FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Hard working council employees insulted by £400,000 “gift”, training would be more appropriate

October 29th , 2007

Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

Leicester County Council has announced that 7,500 of their employees will be given a half day off to do Christmas shopping at taxpayers expense. The cost has been estimated from £400,000 to £800,000. It is on top of an average of 13 days off per employee a year, 100% higher than the national average.

Councillor Kevin Feltham said that giving the employees time off was better than them calling in sick. However, there was an angry reaction from council workers who said that they were insulted by these comments about employees skiving.

The council workers were further angered because the council is now a 4 star achieving authority and have reduced sick days per employee for the last two years.

The issue of treating all religions fairly was also brought up. For the employees that do not celebrate Christmas, should they get a half day off for shopping for their largest annual festival? Others complained that staff like teachers were excluded from this benefit, opening up the council to legal action.

Others pointed out that stress relief, time management and motivational training would be a better way to change the attitudes of staff and give value to the council’s rate payers. This would be seen as a positive investment and a large amount of courses could be purchased for £400,000 with positive results.

There are dozens of appropriate training firms listed on the online government supplier directory, www.buyersguide.co.uk. This directory started in 1996 and has over 5,000 companies listed with services offered to the public sector.

Contact:

Buyers Guide
0191 260 5388
0191 221 2287

lee.blyth@buyersguide.co.uk
www.buyersguide.co.uk

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Buyers Guide, based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, was established in 1996 and is the leading online directory of UK companies that are targeting the £600 billion in public spending each year. To date, there are over 5,000 company listings in 1,200 categories on the www.buyersguide.co.uk website.