Sick pay cuts deferred at Teignbridge

By PRSD, on Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Making savings at Teignbridge Teignbridge Council staff sick pay was saved, along with annual grade increments in the council’s cost-cutting measures. But there are no more professional journals…

There may well be a reason Teignbridge council is a finalist as one of the country’s top councils of the year. The Lib Dem-led district managed to raise, and then quell, this issue of cutting staff sick pay as part of its cost-cutting measures.

But the council did manage to cut costs at the council’s executive meeting on Monday, November 29.

Out of the window go the the essential car user payments – the monthly sum paid to some staff to have their cars available for work, and they set a standard 40p a mile rate for mileage. And for those who choose not to use their cars on council work, there will be rental cars available for council-related business.

Other savings were found as the council agreed to stop paying the subscriptions to professional organisations for staff.

But the annual grade increment has been retained.

So all is not too bad. And the council does not yet know what its government grant will be.

But what about the furore over sick pay? The proposal to cut the first three days of council employees sick pay has been put to bed, for the time being, with two aspirins and a hot water bottle, pending the cold-handed inspection of a national discussion on the issue.

On the note of being a council of the year, Teignbridge is in the running as finalists in the LGC competition, along with Blackburn with Darwen BC, Fenland DC, Southend-on-Sea BC, Wakefield MDC and Westminster City Council.

(Of course, it doesn’t come without a price – a Freedom of Information request revealed that for the 2010 application, ‘the total cost of applying for the award, including the judges’ vista was £935′.)