Leader of Barnet Council Lynne Hillan exposed !!!!!!!

The column on the left is the editorial column from the latest issue of Barnet First (click on it to make it easily readable - the bits in Yellow were highlighted by me). This is the Barnet Council mag for residents (here's the link - http://www.barnet.gov.uk/barnet-first-june2010-3.pdf ). I've highlighted a couple of sections in yellow which show the crass hypocricy of Lynne Hillan, Leader of Barnet Council.

In the first of the two sections she talks about "better services with less money" in the context of youth services. You've got that, the person who just awarded herself a payrise of over 50% thinks the young people of Barnet should find better ways to do things with less money. Not that an old hypocrite like Lynne would actually consider doing it herself, or see the irony in her statement.

In the second section she says "We face hard financial times and difficult choices in the public sector over the next few years". What's with the "We" Lynne. You don't, you've just awarded yourself a huge payrise.

Now she has quite clearly decided to go on the offensive to defend her cash hike. She gave the Hendon Times an interview today (Click here for the full version on this vile crap -
http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/topstories/8296725.Allowances_rise_reflects_changing_role_of_councillors__claims_council_leader/)

Let me give you a few sickening snippets from our glorious leader.  Hillan says :-

The roles are much more professionalised. If you have volunteers, then you are going to get people who are not working, some who are retired. You aren't getting the right sort of people for the right jobs.

Hillan is trying to make out that there is a switch from voluntary councillors to a professional breed. This could not be further from the truth. Councillors have been paid generous allowances for part time jobs for years, as she later admits.

If you are in the cabinet, there is no way you are not working in the town hall at least two days a week.

This rather gives lie to Brian Colemans claim of working 100 hours a week, exposed elsewhere. My mind went back to the dim distant days when I used to write a blog on the Hendon Times. This was in the days before Don't Call Me Dave had even started blogging,  let alone retired from it. He left a very illuminating comment on a blog I wrote called "Three Cheers for Brownite Freer" (about then Council Leader Mike Freer)

(Link - http://www.times-series.co.uk/archive/2008/07/03/Rog+T+Blog+%28Imported+from+blog+module%29/3208917.Three_cheers_for_Brownite_Freer/ )

Davids comment left on 05/07/08 says this about former leader Mike Freer

The same argument applies to councillors. A few years ago, they received only a token allowance and stood for election out of a sense of civic duty. Now it's just a gravy train. A public notice published this week reveals that Mike Freer received over £47,000 last year for what is supposed to be a part time job. Mike Freer himself admitted last year that the Chief Executive does all the work! 55 other councillors received substantial 5 digit sums in allowances. We, the people, have never been consulted about this. Councillors will say that their pay is set by an independent panel but nobody puts a gun to their head and forces them to accept allowances against their will.

Sadly under the Hillan Tories, the situation is far, far worse. Has the workload mushroomed in two years since Mike Freer made his comments. Well given that we now have a CEO called Nick Walkley on £200,000 a year ( a huge rise on his predecessor Leo Boland - supposedly necessary to attract talent, even though Walkley already worked for the Council). His two deputies also earn £180,000 a year each, again more than the sum for the CEO when Freer made his comment. So if we've got such a huge mushrooming of senior execs on huge salaries, how can their possibly be more work now for Hillan?

Interestingly Hillan does come up with a way to cut the costs of councillors.

There are various ways of doing it. There is a national scheme looking at whether it should be three councillors per ward or maybe it should be two, that would shrink the pot immediately.

Again a rather Hillanesque remedy. Get rid of the "lesser beings" to preserve the pot for the big beasts. Now I would support the immediate implementation of this scheme as we are in a time of austerity. I would say that it would be rather easy to implement, just get rid of the councillor who came third in each ward. I would suggest that we run a pilot in Brunswick Park immediately - http://www.barnet.gov.uk/brunswick-elections2010.pdf -

Hillan, Lynne              - Conservative - 3307
Rutter, Lisa                - Conservative - 3353
Tambourides, Andrea  - Conservative - 3496

Interestingly, the old rule of elections is that the candidates who do best are the best known and the ones with the alphabetically first name. Hillan as Council Leader and first name should have been well ahead. It really says much about those who know her best.

Lynne Hillan is exposed by her own words and deeds as a greedy hypocrite. She uses the term "we" to talk of cuts in the public sector, whilst planning a pay hike. She pretends that their is more work to do, whilst employing more and better payed Council Executives. She tries to con the public into thinking she used to do it for nothing, by talking about volunteers, as if this was her role prior to the huge payrise. She doesn't care about the people who work for Barnet Council, she doesn't care about those such as the residents of Sheltered Housing who she has a duty of care to, she's even prepared to sack her own back bench councillors to keep her cushy lifestyle. Normally after a couple of days writing about a subject, I run out of things to say. Sadly on this one, there is enough anger, material from correspondents and other background info to keep me running on anger for the next six months.