‘Obsessive secrecy’ comes under fire as East Riding Council launches £2m pay review

Opposition leader Coun David Nolan, inset, maintains the work should have been done inhouse and says it is unfair to put staff at East Riding Council through the uncertainty and upheaval of a major job re-evaluation following the pandemic.

And he has also criticised making a report to the council’s cabinet an exempt item, meaning the press and public are barred from seeing the cabinet papers or attending the meeting for that item.

It comes as the Conservative-run council looks set to raise council tax by 3.99 per cent to help meet “extraordinarily high” budget pressures including adult social care and “high needs” education.

The scheme was given the go-ahead by full council last July despite Lib Dem opposition.

Coun Nolan said he was forbidden from saying what was in the exempt papers, adding: “I condemn the attempt to take this decision behind closed doors.

“Sadly this need for obsessive secrecy is part of the culture of the Tory-run council and it needs to be more open and honest.”

A member of staff said morale at the council is terrible, “with no leadership or direction”. They said the council needs to pay higher wages than neighbouring Hull to attract people to work in key areas like adult social care and children’s services.

However they fear in the end “it will just be a restructure and those on higher salaries will get higher pay and those on lower pay will get regraded – if they are spending £2m they have to recoup it somewhere.”

The council is expected to appoint a preferred partner in the coming weeks, with work starting in March.

In a statement East Riding Council said a report in the public domain was discussed by the cabinet last July.

It added: “The cabinet paper on 1 February 2022 is an exempt report as all tender award reports of this type must be in accordance with the 1972 Local Government Act.

“As the paper in the public domain on 6 July 2021 states, this is about how the council pays and rewards its staff and how it wants to do so in the future.

“Getting this right is important for the council and its staff and it makes a significant contribution to being able to recruit, retain and motivate the people who deliver services for East Riding residents. “

The council said the draft cabinet report would be scrutinised by an all-party scrutiny committee before the cabinet decision.