Friday, January 28, 2011

Suspended, on full pay - councils paying staff as they sit at home doing nothing

Between them, the city and county councils have 35 suspended employees. our hospitals have none, the two universities in Leicester, just one. why the massive – and very costly – discrepancy? Adam Wakelin reports


Who wouldn't love to sit at home on full pay for a year, or even longer? Nice work if you can get it, you might think, picking up a salary for twiddling your thumbs.

Well, no, not really, not if you're suspended from your job, suffering all the uncertainties and stresses that such a predicament inevitably brings.

Anyone who's had half an eye on the news in Leicester will know that De Montfort Hall manager Richard Haswell has been in that situation for more than 15 months now.

Leicester City Council chief executive Sheila Lock, the politicians and Mr Haswell himself – more vehemently than anyone – all say they're desperate to see the matter resolved. And, so far, there's absolutely no sign of it.

It's hard not to think of Jarndyce v Jarndyce from Bleak House, the never-ending and incomprehensible dispute that only ended when everyone was dead or exhausted and the entire estate was eaten away by legal costs.

Dickens' novel even has a character called Sir Leicester Dedlock, apt in more ways than one. There are a lot of Leicester deadlocks in this story.

The case of Mr Haswell isn't unique, we've discovered. Far from it.

Three other city council staff, like him, have been suspended from work for more than a year.

Another six employees have been suspended for between six months and a year by the authority, nine more for between three and six months.

Now prepare yourself for a real suspension of disbelief. One city council employee was paid to kick his or her heels at home for 45 months – nearly four years – before the authority finally sacked him or her in May 2009.

Things are little better at Leicestershire County Council.

Three of its employees have been suspended on full pay for more than a year now – one of them for 18 months.

Six more at the county have been suspended for between three and six months.

A total of 22 people are currently suspended by the city council, costing the authority �44,000 a month in salaries for people who are doing nothing.

The county has 13 staff suspended. The cost of those suspensions, so far, is �201,381.

Both sums are hard to justify when services are being squeezed and both councils are in the process of making people redundant.

City council Tory opposition leader Ross Grant doesn't even attempt to justify it.

"The current situation is unacceptable," he says. "It is a disgrace and the council is failing its staff and the people of Leicester.

"This is a waste of money. Only in exceptional circumstances should any case take longer than six months.

"The council also has a duty to resolve cases quickly in the best interests of the suspended employee, to do the least harm in terms of stress."

Mohammed Dawood, Labour's cabinet lead for human resources, says the authority has taken strides in the last two years to reduce the length of suspensions.

"Times have been improved by 50 per cent," he says. "But this is obviously something we need to continue to address.

"I am working with the council's HR department to improve this scenario." Employment law specialist Jo Cosgrove is at a loss to explain why both authorities have so many staff suspended for so long.

"It's very unusual," says Jo, an associate solicitor at Harvey Ingram in Leicester. "A suspension should only be for as long as necessary to carry out a proper investigation.

"I've certainly never come across a suspension for more than a year."

Each case is different depending on its particular facts, adds Jo, but companies in the private sector rarely suspend anyone for more than three months. The situation is resolved, one way or the other.

So the private sector, which has less bureaucracy and, perhaps, less regulations regarding employees' rights, simply finds it easier to get disciplinary issues resolved? Could that let our councils off the hook? Well, actually, no.

The Mercury, in the interests of balance, contacted some of Leicestershire's other major non-private sector employers to find out how many people they had suspended and for how long.

The largest, the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, has 11,914 employees. None of these are currently suspended.

None of the 2,742 staff at De Montfort University are suspended either. The University of Leicester, which employs 3,747, has one person currently suspended – for between six months and a year.

Leicestershire police has four staff suspended – one for less than three months and two staff from three to six months, and one for 23 months. The total cost of those suspensions, so far, is �128,545.

No other organisation seems to have such a problem with long-running suspensions as our local authorities. Even the police, who we can assume have the most complicated and legally fraught cases to deal with, compare pretty favourably.

So what is going on?

Fiona Skene, director of human resources at the city council, issued this statement: "We have made it a priority to adopt more robust procedures to reduce the length of time that employees are on suspension, which has led to a significant drop in the duration of suspensions in recent years. However, some investigations can be very complex or involve civil or criminal issues and, therefore, in some cases long-term suspensions can be unavoidable.

"Suspension of staff is a last resort and generally occurs only when there are serious issues of potential gross misconduct.

"It is a neutral act that does not imply guilt and it often allows any investigation to be carried out more easily."

She should, perhaps, try telling that to Mr Haswell, said to be furious by the length of his suspension and the stubborn stain it has left on his reputation. He is, say friends, absolutely desperate to clear his name.

Yet Mr Haswell, despite being suspended in October 2009, wasn't even officially spoken to by the council until shortly before Christmas last year.

The recent arrest of a staff member at De Montfort Hall and the latest audit investigation into goings-on there have absolutely nothing to do with him.

A council spokesman, finally, confirmed that much to this newspaper last week.

Beyond that, they were saying nothing. So what is the hold-up in getting this situation sorted? No one seems to know, least of all Mr Haswell.

For the record, we named Mr Haswell – something we've not done with other suspended council employees or the De Montfort Hall person recently arrested by police – because we had little choice.

As the DMH manager, his ongoing absence couldn't be ignored.

Initially, when Mr Haswell was first suspended with two other employees, the council said it was to allow "investigations" to take place.

Those investigations, however, were concluded many, many months ago.

A funeral going at such a pace would be moved on by the police. So, is it a case of due diligence or interminable buck-passing and paper shuffling? We can only speculate.

We asked the Local Government Association if anyone there might be able to help. They couldn't.

Nick Rushton, the Conservative cabinet lead for finance at Leicestershire County Council, is the politician who has responsibility for suspensions.

Situations, he says, are often "very, very complicated" and you can't "rush" them.

It is, he says, "better to be safe than sorry".

Few would disagree. Staff shouldn't be frog-marched out of a job, or whitewashed of any wrongdoing, before a proper and thorough investigation has taken place.

But why is it that the private sector and the rest of the public sector can do it so much faster?

Someone at the county, as we've already said, has been suspended for 18 months. That's an awfully long time, whatever the circumstances.

"If you're telling me the health service is better at dealing with it, then I don't know why. I can't understand it," says Coun Rushton.

"I will certainly be asking why. This is on my agenda. I'll find out, then I'll be as wise as anybody.

"What surprises me is the number (of staff suspensions). It seems like a big number to me. That �200,000 (the cost of those suspensions) would be far better spent on something else."

Leicestershire Constabulary has a policy of reviewing its suspensions on a monthly basis.

"We are mindful that the public deserve a value-for-money police service," said a spokeswoman. "Where appropriate, an officer or police staff member will be returned to the workplace in a different post if we are satisfied that a return to work will not affect or influence any disciplinary proceedings against them."

Coun Dawood believes local authorities could perhaps learn lessons from how our universities, the police and the health service handle staff suspensions.

"Maybe we need to look at them and evaluate our processes," he says.

"I completely agree that having someone suspended for a year is too long. We are looking at ways to shorten the process."

Are you one of those suspended for more than a year? Perhaps you were the person sacked after being suspended for 45 months?

If so, we would like to hear from you.

Call Adam Wakelin in confidence on 0116 222 4236.



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