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Post by housesparrow on Jun 24, 2012 7:46:42 GMT
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peterl
Fluffy & Lovely!
[N4:#####]
Posts: 57
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Post by peterl on Jun 24, 2012 10:46:00 GMT
... Ms Kennedy said fellow ward councillors have ensured her duties are covered. Brighton and Hove City Council said Ms Kennedy has not breached any rules and should be "treated with respect". [/url][/quote] I think the fairest thing would be to hold a bi -election in her ward and let the voters there decide if they still wish her to represent them |
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Post by everso on Jun 24, 2012 11:15:56 GMT
I think that so long as her job is covered while she recuperates she should be allowed to keep her job. Would there be a similar fuss if she had AIDs or cancer? More to the point, I'm concerned about the rise in TB over the last few years. The son of a friend of mine contracted it - he lived in London at the time. The rise in immigration is a major factor, but schools now do not vaccinate against TB and surely this must contribute towards it as well. Apparently, the decision was taken because This from the Guardian in 2005"It will be offered to babies in high risk areas with large immigrant populations". Clearly, it should be offered to everyone. People travel far more widely than years ago for one thing. I wonder if the £10 million had anything to do with the decision? |
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Post by Weyland on Jun 24, 2012 11:50:15 GMT
I remember a TB scare at work in a 1976 or so. A computer operator was found to have it, there was a major fuss, and the firm's health people came and took away anything that they said might act as a vector in the computer suite's kitchen, such as cups, plates, cutlery, microwave, toaster, etc. Overkill I dare say, but nobody else contracted it. And he got well.
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Post by sesley on Jun 24, 2012 13:49:32 GMT
even councillors are human and get sick,like anyone else they are entitled to sick leave. Its inhuman and sets a bad example if a councillor gets fired for being sick,its hard enough for the rest of us to risk sickeness leave from our jobs, for us in my job the back to work talk is patronising and inhuman.
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Post by jean on Jun 24, 2012 14:07:18 GMT
She's undergoing treatment and no-one has suggested that she won't make a full recovery, so surely this is just a question of sick leave, as sesley says.
Is there some memory here of what a terrible disease TB used to be before modern antibiotics?
(Of course it may be so again, and the rise in the number of cases is worrying - I've read that those particularly susceptible, like drug users, tend not to complete the courses of antibiotics they're prescribed and that, of course, encourages the organism to develop resistence to treatment. But we're not there yet.)
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Post by Weyland on Jun 24, 2012 14:51:28 GMT
She's undergoing treatment and no-one has suggested that she won't make a full recovery, so surely this is just a question of sick leave, as sesley says. in Brighton have called for a Green Party councillor who is suffering from tuberculosis (TB) to stand down. Can anyone be even remotely surprised? (I'm sure Cameron is working on banning sick leave altogether soon in any case. Margaret would be so proud.) |
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Post by bonbonlarue on Jun 24, 2012 15:05:19 GMT
...but then nobody will have jobs because they'll all have failed reception class and still be retaking Gove's tests at 25...  |
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Post by jean on Jun 24, 2012 18:19:09 GMT
Conservatives in Brighton have called for a Green Party councillor who is suffering from tuberculosis (TB) to stand down. This is the first time Greens have taken control of a council; you can't be surprised that the the Tories would sieze on any pretext to overturn this unnatural order of things. (Not that I think Labour otr the Lib Dems would be any slower to demand her resignation if they thought one of theirs might triumph at a by-election.) |
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Post by Weyland on Jun 24, 2012 18:34:48 GMT
Conservatives in Brighton have called for a Green Party councillor who is suffering from tuberculosis (TB) to stand down. This is the first time Greens have taken control of a council; you can't be surprised that the the Tories would sieze on any pretext to overturn this unnatural order of things. (Not that I think Labour otr the Lib Dems would be any slower to demand her resignation if they thought one of theirs might triumph at a by-election.) Labour = LibDem = Tory these days, more or less. Goes without saying, Shirley? Desert Island Discs was John Bishop today. Great bloke. |
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Post by housesparrow on Jun 25, 2012 7:28:33 GMT
I'm not quite sure how other councillors can "cover her duties". They can take up issues in her ward and raise them at meetings, but she presumably can't delegate her vote.
Obviously people are entitled to be ill but eight months is a long time to be absent. I just hope she isn't claiming her allowance - that would be a bit naughty.
