Blossom Two-Jobs Young?

Bless the BBC. The recently highlighted the issue of “polygamous workers”. It seems that the public sector is bedeviled by staff doing two jobs.

We are now aware of the issue of public sector workers “working” away from the office, some as far away as West Africa.

Now it seems they have uncovered a problem of staff doing two jobs.

This puts councillors in an interesting position. Many of them are working.

For the most part, this should not be a problem, it should be a positive. People from the communities they serve bringing their energy and expertise to local government in their spare time. 

Remember, the minimum requirement on councillors is to attend one meeting every six months. Clearly, if this is all that was being done both the public and the parties that councillors represent would be unimpressed. Newham councillors currently receive basic allowances of £15,960 a year.

At the other extreme we have cabinet members, taking in an additional £37,255. This makes £53,215 for most cabinet members, though the statutory deputy mayor gets another £5k on top of that.

Back in the bad old days of Robin Wales, cabinet members were expected to make their cabinet role their main job. Effectively, they were being paid a wage and they were expected to put in the hours. One cabinet member, who did hold a job didn’t take the responsibility allowance.

Not so now, it seems. Cabinet responsibility is now a part time job with a full-time salary!

Blossom Young holds a responsible role at Poplar HARCA. She also collects £53,215 courtesy of the tax-payer.

This is done under the auspices of the mayor who promised to cut spending on councillors and special responsibility allowances.

Young is not alone. Amar Virdee declares that he is a self-employed “consultant”; Rita Chadha juggles three other interests as an employee, director and “interim CEO”.

While clearly it is difficult to draw a hard line on the balance between council work allowances and income from employment of business, the idea that there are two-jobs councillors taking effectively two salaries suggests that one of those ‘jobs’ must be suffering.

It might cause some voters to look askance at their representatives, knowing that some are raking in the cash while residents struggle by.