At the Bolsover Council meeting this morning the Labour controlling group pushed through a major cut in the mileage rate paid to staff. Many of these staff has a contractual obligation to provide a car for their work so they have no choice but to accept a major drop in their income in a year when they are already faced with higher contributions for their pension, no prospect of a pay increase and the uncertainty involved in shared services.
It is all the more depressing that this is being imposed by a Labour Council without any agreement with the Unions. At the meeting I made a simple proposal to defer the decision for one month whilst the Council investigated the feasibility of offering its employees use of pool cars. Many other Councils have found that running high efficiency pool cars saves employees the expense of having to provide a car for work, works out cheaper than paying even the HMRC mileage rates and saves carbon emissions as well. But the controlling groups were intransigent.
For a Council dominated by a political party created by unions their reluctance to pause for a moment to consider a suggestion which could avoid an acrimonious dispute is a very sad day indeed and does not bode well for the employee relationships in the future.
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