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Post by jean on Jun 26, 2012 9:35:46 GMT
I just hope she isn't claiming her allowance - that would be a bit naughty. Would it? When people are sick they're entitled to sick pay. The councillors I know have adjusted their working hours so as to have time to do their council work properly. So they don't receive as much pay from their jobs as they used to before they were elected. Their allowances are proper payment for the work they do. |
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Post by housesparrow on Jul 4, 2012 17:50:10 GMT
Hi - I've been on holiday which is why I'm a tad tardy following that up.
The idea that a councillor is an employee does seem to have crept in, a cultural shift from the days they were unpaid volunteers. On the one hand, they can join the local government pension scheme. On the other, there seems to be no agreement that resembles an employment contract: they have no "employer" telling them what to do; how they do the job is up to them - or indeed IF they do the job!
Does the council deduct NI and tax from the allowances? I don't know the answer, but suspect not.
On balance, if you operated the tests to decide whether someone is an employee or self-employed, I think a councillor's job would fall much more into the latter than the former - though is not entirely on all fours with either. The self-employed do not collect sick pay, nor do they get paid if they don't do the work.
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Post by housesparrow on Jul 5, 2012 7:34:16 GMT
Thinking further about Jean's comment re sick pay: SSP is collected by employers and passed on to employees.
The employer may or may not top it up to a week's wage, depending on the contract. A councillor too ill to carry out her duties is surely entitled to claim the state equivalent for the unemployed or self-employed - ie Employment Support Allowance?
I think she should claim that, not her councillor's allowance: apart from anything else, she will stand a much better chance of re-election.
No-one need know what state benefits she gets, but her allowances are published and the Tories are bound to make an issue out of claiming something she hasn't been seen to "earn".
As to whether she should have resigned; well, I am undecided about that. Either way I hope she is soon well enough to return to her work.
Add:
Having looked at the rules, she may not qualify for ESA. If, as I suspect, neither she nor the council has been paying her higher class National Insurance contributions, she will only be able to claim if she has no other income.
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Post by jean on Jul 5, 2012 8:45:48 GMT
The idea that a councillor is an employee does seem to have crept in, a cultural shift from the days they were unpaid volunteers. Would you rather go back to the days of noblesse oblige, when the only people who could afford to become MPs and councillors were thiose with private means? I wouldn't! (Hope you had a good holiday. Where did you go?) |
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Post by housesparrow on Jul 5, 2012 13:06:12 GMT
Jean, I can see the importance of making serving local democracy accessible to everyone. But helping working people fit council business into their daily lives by arranging evening meetings and compensating them if they have to take time off from their jobs is not the same as treating council work AS a job.
Something would be wrong indeed if every elected member in your local borough or district had to work 40 hours a week at council business. Indeed, one would be inclined to look for efficiencies in the system if that happened.
I've been walking part of the Pennine Way - yes, in the wettest June on record, but I feel great. We did the first third last year, and I'm already working on how on earth we get back from Kirk Yetholm when we return next year.
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Post by Weyland on Jul 5, 2012 14:10:29 GMT
I've been walking part of the Pennine Way - yes, in the wettest June on record, but I feel great. We did the first third last year, and I'm already working on how on earth we get back from Kirk Yetholm when we return next year. My cousin lives near Kirk Yetholm, Sparra. I visit her sometimes. Get the timings right and I could give you a lift to, say, Newcastle. |
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Post by housesparrow on Jul 5, 2012 16:53:40 GMT
How very kind. It will probably be next June and there will be three of us, so if you are in the area then a lift would be nice - if not, perhaps she could suggest the best way - maybe a taxi to Jedburgh to catch a bus to Newcastle?
In the meantime, what do you think about this councillor claiming her allowance when she has attended only one meeting?
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Post by Patrick on Jul 6, 2012 22:59:12 GMT
Off topic; I see the Greens in Brighthelmstone have blotted their copy book by cancelling bus services?
That's what put me off the LibDems in Sussex in the mid nineties - when the cuts came, the first thing they cut was the rural bus services - despite Paddy Pantsdown telling everyone they should be using public transport. Yup! I knew they were no good even back then.
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Post by jean on Jul 6, 2012 23:24:57 GMT
Off topic; I see the Greens in Brighthelmstone have blotted their copy book by cancelling bus services? I don't know anything about that - if they did, we need to know what they didn't cut instead. All hell broke loose at this spring's Green Party conference, when the diehards demanded that the Brighton Green councillors should have set an illegal budget and refused to make any cuts at all. But then they would just have had to resign, which wasn't what the electors elected them to do. |
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