VB received the following email from an Isle of Wight council (IWC) employee. They’re clearly unhappy with the situation within the council and keen to share their views anonymously. If you want to share your views, get in touch. Confidentiality guaranteed. Ed
I am an employee of IWC and appreciate the opportunity to speak out. I work in County Hall.
There are a lot of very upset and angry people around the Council right now and this has been building up for months, from even before the Government announced its intention to pretty much destroy local government.
Constant change and upheaval has been the order of the day for some time; accelerating from the day Joe Duckworth arrived on our shores.
Money wasted
The Council says it needs to save £17m in the first year. Why then is it intending to spend £4m refurbishing County Hall, including a floor that was refurbished only two years ago (including all new furniture)?
How much has it spent on the Shared Service accommodation at the Westridge Centre (including all new furniture)? Not long before that, the area was refurbished as a Disaster Recovery Centre (not used and never likely to be).
That layout of course didn’t suit the Shared Service, so it was all redone.
SAP financial software
How much did they spend on the new financial software, SAP/SRM? Procured without business cases being prepared for the differing needs of different functions.
Oh yes, “we don’t want people coming out of the woodwork claiming special needs for their department – one size fits all.” Oh no, it doesn’t! The general opinion is that the system is pretty much unworkable and gives poorer results than the creaky old systems.
How much money went down the drain with Ryde Interchange? How much has been spent so far on the Highways PFI and how much more is it going to cost us if it really does go ahead? And so on and so forth! I’m sure there are many more examples of how this Council has wasted our money.
Many levels of secrecy
Staff consultation is a joke, merely a box ticking exercise, as decisions have already been made. Our Head of Service admitted recently that there were things he knew that he was not allowed to share with us.
Internal ‘gagging’ as well as external. He’s now discovered that there were things his superiors knew that they weren’t sharing with him!
‘Bonkers decisions’
‘Bonkers decisions’ are what we have come to expect from senior management and Councillors and that is exactly what we get.
Our jaws have dropped so many times they’re permanently on the floor. Too many people elevated above their level of competence and scrambling to be among those who survive. To hell with the rest of us.
What they are doing now doesn’t just affect those who are about to lose their jobs. The knock-on effect on the whole Isle of Wight community will be enormous.
Vast majority take pride in their work
The vast majority of Council staff, particularly those providing frontline services, take pride in their work and are always trying to improve service provision.
Back office staff are sick and tired of being regarded as lazy jobsworths who can be cut with impunity.
Their support of frontline staff is essential. With fewer frontline staff, and those left having to cover the back office as well, service provision will suffer. But I suppose all that will go to external providers, along with pretty much everything else.
This is all too much and too fast; it will be a disaster.
If you work at IWC and want to share your views, get in touch. Confidentiality guaranteed. Ed
Image: anonmunich under CC BY 2.0
