Neil Wilby Media

To say that journalist, Neil Wilby, is a regular critic of the running of Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council would be an understatement. The many articles published elsewhere on this website bear ample testimony to that.

The most recent was grounded in the Council’s response to a freedom of information request in which information was sought on staffing statistics. In short, that article, which can be read in full here, explored the working from home (WFH) phenomenon that has sprung up over the past several years.

Its conclusion was that at any one time the Council cannot (or will not) say how many of their staff are present in either the civic centre, a departmental unit or depot elsewhere in the Borough, or working from home.

The losers in that instance are, most definitely, the taxpayers who fund OMBC and stakeholders whom, professionally, come into regular contact with this unity authority serving one of the larger Boroughs in the UK. Blighted by its reputation locally, regionally and nationally as a ‘cover-up’ Council.

Both the Council Leader, Cllr Arooj Shah, and her chief executive, Harry Catherall, remained eerily silent in the face of that exposé. The latter coasting downhill to a curiously framed ‘retirement’ in December, 2023 from a contract that was not, according to the BBC-funded Local Democracy Services reporter serving the area, due to expire until January, 2025

It is trite to note that poor service, or sub-optimal output, comes as standard across many OMBC departments. Telephones go unanswered, emails remain unaddressed, press requests are stonewalled, a Borough Solicitor who struggles with applicable law and identifying prima facie breaches of Standards, and information rights are routinely violated with delays and poor quality responses to data subject access and freedom of information requests.

All that, it is submitted, is a function, in part at least, of the lack of cohesion and continuity that working from home ferments.

The face of the Council to very many of its residents, and stakeholders, is its website at oldham.gov.uk. It should be a showcase for its services and the competence of those charged with designing and maintaining it to a high standard.

Regrettably, that is not the case and this journalist’s visits to the OMBC website usually end in disappointment and frustration borne of confusing navigation, dead links, information posted in the wrong place or, more crucially, information that is palpably outdated or incorrect.

A recent example is a check on the senior political appointments post-local elections in May, 2023. Found after following this website route: Home – About the Council – Councillors and leadership – Cabinet and Chairs. But when landing on the page, three months after the elections, three out of the fifteen councillors listed there no longer serve: ex-Cllrs George Hulme and Riaz Ahmad retired and did not stand in the election and ex-Cllr Clint Phythian lost his Royton North seat.

That cannot be right, on any level. Particularly, as Neil Wilby was assured, in writing, earlier this year by the assistant chief executive, and against overwhelming evidence, that all the output of the Council’s Communications team was quality assured.

The Head of that Department, earning over £70,000 per annum, is on the WFH scheme. As his her boss, the Executive Management Team portfolio holder for Comms, earning over £100,000 per annum. Both reside outside the Borough and will, no doubt, find the WFH arrangement agreeable, if not in any way serving the public interest.

If senior paid officers cannot make the journey to their place of work for forty four weeks of the year, in employment that, by necessity in a troubled and poverty-stricken Borough such as Oldham, demands very high levels of commitment and attention, then residents might well argue that they are square pegs in round holes.

This is what the Council Leader told a local newspaper on 2nd June, 2023 regarding her view of how the authority is run:

“I asked [Harry Catherall] to stabilise the organisation, to set a clear path for the future as we came out of the pandemic and meet the increasing needs driven by the emerging cost-of-living crisis, and really focus on basic service delivery. He’s done all that and more.”

Either Cllr Shah or Neil Wilby (more generally, an admirer of the Leader’s professionalism, zealous commitment to her home town and political nous) is wrong. That is a matter entirely for the reader to judge. Assisted, one hopes, by a response to a request for right of reply to this article, made via her press office. Silence, in these circumstances is not really an option.

