Employment conditions are secret, apparently

I recently rang the Council and asked to see a copy of its Collective Employee Agreement.

Many other WA Councils make their employment agreements available on the via their websites. Not ours -- far from it -- as you will see from this email exchange:

From: Tim Clynch [mailto:tClynch@bridgetown.wa.gov.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 11 March 2015 2:26 PM
To: Michael Southwell (southy@iinet.net.au)
Subject: Request for Information

Hi Michael

Emily from the front counter has referred to me your request for a copy of the Shire’s collective employee agreement.

Please note the Shire currently has a collective employee agreement for the outside works staff and an enterprise bargaining agreement for inside staff. 

With regard to your request for copies of either one or both of these agreements I have referred to Section 5.94 of the Local Government Act. 

An employee collective agreement is not a document defined under Section 5.94 as being available for inspection by the public.  Therefore there is no automatic right to access that information.

Both agreements were considered by Council at its June 2013 meeting as confidential items “behind closed doors”.  Therefore the contents of each Agreement are considered confidential and are not available for inspection by members of the public.

Based on the above I am not able to provide you with a copy of either one or both of the agreements.

If you are dissatisfied with my decision you are able to request consideration under Freedom of Information legislation.  Application forms can be obtained from the Shire’s Records officer Eileen Kneale.  Under the FOI legislation if your FOI application is declined by the Shire appeal rights would be available to you.

Regards

Tim Clynch
Chief Executive Officer
Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes

From: Michael Southwell [mailto:southy@iinet.net.au]
Sent: Thursday, 12 March 2015 11:09 AM
To: Tim Clynch
Subject: RE: Request for Information

Hi Tim,

In arriving at your decision to keep this document secret, did you consider Council’s stated Values, which include being “open and accountable”?

The fact that the document was considered as a confidential item at Council does not support your argument that it is secret, given that the decision to consider it behind closed doors would have occurred at your suggestion.

Similar documents are publicly available at other Councils.  Perhaps you should check with the Department on whether the document should be publicly available, as you have on other issues.

I should not be made to go through the time and expense of an FOI request, when there is no good reason to keep the document secret.

Regards,

Michael

Hi Michael

Once an item is accepted by Council as confidential under Council’s Standing Orders I am not permitted to release the information to the public.

Section 5.94 of the Local Government Act lists the local government information available for public inspection.  An employee collective agreement or similar is not identified as a document freely available for inspection.

Prior to making my decision I did consult with the Department of Local Government and Communities and their advice was that the document was not of a type that would normally be freely available to the public but at the end of the day the decision to release it rested with the CEO.  As stated previously, as the matter was considered by Council behind closed doors I am not authorised to release it for public inspection.

The Local Government Act identifies the types of matters that can be considered by a council behind closed doors, one of which is “a matter affecting an employee or employees”.  An employee collective agreement or EBA is such a document.

I am happy to stand by Council’s values of being open and accountable but I also am obliged to work within the requirements of the Local Government Act, other legislation, Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes Local laws and Council Policies.

Regards

Tim Clynch
Chief Executive Officer
Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes

 

  So  some of the people in Bridgetown (councillors, council employees, and presumably their families) are allowed to have this information about  employment conditions at the Shire and others (ratepayers) are not.

I must go to the time, trouble and expense of an FOI request to see this innocuous document.

I will be entitled to the document under FOI, and unless Mr Clynch is completely ignorant about the FOI Act, he knows that. 

The only material exempt under the Act is that which reveals personal information, might harm the State's economic interests, is commercially confidential, is protected by legal privilege, may interfere with law enforcement or jeopardise national security.

The CEO is simply playing a game.  The object of the game is to discourage people from scrutinising Council activities.

Truth slowly surfacing in pool saga

Each time the Shire Council makes a fresh announcement about the fabulous progress they are making on a new public swimming pool, more little gems emerge which help to reveal the true depth of the fiasco.

This week, they have been trumpeting completion of the plans for the project.

So we now have a plan, almost a year after the old pool was dug up.  The local paper says: "Safeway Building Renovations, the company building the pool, submitted the plans to the council on February 24..."  Hold on, didn't Council sign a deal with this company agreeing to pay it $4 million to build the pool a couple of months ago?  How did Council know what it would get for the $4 million if the plans were not finalised at that time?  Nice work if you can get it!

The picture becomes clearer later in the article when President Pratico says a community fundraising committee has been set up "to help cover costs".   What costs??   "...some fitouts for the pool," Pratico states.

So for $4 million of ratepayer and taxpayer funds we get a partially completed pool facility, and  ratepayers and residents will have to cough up the money to finish the job.

 What a joke!

Drowning in spin

There are many gullible people in Bridgetown, so you really can't blame the Shire for thinking it can simply cover up its blunders with a sprinkle of bulldust here and there.

However,  a growing number of people are looking at the desolate hole in the ground where the swimming pool used to be and wondering why it was removed nearly a year ago when there is still no progress on the new one.

