Public scandal

For what other conclusion can be reached from the fact that a large number of local authorities, as well as West and North Yorkshire Police, refused even to supply information when asked by this newspaper about the number of workers suspended on full pay?

It is bad enough that more than £7.5m of taxpayers’ money has been paid out in Yorkshire over the past three years to council, NHS and police employees accused of misconduct, but for other publicly funded organisations not even to come clean about the scale of their own waste merely adds insult to taxpayers’ injury.

It is only too clear from the information that has been supplied, however, that the inefficiency and lack of urgency in dealing with disciplinary issues is costing the public dearly.

From health trusts spending more than £4m on the salaries of more than 600 suspended staff to a Barnsley Council employee remaining on full salary more than three years after being suspended, a picture is painted of public organisations valuing their labyrinthine disciplinary procedures far more highly than the hard-earned money used to underwrite them. It must also be remembered that these figures are merely salaries and do not include any associated legal costs.

It would simply be unthinkable for the private sector to act in anything approaching this kind of lackadaisical spendthrift manner. Indeed, any firm that tried to do so would likely be out of business within months. Instead, disciplinary matters are usually dealt with swiftly and resolutely with any injustices rectified through industrial tribunals.

For the public sector, however, there is always more of other people’s money to spend and it should not need a national financial crisis to make it clear that this situation cannot be sustained any more than it can be justified.