Neil Wilby Media

Documents released ahead of what is likely to be a stormy – or, put more accurately, even stormier than usual – Full Council meeting this week are set to raise further questions about the financial probity of a local authority said to facing bankruptcy within the next year or so.

On Wednesday 28th February, 2024, beleaguered Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council holds its annual budget appraisal with the Labour administration having already dismissed feasible counter proposals from two of the opposition parties – the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

The other three opposition parties, Failsworth Independent Party, The Independent Group and The Oldham Group (FIPs, TIGs and TOGs), comprising three councillors each and representing 15% of the elected Member contingent, didn’t bother to make any budget amendments or attend scrutiny meetings on this vital area of council business. 

Despite the Council Leader claiming the financial crisis engulfing Oldham, including the raiding of another £34 million from its Reserves, is anybody else’s fault apart from her own, the Council’s paid officer contingent sit painlessly on large salaries that an uncomfortably large number simply do not deserve, especially at a more senior level (read more here).

Figures show that of around 1,100 employees, 231 earn salaries between £50,000 and £99,999; and 13 earn salaries of over £100,000. Accompanied by very generous employee benefits such as pension scheme, 7 weeks paid holiday plus Bank Holidays, 3 ‘volunteer days’, up to 180 days paid sick leave and bizarre working from home (WFH) arrangements that mean a significant number of employees do not visit their place of work for up to half of the working year. 

An investigation, grounded in freedom of information requests, by Neil Wilby Media revealed last year that Oldham Council has no idea who is working where at any given time or whether they are actually on duty or not (read more here). A system that some officers are known to abuse, and understandably so, if an employer’s internal systems are so lax and many of their senior managers live out of the area and are themselves hooked on WFH.

At the time, the Leader, Cllr Arooj Shah, declined to comment on that report or give assurances to the Borough’s taxpayers that the necessary controls would be put in place.

In a town like Oldham, where child poverty runs at around 30% and fuel poverty at over 20%, that is a yet another quite disgraceful abdication of her responsibilities; not just as a ward representative of one of the poorest districts, St Mary’s (Glodwick), where those problems are acute, but her wider leadership duties. 

Page last updated: Monday 26th February 2024 at 0825 hours

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