Somebody asked this question on a local facebook page and Cr Peter Quinby quickly jumped in to retort; "have you ever tried to build a pool in winter?"  It seems he doesn't understand the issue. Construction was supposed to commence at the end of last winter. If this new pool cannot be built over the coming winter, it will have to be built next spring and summer, meaning the community will be without a pool in summer for two years running.

I'm simply seeking some honesty and accountability from councillors and staff.

If the tender process was botched, say so and take appropriate action against those responsible.

Instead, we get more spin and obfuscation in the Council's "Insight" magazine, in an article which revealed the design of the new pool has still not been finalised.


"The decision to excavate the site at the conclusion of the 2013-14 swimming season has proven to be of benefit, allowing the summer and autumn of 2015 to be clear for the construction of the new facility," Insight says. 

Huh? Summer is almost over and there has been no construction work whatsoever.

It is interesting that the Insight article did not repeat earlier promises that the new pool would be ready for next summer.

Bridgetown families just want a place to swim on a hot day

This hole in the ground is what remains of the much-loved 50m pool which served us very well up to last summer.  It was demolished last year because, they said, work had to begin on the new 25m pool to replace it.

Well, here we are sweltering through the final month of a very hot, dry summer and there doesn't seem to be much work done on this new pool.

If, as the Council assures us, the new pool can still be built in time for next summer, why the hell didn't they leave the old one in place (at least for the school holidays) until someone was ready to start work on the new one??

This vacant site is an affront to families who are crying out for somewhere to cool off on a hot day. Its a slap in the face for those who must drive two or three times a week to Manjimup to take their kids to swimming training.

It is also a monument to the mismanagement which has become the hallmark of our Shire Council.

For some inexplicable reason, those in control seem to hate old Bridgetown and can't wait to renovate or replace every aspect of the town until it looks like a suburb of Perth.

 

From the Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire website home page....

Sport & Recreation

The Bridgetown-Greenbushes region has a vast array of sporting and recreational activities for locals and tourists to enjoy. 

- Except if you wish to enjoy those activities in late December or early January.

With the pool gone, more management incompetence from our Shire has seen the Bridgetown recreation centre closed down from a week before Christmas to half-way though January.

Surely staff holidays could be arranged so this facility can stay open, particularly for those with memberships who have pre-paid to use it?

Good on 'A. Smith' for turning up at the December Council meeting to put the CEO on the mat over this.

When Smith asked why it had to be closed for so long, the predictable answer was so that staff could take leave.  But how's this for a nonsensical justification from CEO Tim Clynch: "We have never opened over the New Year period so it would be hard to say if the Recreation Centre would be utilised in that period."

Tim, the New Year is celebrated with a one-day public holiday, it does not extend from December 19 to January 12.  Life still goes on during that time and people want to use community facilities.

Another gem emerged when Smith asked why the pool staff couldn't open the place, since there was no pool.  The answer was that the pool manager was now working as project manager on the new pool construction project.  Talk about multi-tasking!  How did looking after the pool qualify him to oversee a $4m construction project?

Eventually, people will realise what a house of cards our Shire Council is.

Council publication misleading

Q;When is awarding a tender not awarding a tender? 
A; When the Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire is trying to cover up its incompetence.

No tender has been awarded, so I wonder who is responsible for approving publication of this lie.  I would assume it had to be signed off by CEO Tim Clynch.

A couple of days after the release of the Council's "Insight", this report appears in the local paper...

This report correctly says the Council has identified its "preferred tenderer", but is yet to award a tender.  It also says the Council is looking at "community fundraising" to help pay for the pool.

If you read between the lines, you realise that Council's $4million budget for the new pool is inadequate.  The idea of community fundraising for Council infrastructure is, in my view, ludicrous.  Council already does compulsary community fundraising via its Rates.

Our Council spends most of the money compulsorily acquired from ratepayers on fat salaries and generous conditions for an inordinate number of employees.  Then when it doesn't have enough money to pay for its grandiose projects, it wants us to chip in (again).

Bridgetown families just want a place to swim on a hot day.  The hole in the ground where the pool used to be is a monument to poor decision-making and bureaucratic bungling.

Once again, the "Insight" magazine is providing very little insight.

Pratico misses the point, again

He's been at it again...

If you know Shire President Tony Pratico you know he likes to influence people behind the scenes, whispering half-truths and rumours on street corners and taking pot-shots at people from behind the screen of "you didn't hear this from me..."

He's quoted in today's Manjimup paper, sympathetic over the demise of the Green Door, which has occurred because after more than a year of illegal operation, it has closed because the Council finally got around to asking them to conform to building and health by-laws. "We had a complaint," he explained.

He knows the complaint was made by me.  He wants people to ask, "Who complained?" so he can mumble my name into their ear.

Once again, Pratico has missed the point because he always plays the man and not the ball.
I shouldn't have had to complain. I waited more than a year for the authorities to do something before I did.

Pratico, his fellow councillors and the Council were aware there was a new entertainment venue open in town and it was obviously in a place which was not properly set up as a public venue.

The question is, why do they enforce the rules for some, and not others?