from PriceWaterhouseCoopers for the next 12 months, with the option to extend the contract for a further six months bringing the total cost to Westminster Council Tax payers to £1,440,000. Labour Councillors attacked this decision at a time when the Council is making £60 million of cuts, half of which are to front line services, including the axing of services to 3,000 elderly residents with moderate care needs, the closure of the St James’s Library in Victoria and the cutting of over 70 weekend street sweepers in the north of Westminster.

Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, Leader of the Labour Group, said;

“How can Westminster Conservatives justify spending £2.5 million on 10 so-called ‘temporary’ staff at a cost of up to £745 a day when they are axing front line services to the most vulnerable residents? Westminster Conservatives are guilty of wasting the Council Tax payments of hard-working Westminster residents. This is an absolute disgrace and a national scandal. Why don’t Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps condemn this blatant misuse of public money?”

ENDS

Could this be the future of Mayfair Library?

For many years Westminster Council has been attempting to close one of our small but much loved Libraries in the hope of achieving savings and reducing its liabilities. If not for our determined opposition to its closure, there would be no Library in the building that is currently being leased to Westminster at absolutely no charge.

We prepared ourselves to renew our fight for OUR taxes to be spent on OUR libraries upon the government's announcement that it would be making major cuts to public services with the aim of reducing the national deficit. But as the months passed, it seemed that all the preparation to fight for Mayfair was for nought as our councillors assured us that the library would not be closing this year and that exciting changes would be coming to the library service in Westminster and beyond.

Still wary of Mayfair's closure, we decided to lend our hand to any activities that would preserve our service and its wonderful staff members. It was at this point that our Councillors and Westminster Management suggested the idea of residents assisting with the rounding up of donations and volunteers to save Mayfair Library, and only Mayfair.

All the while St. James's Library which is far busier, has more customers, and is in a location with no immediate alternative was announced to be closing by mid-august. We found it strange that they would close such a busy well used library while assuring us that Mayfair would remain open.

It was at this point we realised that they were scared of us. Not all residents, but the active ones for sure.

But then we discovered what was being proposed in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (who Westminster Libraries have been meeting with on a regular basis as part of the new Tri-borough project).

'The council intends that Barons Court Library will be run as a volunteer-led service and the  Sands End Library will be relocating to a new purpose built setting still within the Sands End ward at Hurlingham & Chelsea School on Peterborough Road.'

It would seem that they've been grooming us to take over the responsibilities that we've elected them and paid them very well to manage and they didn't have the guts to tell us to our faces.

CEO's Wages equivalent to 105,381 meals on wheels or 7 school teachers

Westminster has introduced a wonderful new gadget on they're internal employee intranet-site that allows staff and managers to calculate how much their spending and savings amount to for local residents and services.

You entered a total of £ 268,723.00 (Mike More's Annual income not including benefits). In Westminster, this is the equivalent of:

390 people’s council tax (based on Band D)
105,381 meals on wheels (£2.55 is the subsidised charge for a two course hot meal)
removal of waste from 2,465 households (it costs the council on average £109 per household per year to dispose of waste
including street litter and dumped rubbish)
7 social worker(s) (based on recent vacancies and represents band 3 step 4 on Westminster’s pay scale)
7 teacher(s) (based on scale point 6 for classroom teachers working in inner London)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You might remember in a previous post we told you of the Tory councillor who said £3M was not a significant enough saving to justify a 5% reduction in wages for those earning over £100k - If you not confused yet just wait for 'Harmonisation'.

UNDERCOVER CUTS STILL HITTING LIBRARIES WHILE WESTMINSTER PAYS NEW BOSSES MORE THAN THE PM

So the 26th March 2011 was a day that showed politicians that apathy was a sign of its own failure to engage the public rather than an indication that the executive had a free hand and could do whatever it wants without recourse. Since then, outwardly it would seem that all is now quiet on the libraries front with regards to cuts and closures...  unfortunately this would be a flawed perception.