On 9th August, 2023, two days after this article was published, the Council Leader provided this statement to Neil Wilby Media:

“We have around 7,000 active pages on our website spanning every service of the council, as well information (sic) from partner organisations including the NHS. Keeping this up-to-date is an ongoing process and our teams work collaboratively across all departments to ensure the information is accurate. However, we accept that on this occasion this information has been missed and this has now been updated. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

“We aim to put residents first and as part of this objective we are currently reviewing and making changes to our website and introducing safety nets to catch any misinformation. If you or anyone does notice any information that is out of date, please do report it to communications@oldham.gov.uk

“In terms of working from home, this is an arrangement that became commonplace during Covid when systems and processes moved quickly to adapt to the needs of residents. This included technological arrangements as well as new and adapted processes. Working this way demonstrated that there are many benefits for both our staff and the organisation by incorporating working from home, including greater productivity from more focused working time and better work-life balance.

“After the peak of the pandemic, we looked at how we could better support our businesses and saw an opportunity for our staff to bring foot flow back into the town centre. While we see homeworking during Covid as a success story for the organisation, we also see the economic benefits that having office-based staff bring so we’re maximising the opportunities of both situations.

“We now offer hybrid working to many staff and managers as part of our commitment to balancing the wellbeing of our staff against the needs of the organisation. It’s important to understand that this is an agile working arrangement, and some weeks, individuals or teams can be in every day if there is a business need, which is why an exact number can’t be calculated.

“In a competitive jobs market, hybrid working is an important benefit used to both attract and retain good staff. We will of course continue to review the benefits to residents and amend our approach as needed.”

This is a poor quality response, so typical of OMBC. On such matters Cllr Shah has been urged, repeatedly, to retain external PR or crisis management advice. What is available to her internally is proved, time and again, and not least on this occasion, to be notably poor.

It did not address:

(i) That the flaws on the webpage in issue was (a) not, by some distance, an isolated incident (b) a high profile page of significance to the running of the Council.

(ii) The matter of quality assurance of Comms output, previously raised with senior officers: It is not the job of the public (or the press) to check the work of highly paid council officers, particularly after a written assurance, in recent months, that all the work of the OMBC Comms team is quality checked.

(iii) Why, in ‘a resident-focused’ council, telephones are not answered.

(iv) Why in a ‘resident-focused’ council, many emails receive no response (also a complaint of a number of councillors over past two years), including from her own personal assistant.

(v) Her assurance that Harry Catherall had focused and succeeded on ‘basic service delivery’ (and more). He plainly hasn’t, on any independent view, and the (more) remains a mystery. The Leader’s continued shielding of a catastrophic chief executive appointment is profoundly disappointing. As is the complete lack of explanation for this vastly rewarded officer to be allowed to walk away from a contract with two years to run without any compensation to the council.

(vi) The Leader’s comments do provide some helpful insight into the WFH phenomenon, but their emphasis on benefits to staff, rather than residents who fund them, is a cause for concern and further journalistic investigation.

(vii) Most readers will find it incredible that the Leader has not only upheld a freedom of information (FOIA) outcome, to the effect that her Council has no idea, at any given time, where its employees are located on duty days, but is, apparently, airily unconcerned about the matter.

(viii) More generally, but related to FOIA requests, the Council Leader refuses to be drawn on her Borough Solicitor ‘who struggles with applicable law and identifying prima facie breaches of Standards, and information rights are routinely violated with delays and poor quality responses to data subject access and freedom of information requests’. The evidence supporting those failures is overwhelming and Cllr Shah, and the rest of the Labour hierarchy, risks further opprobrium by leaving this issue unaddressed. Poverty stricken taxpayers simply cannot afford to fund an officer of such poor professional standing. Being an effective Leader involves tough decisions; this is one of them – and change is needed urgently.

(ix) Lastly, for now at least, is that the Leader does not address the point of why agile or hybrid working is permitted in posts where the annual salary is £70,000 or greater and the post-holders are Department Heads or even more senior executives.

It is time for Cllr Shah to look inward, not only on herself as she settles into her second spell leading the Council, but on the sub-optimal group of senior paid officers that have brought the town of Oldham to its knees and trashed its reputation locally, regionally and nationally.

‘Sir Harry’ is headed for the exit door. Others need to reach it before he steps through and into another pension-topping sinecure at the end of December.

Follow Neil Wilby on Twitter (here) and Neil Wilby Media on Facebook (here) for signposts to any updates.

Page last updated: Wednesday 9th August, 2023 at 14h35

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Picture credit: Oldham Council

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