Apr 2011 11

HR Transparency is contagious5

In response to the Department for Communities and Local Government consultation on the “Code of recommended practice for local authorities on data transparency,” our key recommendation was HR transparency. Hammersmith and Fulham Council have taken strides in this area and have a list of job titles available on their website. Encouragingly, it appears to have have caught on, as neighbouring Kensington and Chelsea have done the same; detailed structure charts clearly showing all members of staff in a particular division and where they fit in the council hierarchy. This is a great first step. Finally residents have a better idea where their money is going and have the opportunity to assess their council’s priorities.

Nowhere to hide...

Where we would urge councils to go further is by explaining briefly what each of the employees in the structure actually does. Often job titles are confusing and meaningless. If these job titles came with the job descriptions, it would eliminate any misunderstanding over the position and give residents the opportunity to decide if they think the position is worthwhile.

The Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday that councils are still recruiting members of staff with dubious titles commanding high salaries. Publishing spending £500 is fantastic but this misses out on probably the biggest area of spending – staff. Councils should implement HR transparency in full so that taxpayers have a better understanding of how councils spend their money.

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  • Blarg1987

    Are you chasing up serco and other private companies who are now running former in house council and central goverment contracts?

  • Anonymous

    That’s much harder (deliberately) as it’s been moved ‘off book’ to avoid such transparency. Thus we may never know that we’re getting shafted because Labour hated honesty so much they hid it away where they (and we) couldn’t see it.

    And I shouldn’t have said Labour. The state. There, I said it. They’re all disingenuous pond weed that seem to do nothing but cost me money.

  • http://www.facebook.com/liam.billington Liam Anthony Billington

    I did a FOI some time ago asking for all job titles and their pay grade for Tameside. It’s available in the link below:

    http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/list_of_council_staff

    I should of really asked for how many are employed in that position. It would be good to compare how many staff are employed at councils say in bin collection and how many tonnes of waste they collect and see if there is a pattern between other councils to work out an average number of staff required per tonne of waste disposed/recycled.

    • Blarg1987

      Be a little bit difficult as different counties have different population densities, so you can’t say a bin collector in the highlands of scotland is being less efficent as the bin man in central london is collecting a higher volume, I agree with what you say in principle, but it would be hard to implement unless you have people with experience in these areas as anyone can say someone is being less or more efficent but without knowing what is involved or the circumstances it would be meaningless.

  • jon

    Not caught on very far though, I have just asked the Heritage Officer at Wychavon District Council for a copy of his organisation chart, and he has passed my request to the legal services team to determine whether I would even be allowed to get one with an FOI request