With a planned 40% reduction in Westminster's Library stock budget, a reduction in staffing hours by 14 full time staff members for September, the closure of St James' and Charing cross library as well as the Sale of the Old Marylebone town hall and Old Marylebone Library plus, the ongoing Tri-borough project; as well as more planned cuts for 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. It would appear that both local and national politicians have merely been reminded to keep up the spin while those in the know keep up the fight.


It is no wonder Labour councillor Paul Dimoldenberg has called for an inquiry into Westminster Council’s publicity claims that it is ‘maintaining library services’.


To add insult to injury, the cuts continue at a time when the council has announced that it will be appointing a new Strategic Director for Adult Services to work full-time on the Tri-borough project that is still struggling to find savings, and a new role for a Strategic Director for Regeneration, Housing and 'Worklessness' which will also carry a 'significant salary' by the council's own admission.


So what is a significant salary? The director of ‘regeneration, housing and “worklessness”’ will be on a pay scale of £138,473 – 187,473, and the director of adult social care will be on £260,000, which combined is well above the cost of running St. James's Library (£357K including staffing, rent, book stock budget, etc). these Salaries have been agreed despite local government minister Eric Pickles urging local authorities to avoid paying salaries higher than that of the prime minister (£142,500).

Evening Standard

With the council already axing 350 jobs and 500 more redundancies on the way, it's not surprising critics have hailed it as 'massively offensive' that two members of staff can be paid more than the cost to run St. James' library which is due to close by the end of august this year. 

One employee at Westminster city council has said '...it beggars belief that they are suggesting such salaries while we are in the process of experiencing drastic cuts to essential public services, including mass redundancies here at WCC....Westminster is cutting Sure Start, community and youth services, social care, meals-on-wheels, community engagement, libraries, domestic violence, and other services.  There are further savage and unnecessary, ideologically-driven cuts to come.... ' 

others have said  '.... the director of regeneration, housing and worklessness will be paid to oversee the social cleansing of our community, as the cap on housing benefit forces thousands out of their homes.  The director of adult care – who, on over a quarter of a million a year, will be the highest paid public sector worker in the country – will be implementing brutal, swingeing cuts that will see social services withdrawn from thousands of vulnerable residents with genuine support needs beyond their control....'

If this wasn't enough, it has been announced that Westminster council has paid £600,000 in compensation to a firm it axed as it's parking contractor after only a few days. When awarding the biggest parking contract in the UK, Westminster had failed to follow it's own rules by giving the contract to a company £9 million more expensive than it's current contractors. The punchline here is that the council considers this spend a 'saving' rather than evidence of incompetence which is consistent with it's track record thus far.

Evening Standard

“Westminster Council spends over £3 million a year on its press and publicity department and the Council has demonstrated beyond doubt that this money would be much better spent on library books and librarians than misleading Council spin to cover the extent and depth of the Conservative cuts”

Petition to Save St James's Library

The council has decided that the closure of St. James's Library will save £357,000 of Westminster's £84M cuts target. This 'saving' is minute when weighed against the detrimental social effect the closure will have on Westminster's residents, workers and visitors. At the same time, the council aims to employ two new members of staff who will both be paid more than the Prime Minister from money saved as part of such cuts.

Each year St James's Library makes approximately 70 staff visits to schools and nurseries as well as accommodating 170 school and nursery visits to the library itself. St James's Library is a small but busy library that services, schools, nurseries, residents, students, workers, tourists and the vulnerable throughout London and Westminster.

This library must be protected for all.

Please sign the Petition at the above address and share the link with as many friends, family and associates as possible. You will need an email address and to register a Westminster address and postcode to verify that you live, work or study in Westminster.

http://petitions.westminster.gov.uk/KEEPJAS/

If you study at any of the following institutions here are the addresses:

University of Westminster
309 Regent Street
London W1B 2UW

The School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS)
hornhaugh Street
Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG

University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT

Also here is a list of libraries with their addresses if you work or study there:
Westminster Libraries