Carmarthenshire Council - Pay Freeze Spin

With £6m public service cuts threatened, charitable food aid being extended to a thousand families in Llanelli, pensioners transport cut and local businesses squeezed out by multinational corporations (welcomed with open arms and pots of cash by the council), the Council's answer is to announce a two year pay freeze for senior officers, of course this is after they have all had their yearly increase anyway (the freeze was apparently suggested by Mark James, Chief Executive, who's pay is now safely on a par with the Prime Minister - nicely spun Mr James).

The Leader, Councillor Meryl Gravell, tries to justify the already over inflated executive salaries by plugging the service 'awards' the council has won; on closer inspection these are all either internal, or privately sponsored PR media exercises put forward by the Welsh Assembly.
All this is nothing but spin, Cllr Gravell claims that cutbacks over the past seven years have resulted in "..20% fewer directors, 30% fewer heads of service and 25% fewer third tier managers...resulted in savings of well over £1m in management costs."

This is nonsense; while in one breath the undemocratic Executive Board announce the 'pay freeze' (public excluded from meeting), in the next they continue to give vast amounts of our money to an array of private 'consultants'; the most recent being £350,000 to Means Renewals Ltd to develop an office block in West End in Llanelli, part of Mark James' prestigous 'gateway' developments. In 2002 the council spent £190,000 on external consultants (council figures - treat with caution), I cannot imagine the total cost per year nowadays; perhaps I will ask. Once again it seems there is a basic problem with priorities; apparently the council does have a 'poverty strategy' - would this consist of more money for consultants to develop prestigous new 'out of town' workhouses?!

We'll have a county full of 'gateways' with nothing left of the unique distinctive qualities of our towns. I would still like to know how much was given to Simons Group for the St Catherine's Walk development. The council are not forthcoming with the information.I also note, thanks to Ray Jones, excellent letter writer to the Llanelli Star, that Carmarthenshire Council is the second worst council in Wales (Cardiff is first) at handling complaints. No surprise there.

Incidentally, in their never ending quest for transparency and accountability (!) the Executive Board meetings are preceded by an hour's special 'briefing' in the ironically named 'Democratic Services Committee room' ie the real meeting is prior to the 'public' one!