Split over move to ease social work director’s workload

INVERNESS councillor Peter Corbett broke away from the administration yesterday when he stood up and refused to spend £25,000 of taxpayer’s money on promoting a senior social work officer to ease the workload of one of the authority’s most highly-paid directors.

The Independent member was the first in a long line of councillors to voice their opinions on whether extra money should be spent on temporarily promoting a member of staff to cover for social work director Harriet Dempster, who gets paid £105,450 a year, while she attends meetings in her additional role as president of the National Association of Directors of Social Work (ADSW).

“I cannot support the recommendation,” said the central ward member. “I agree it is right to restructure the service but I do not feel we have to increase our budget because of this.

“We manage to restructure services at the bottom without spending more and in fact often save money.”

His comments came as Councillor David Bremner (Caithness) questioned how many other members of the Independent/Lib-Dem/Labour administration had been whipped into supporting the move.

The social work department is currently facing a £3.4 million overspend and, among other tasks, whoever is promoted will be charged with implementing the budget recovery plan.

SNP councillor Bob Wynd (Culloden and Ardersier) said while he fully supported Ms Dempster’s role at national level he could not support extra spending.

Councillor Donnie Kerr (Central) added: “We employ a director of social work on quite a high salary and we would expect them to concentrate on their job.

“We are facing such a high overspend, their commitment should be there.”

Ms Dempster spends between two and 15 hours a week on matters related to the ADSW and yesterday she was not present at the full council meeting because of a pre-arranged conference in Crieff.

However, earlier this week she insisted she was committed to the council and the appointment would give her “enhanced management capacity”.

Chief executive Alistair Dodds advised councillors yesterday the additional support was needed to make improvements in the service.

Councillor Liz MacDonald (Nairn) agreed, saying spending £25,000 to bring the budget in line would be money well spent.

Councillors voted 58 to five in favour of the £25,000 promotion. Three abstained.