Council Paid Me £30,000 To Do The Job Of An Office Dogsbody

It sounded like the perfect job. After gaining a masters degree and ten years’ experience in the public sector Joanne Collins was relishing the challenge of a post at Edinburgh City Council where it was promised she would “lead the management information strategy”.

But she claims the £30,000-a-year “information manager” job in the children and families department turned out to be little more than a role for an office dogsbody. Instead of “managing complex caseworks”, she says she found herself photocopying and tidying up files. Now, after leaving her job to take up another public sector position, she has slammed her former employers for a “waste of taxpayers’ money”.

She finally left in January – 12 months after joining the £300 million-a-year department – and told bosses someone on half her salary could do the same job.

So she was stunned when her old post was advertised requesting the same kind of level of qualifications and experience, and offering an annual salary of between £27,000 and £31,000.

Ms Collins, of Little France, who worked in a unit set up to help children who need additional support in schools, said: “I felt I was treated more like a personal assistant.

“As a taxpayer I am annoyed because it is such a waste of money. They should employ a secretary to do the job. My job description had nothing to do with what I did day to day. There was very little numerical input; it was more photocopying and sending out files. I used to show people how to set up shortcuts on their machines – that did not require a degree.

“Quite a lot of my time was spent signing forms, sending stuff off, and showing people how to use a database. Once or twice I was even asked to tidy up my boss’s files.”

And she does not believe she was an exception as an over- qualified, over-paid member of staff in the children and families department.

“I don’t think my situation is unique,” she said. “A lot of people are unhappy and feel their job description does not fit the work that they do. The additional support for learning unit is relatively new, as is the whole children and families department. I think there is some empire-building going on. People are trying to make this department seem more important than it actually is within the council.”

After seeing the advert for her old job, Ms Collins was so incensed she wrote a letter of complaint to council chief executive Tom Aitchison.

Council departments compete against each other for funding and in the recent budget the children and families department got an extra £6.2m on top of its usual allocation – a bigger increase than any other department.

A council spokeswoman said: “The council has robust procedures for dealing with grievances that are externally scrutinised. The individual concerned chose not to follow these procedures whilst employed with the council. She has since contacted the chief executive to express her concerns and this is currently being dealt with.”