Treating people fairly not the same as guaranteeing they can stay on the public payroll indefinitely - John McLellan

It’s common in careers talks to tell young people there are no more jobs for life. The old days of 50-year service gold watches are gone in a digital world where the rate of change is breakneck and will only get faster.

There are currently 14 employees in the 'redeployment pool' at a cost to the taxpayer of over £700,000, says John McLellan

But not, it seems, if you work for City of Edinburgh Council, which still clings to the principle that residents should swallow eye-watering council tax rises but at the same time fund employees who know longer have a proper job.

Is this an exaggeration? A report to Tuesday’s policy and sustainability committee revealed that nine people have been in a “redeployment pool” ─ the euphemism for those still on the payroll whose posts no longer exist ─ for over three years.

It is only right that those whose jobs have become surplus to requirements are given a fair chance to transfer to other vacant roles, which is the redeployment pool’s function.

But for nine people to be unable to find a suitable post in an organisation with around 14,000 employees in over three years suggests the end of the line was reached some time ago. Astonishingly, two of them have been in the pool for seven years; seven years paid to do little more than keep a diary and say that they’ve considered available vacancies but don’t fancy them.

There are currently 14 on the list, the equivalent of a decent-sized business, at a cost to you of over £700,000, and not paying them off means this is a deficit which must be covered. The SNP insist “many” of these employees are “carrying out important work within the council in temporary roles” without stating what. Maybe so, but then why didn’t the report point out how much work the pool members were doing or argue it wasn’t really a cost at all?

Meanwhile on another agenda item, the number of people with welfare queries helped by the council’s advice shop slumped because its hours were halved because there weren’t enough staff to take calls. In no other organisation I can think of, private or third sector, could this level of inefficiency be sustained, but this is the price of the absolute application of a policy of no compulsory redundancies because the administration kow-tows to unions with no responsibility to the taxpayer.

But councillors are elected to represent all voters, not just the unions, and to ensure officers are acting properly in the public interest. Only in a parallel universe does the public interest include frittering away hundreds of thousands of pounds, year after year, on people contributing virtually nothing to delivering services on ever-reducing budgets.

A Green Party amendment to the report summed up the attitude, describing the pool as a “benefit to the council, preserving talent and expertise” when in this universe it’s a drain on scant resources. Further, they argued that “redeployment should always be conducted with employee welfare as the primary concern,” when the primary concern should be the efficient running of the council and the effective management of public money on behalf of all citizens.

Of course, safeguarding employee welfare is essential, but treating people fairly is not the same as guaranteeing they can stay on the public payroll indefinitely. If they want to spend more time in the garden, they can transfer to the parks department.