Education Committee Facilities Service Review

At Monday night's Education Committee there was a report on proposals to transfer 'Facilities Services' from being Dundee City Council employees to being employees of Tayside Contracts.  To you and me it was about transferring cleaning and janitorial staff.

There may well be some merit in these  proposals especially the bits which look at ensuring that jobs like school crossing patroller are more rewarding because they are linked to other tasks and provide more sustainable employment opportunities.  This is an issue which I have raised on a number of occasions with officers.

We heard a deputation at the meeting from John Begley on behalf of GMB members.  Mr Begley raised some very interesting points.  The most fundamental of which was that the members who he represented had not agreed to these changes and had only heard about them second-hand.  The Director stated in the course of the meeting that the outstanding issues could be dealt with quickly.  On this basis I could not see what the rush was, I did not understand why a decision had to be made on Monday evening.  With a little willing on both sides a solution could have been arrived at, instead of which we had a decision railroaded through for no good reason.

I think that the Council should strive to be a good employer and that it should work with its trade unions and seek to find solutions to problems instead of creating problems.  We heard a deputation from some very reasonable people trying to represent their members best interests and I would also say trying to deliver the best education service possible for the city.

I think that it is wrong that the council was not prepared to listen to them and I think allowing a little more time to get the policy right and listen to the workforce would have been the right thing to do.