Hey, I said there was more to come on the subject of SCVO – that’s Sandwell Council of Voluntary Organisations and not the Scottish Council of like acronym, BTW - and I’m always as good as my word.

Now if you’ve read the last article – and if you haven’t, you’ll need to read it anyway as some of what follows won’t make a whole lot of sense if you don’t – then you’ll have noted that at one point in proceedings the organisation ended up bringing in a firm of solicitors to help out with the odd employment issue or two… or four… or five… hell I can’t remember the exact number but it was a lot…

… more than you might reasonably expect in an organisation with less than 30 employees.

And since then, they’ve taken it all a step further and signed up with a specialist personal and employment law consultancy, just to make certain they have everything covered.

Which on the whole is a pretty smart move on the organisation’s part…

… especially if, as I do, you know the kind of situations some of its managers were capable of getting into is left to deal with employment issues without the benefit of a solicitors in tow to keep an eye on them.

To understand exactly how, and why, I can say that we need to look at three examples of what can only be described as ’screw-ups’ when it came to dealing internally with employment issues.

Why?

Because this is an organisation whose role, in the local Voluntary Sector includes, amongst other things, capacity building other organisations, promoting good practice and generally supporting other organisations to be, and become, good employers. Whether that same organisation can claim to practice what it preaches is, therefore, a matter of public interest given that it receives public money to enable it to fulfil that role.

I might also point out, before anyone starts worrying unduly, that none of the managers who feature in these examples are actually involved in providing advice directly to local organisations. That responsibility falls to a small number of specialist officers, of which I used to be one, who actually know what they’re doing so if you’re thinking of contacting them for a bit of help, go right ahead – you’re actually in pretty safe hands as long you don’t go asking certain managers for help – you’ll get to know which ones if you read on.

… Meanwhile over at the other local paper, known colloquially in these parts as the ‘Express & Swastika‘ we find the Editor fair frothing at the mouth over the decision of Tory/Lib Dem led Dudley Council to cut rental funding from uniformed groups such as the Scouts, Guide and Boys Brigade.

Now aside from noting my usual unease at the idea of giving public funding to what were originally set up as youth paramilitary groups - but that’s another story - there are a few factual problems with Dudley MBC’s attempts to shift the blame for this one on to the Government - not least this press release from the Government News Network which shows that Dudley MBC should be receiving an extra £17.5 million in Government grant for this year (2005/6) over and above what it recieved the previous year (2004/5), an increase of 7.3% which is higher than any other local council.

Now on top of that we also have Dudley’s own budget which shows that although the Government factored in a 4.2% increase in council tax into its calculations - which presumably is the level at which it would apply a cap to Dudley MBC’s spending - in actual fact the Council expected to increase Council Tax by less than 3% - at least according to its own press release from December 2004.

So, logically, if the Council now finds itself short of cash then it has no one but itself to blame for setting a council tax rate below that which the Government would have permitted and it is, rather cheeky to say the least, for it to try to shift the blame to Government for a decision which was entirely its own.

In actual fact, what has happened here should be pretty obvious. The Tory-led council has taken the opportunity afforded by its increased grant to set as low a council tax rate as it thought it could get away with, knowing that a general election was due the following May. Its a simple matter of electioneering in the hope that by keeping Council Tax increases down it might improve its local candidates electoral fortunes.

Now, however, it finds itself coming up short - which usually means that somewhere in the council there’s department that’s been overspending and it now has the task of finding cuts elsewhere in order balance the books - and preferably the kind of cut which are least politically damaging, which invariably means that non-essential services and expenditure, such as money for voluntary groups, is often amongst the first areas to feel the pinch.

It’s also worth noting the apparent credulity of the Express & Star, which doesn’t appear to have done its homework properly before spouting forth on the presumed evils of central government as if it had, it wouldn’t now be in rather embarrassing position of having run off at the editorial ‘mouth’ only to find that the facts don’t back up either its or Dudley MBC’s effort to paint the Government as the villain of the piece - facts I might point out which took around 5 minutes at most to locate on the internet.

The Express & Star would like us to think that:

“Today in the Black Country we see how once-proud local democracy has become no more than a branch office of Downing Street.”

Unfortunately, today what we actually see is how the once-proud local press has become nothing more than an overly credulous and supine mouthpiece for a craven council which is unwilling to take responsiblity for its own embarrassing short-sightedness.

Now print that on your letters page!

… when I’d be able to describe John Hemming as a ‘master of understatement’ but when he describes his wife as being ‘not best pleased’ by this particular bit of news, then I think he more than deserves the epithet.

Hat tip: Bob Piper

Now you’ll have to excuse me while I clean the coffee off my keyboard before it stains…