The Employers’ Organisation for Local Government is to be scrapped after widespread criticism of the local government pay negotiation machinery, it emerged today.
The organisation’s work on pay and pensions will go to the Local Government Association (LGA), while its workforce improvement function will be handled by the Improvement & Development Agency, reports Local Government Chronicle.
The LGA said the changes were driven by the fact that pay, service conditions and pensions had become a central policy issue for local government,
Employers’ Organisation executive director Rob Pinkham’s post has been scrapped. He will leave this month.
The details of the reorganisation will be revealed this summer following a review by the LGA’s deputy chief executive, John Ransford, and IDeA executive director Lucy de Groot.
Ransford will act as interim Employers’ Organisation director from the beginning of July until the outcome of the review is known.
LGA chief executive, Brian Briscoe, met Employers’ Organisation staff last Friday to break the news, and handed them a letter.
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In it he said: “I realise this news may well come as a shock to you and that you may understandably be concerned about the personal implications of this decision.”
The Employers’ Organisation has 140 staff, but Briscoe said there were “no proposals that jobs should be lost at this point”.
