24 February 2006
Scottish council chief executives and senior officials face new laws to make them directly accountable for their decisions and to hold them responsible for poor advice.
Finance Minister Tom McCabe said this week that legislation might be needed to ensure that officials are held to a code that spells out their responsibilities in advising councillors.
McCabe voiced concern over some of the advice given by senior management officials – who earn up to £130,000 a year – when he gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament finance committee, which is investigating the failure of councils to implement equal pay agreements.
Councils across Scotland are concerned about the prospect of having to pay millions of pounds in compensation and for new pay structures under the single status agreement that was first struck in 1999.
McCabe told the committee in Edinburgh he found it strange that only one of Scotland's 32 councils – South Lanarkshire – had resolved the issue.
He suggested it could be instructive to look at the professional advice that was offered to elected members of that authority, compared with the professional advice offered in other councils.
He added: 'It might also be useful for us to consider the degree of accountability that should exist, not only among democratically elected politicians but among very highly paid professionals in the public services and local government.
'I am not criticising them for the fact that they are well rewarded, but I am convinced that we need to examine how accountable they are for the professional advice that they do or do not offer in certain situations. That may be one way of improving things.'
The minister said that if a chief executive of a council or a director of human resources were paid £100,000 or well in excess of it, they had to be professionally accountable for the advice they offered.
He said: 'I have no doubt that we need to find ways of legislating to improve the professional accountability of people who work in local government.'
The president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Pat Watters, said councils already held senior officials to account. He added: 'Criticising our employees is becoming a bit of a theme from the Executive.
'These are our staff, not theirs, and they must stop acting like they have more knowledge of them than we do.'
PFfeb2006
