Council staff misery revealed

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), June 9, 2009

Byline: ADAM JUPP

HUNDREDS of angry council workers have told of their town hall troubles in a staff survey.

But the councillor who created the questionnaire, sent to all employees of Newcastle City Council, is today at the centre of a conduct probe.

Labour leader Coun Nick Forbes says he was driven to drawing-up his own staff satisfaction survey after being repeatedly told of unrest in the Civic Centre.

And after learning the council has decided to abandon its own annual workforce questionnaire, he took matters into his own hands.

And within 48 hours of emailing the questions out, he received more than 800 responses, with scores of people also posting negative comments about their life at work since a "transformation" programme, which saw 510 posts lost.

Now, Coun Forbes has been told he is being investigated over whether he has breached the council's local protocol on member/officer Relations.

It is alleged he has broken the rules by contacting frontline staff instead of going to their line manager and for failing to acknowledge that officers have to be politically neutral.

But he said: "After being informed of the investigation, I have taken advice and am preparing my defence.

"However, what I can say is the survey is anonymous and I don't know who has completed each response, so it is impossible for me to have affected the relationship between officers and managers.

"Also, the questions I have used have been lifted wordfor-word from the last staff survey used by the council and that was deliberately done to avoid any claims I am trying to make political capital from it. This whole thing came about because we as a group were concerned about the number of staff who were telling us they were unhappy.

"And what the response is telling us is there is a huge number of people - hundreds and hundreds - who are feeling deeply concerned about their job and what is happening to the council at the moment." He added: "To be honest, I only expected between 50-100 responses but I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the number of people who have filled it out and in some cases moved to tears by some of the comments I have read.

"I think instead of investigating me for my behaviour, they should be thanking me for shedding light on this ." Among the initial findings of Coun Forbes' survey are that 91% of respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed that the council had become a better place to work in the last 12 months.

And 72% disagreed with the statement that "speaking up when you disagree with management will not damage your career prospects." A council spokesman said the transformation programme would achieve pounds 169m of efficiency savings over the next five years with approximately 500 jobs going, of which 270 are managers and 120 administrators. The council had worked closely with the trades unions to engage and consult with staff He added: "We will complete this process as quickly as possible while ensuring that under the new structures the council can continue to deliver the best possible services to the public.

"We are aware of Coun Forbes' unofficial survey and can confirm that the council's deputy monitoring officer has been asked to investigate Coun Forbes' actions.''