Letter to the Editor of the West Briton from Ian Wright, 15th February

Council staff disciplined by bosses / £200, 000pa council chief heads expenses list. One rule for one, and another for the rest of the staff..........?

I could not help but darkly chuckle when comparing the contents of two articles in last week's West Briton. On page 2 we read that 78 staff have been disciplined by Cornwall Council in the last year, and on page 4 we read of Kevin Lavery, the council's Chief Executive, who has claimed over £10,000 in expenses in his first 9 months, despite his £200,000 salary. Maybe I pick on Mr Lavery unfairly as other senior officers in the organisation do not fare too well in their expenses claims according to your report.

It is just a shame that your editorial staff did not decide to juxtapose the two articles to amplify the irony-particularly as you note there were no cases of disciplinary action taken in the Chief Executive's department.

Some of the cases of disciplinary action highlighted such as 'racist and inappropriate language', and 'inappropriate behaviour towards a child', are clearly deserving of firm disciplinary action. However it is odd that other matters such as 'failure to follow procedure', 'misuse of the internet' or 'breach of the smoking policy' could not be dealt with informally rather than using formal procedures, unless of course these were repeated offences regarding the people involved. It is worth noting that high use of disciplinary procedures by organisations, is often recognised in Human Resources / People Management circles as symptomatic of a dysfunctional organisation. I hope this is not the case here.

I would imagine many council staff must be seething to read Mr Lavery has claimed nearly £1000 for 'entertaining' and over £7000 in 'relocation costs', particularly as he has such a well paid job. It continues to anger me that senior management in local and central government, as well those in private sector organisations, are only too keen to reward themselves so well on 'super star' salaries, and get what they can on expenses as well. Meanwhile  the rest of us-particularly many low paid people in Cornwall, are expected to just get by on less, as well as being constantly threatened with redundancy, and cuts to our public services in these troubled times.

I do hope councillors, and the council's Human Resources department are scrutinising the senior management's behaviour as closely as the behaviour of the rest of the staff of Cornwall Council. If not maybe it is time they do so, take some action against those at the top, rather than just focus on ordinary council staff, who work so hard, under difficult circumstances, to deliver under resourced council services to all of us.