The Scottish Local Authorities Remuneration Committee (SLARC) justified the 24 per cent rise by arguing that councillors have taken on more duties over the last five years and must look after larger wards. guess handbags
Increases in councillors’ salaries have lagged behind those in the rest of the public sector, the report found, and they have been forced to accept a pay freeze this year and next.
However, the report was highly critical of Glasgow City Council’s practice of paying councillors extra money to sit on ‘arms-length’ companies running council services.
It found that more than £260,000 had been paid to more than 40 councillors for sitting on firms that “deliver broadly the same service as previously carried out by the council.”
Scottish ministers said they would “consider carefully” the recommendations but warned that public spending is facing severe cuts. Opposition parties argued that councillor pay should not be increased.
Derek Brownlee, Scottish Tory finance spokesman, said: “As the public sector across Scotland deals with the consequences of Labour wrecking the public finances and a pay freeze in place to protect jobs, now is the wrong time to increase the cost of politics.”
If the changes were implemented, a ‘backbench’ councillor would see their annual salaries increase 16.5 per cent to £18,916. This equates to three-quarters of the median Scottish salary but does not require a full-time commitment.
Council leaders would be paid between £44,000 and £63,000 per year, depending on the size of their local authority, with Glasgow and Edinburgh getting the maximum amount. summer fashion trends
The total pay bill would increase from about £22.8 million to £28.3 million per year. The report admitted this is a “substantial sum” in the current financial climate but argued it must be seen in the context of councils’ £10.9 billion revenue budget.
It argued that councillors have seen “significant changes” in their workload since the introduction of larger, multi-member wards in 2007, while leaders now have more say in formulating national government policy.
The report admitted its recommendations were “challenging and even potentially unaffordable” but argued that Scottish ministers of issuing mixed messages by insisting pay levels must not prevent Scots becoming a councillor.
Iain Livingston, the body’s chairman, suggested the increase in pay could be funded by reducing the number of councillors.
Under its previous leader, Steven Purcell, Labour-run Glasgow City Council set up a series of Arms Length External Organisations (ALEOs) to provide local services, such as managing its property portfolio. gucci handbags 2011
The report found this practice has led to most Glasgow councillors being paid extra to sit on one of these companies to the extent the wage budget for senior members had been exceeded by 41 per cent.
The committee found “no justifiable reason” for these “untenable” payments and argued they should be discontinued.
James Dornan, leader of the council’s SNP group, said: “We feared, and consider we have shown to be correct, that this system would be used to pay off supporters and keep other councillors under control for internal party discipline purposes.”
Some of England's best-performing hospitals could close and "many thousands of jobs" may go as the NHS struggles with "unprecedented" cuts, health trust leaders have warned.summer fashion 2011
The Foundation Trust Network, which represents about 200 top hospital groups, has warned in a letter to the deputy chief executive of the NHS that, despite claims that hospitals should expect to make savings of 4% next year, in reality many have been forced to squeeze budgets by an average of 6.3%. This represents £644m this year alone. At such a level, a big teaching hospital such as Sheffield would need to make £50m cuts next year.
"For many organisations this means serious financial stress that will lead to the loss of many thousands of jobs and will seriously endanger waiting times and services for vulnerable patients, as well as threatening organisational survival," wrote Sue Slipman, director of the Foundation Trust Network.
Speaking to the Guardian, Slipman said the NHS accepted it had to make efficiency savings of £20bn over four years, but added that the government was also capping payments to hospitals and penalising trusts if patients were readmitted. "The effect in some hospitals is they are facing cuts of 15% next year … it is the policy of unintended consequences."
In London, the Chelsea and Westminster hospital will need to make savings of 10%, amounting to over £22m next year. Guy's and St Thomas's is looking to save £53m, while South London Healthcare needs to cut £50m and the Royal Free and North West London trusts will each slash spending by £40m.
Slipman called for the government to limit the savings to 4% next year. "What [foundation trusts] are being asked to do goes beyond what efficient [hospitals] are able to deliver," she said.guess purses
There is also concern that ordinary hospitals, which struggled when the NHS was relatively awash with cash, will be unable to become foundation trusts, as the government wants, at a time of deep cuts. The Department of Health has identified seven such hospitals, including Portsmouth, Trafford and Whipps Cross.
Nigel Edwards, of the NHS Confederation, said: "It is not yet clear what will happen to any individual organisation. It is very important that we have clarity so that these changes can be made in a planned way, with as little disruption to patients as possible."
Labour's health spokeswoman, Emily Thornberry, said the government had claimed it would save services when in opposition, only to cut back once in office.
Simon Burns, the health minister, said the government "wanted to drive up the quality of services. Doctors know that better care can cost less and we can use the tariff to incentivise better, more efficient care for patients."
But a survey of family doctors reveals that patients in England face increasing rationing of healthcare in the next few years as a result of the government's NHS shake-up. A survey of 800 family doctors, by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, found that 71% expect the switch to GP-led commissioning of healthcare will force new consortiums of doctors to focus on controlling their costs, which will lead to growing restrictions on juicy couture swimweartreatments the NHS can provide, limit the number and type of procedures patients can have, and offer less choice.
• This article was amended on 9 March 2011. In the original the Foundation Trust Network was said to represent 136 hospital groups. This has been corrected.
Microsoft has seemingly outed plans for the next-generation Xbox console as jobs postings for the upcoming gaming device appear online via social job listing site Linkedin.summer fashion 2011
The three new positions, all of which are expressly said to relate to the Xbox console, are searching for a graphics hardware architect, a performance architect and a hardware verification engineer. Although offering an exciting prelude to an upcoming console release, the position titles suggest the next-gen Xbox is still only in the early stages of development.
Offering little information as to what the next-gen Xbox, or Xbox 720 as it has repeatedly been claimed to be called, will have in store for gamers. All but confirming a new Xbox is in the works, the three jobs listings say successful candidates will be working on “next generation consoles” and “future platforms.”power balance
Having originally launched back in 2005, the Xbox 360 has remained a top seller in the console market, repeatedly topping bitter rival Sony and the PlayStation 3. With its life cycle seemingly coming to an end, Microsoft boosted sales of the 260 late last year with the global launch of Kinect, the Xbox compatible controller free motion gaming peripheral.
Searching for senior Xbox staff Microsoft has declared the graphics hardware architect must have “been the lead architect and/or implementation lead of a 3D graphics core.” Adding: “The candidate must have taken designs from investigation to end-customer shipment during their career.”guess handbags
News of the next-gen Xbox plans come just a day after Nintendo was rumoured to be preparing the Wii 2 for launch as the second-generation Wii is touted as heading to a June unveiling at E3 with an inbuilt Blu-ray player, quad-core processor and a projector.
Which future console do you most eagerly await the Wii 2 or the Xbox 720? Let us know via the T3 Twitter and Facebook feeds.