Day off reward for success at council
Peter Devine
March 04, 2009
MORE than 4,000 council staff have been given an extra day off in recognition of their efforts to make Stockport Council an oustanding authority.
The additional holiday was decided on at a meeting of Stockport Council last Thursday, and is a reward for it being declared ‘a four-star council and improving strongly’.
The new rating, which will be declared tomorrow by the Corporate Performance Assessment (CPA), puts Stockport among some of the top performing councils in the UK.
In a report the day off was recommended on the following grounds:
"The granting of this one off extra day’s leave is a fitting recognition of the hard work that our employees have shown over recent years in helping the council to maintain its excellent rating."
The day off will only apply to non-school based employees which total 4,166. The Lib-Dem Council Leader Councillor Dave Goddard said: "Stockport has been on a journey performance-wise for the past 10 years and this is a culmination where we will be declared among the top 10 per cent in the country.
"Our staff deliver over 600 services, and I see no reason why they should not be rewarded for all their hard work."
Coun Peter Scott, the Labour leader told the Stockport Express he was less certain as to whether days off should be granted when people outside the local authority were faced with redundancy.
He commented: "We are a little bit concerned about the cost of this and if a day off is the best way of rewarding staff.
"Elsewhere in Stockport people are losing their jobs while the council is giving their staff a day off."
As the debate became more heated, Coun Goddard responded by adding: "Coun Scott’s view beggars belief.
"And is completely untenable and childish."
from Stockport express online