Is Bolsover on your sat-nav Ed?

Never one to miss a band wagon Ed Milliband has jumped on-board the idea of a living wage. He didn’t say much about it whilst in Government but he says his party is totally committed to it now and has threatened to name and shame any Council that doesn’t implement it.

Green controlled Brighton has nothing to fear from that because it’s been our party policy for years. Over a year ago I asked Eion Watts, the Leader of Labour controlled Bolsover whether he was committed to it and he said he liked the idea but it was impossible in Bolsover cos of the cost and equal pay legislation which required him to maintain all differentials!!. He was wrong on both counts of course, as his Leader is now telling him and countless other Councils are showing.

I feel a bit sorry for Ed it must be hard to lead such a party of nimbys but as the District Auditor will tell him it’ll take more than a little naming and shaming to get Elion to see the light. It also occurred to me that if its costs so much to pay people just £7.20 an hour we must have a lot of staff on poverty wages, a fine advertisement for socialism.

All in this together?

OK you've heard about the Bolsover Councillors awarding themselves the highest allowances of any District Council in the country but what about the pay of those who work for, rather than serve on, the authority? How do they fare?

And I'm not talking about the bosses and Directors who seem to be endlessly re-organised, I'm talking about the refuse collectors, craftspeople, office staff and housing assistants. Over 50 of them are paid less than the Living Wage of £7.20 per hour. That means that over 1 in 10 of the Council's staff get little more than the minimum wage. Apparently they are not "worth it".

Councils such as Green Party controlled Brighton along with forward thinking Labour authorities such as Lewsiham and most recently Preston (where I notice that the member allowance is nearly one third of the Bolsover rate) are doing something not just issuing platitudes so I've put down this question for the Leader to answer at the next Bolsover Council meeting. Let's see if whether he's more George Osborne than George Orwell.

"As his party has made sure that front-line councillors get the highest allowances of any District Council in the country would he like to show that he is equally concerned about front-line workers by joining the ranks of forward-thinking Councils such as Preston, Lewisham, Lambeth, Oxford and Brighton by making a commitment that Bolsover DC will become a Living Wage Employer thereby directly assisting the 50+ Council employees  who earn less than £7.20 per hour and who are suffering most from the coalitions cuts in services and increases in VAT and fuel costs?"