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Audit investigator Joe Laidler |
Town Hall chief who gave his life to Camden was unfairly targeted for redundancy
Tribunal awards £58,000 damages to finance boss axed in new regime’s savings drive
A FINANCE chief who spent more than 30 years working for Camden Council was unfairly targeted for redundancy in a sweeping Town Hall cost-cutting drive, an employment tribunal has ruled.
Audit investigator Joe Laidler, 59, is due to receive compensation after a three-strong panel heard how he was unceremoniously ushered out of his post during Camden’s controversial “Better and Cheaper” restructure. It found he had received “curious differential treatment”.
Mr Laidler said yesterday (Wednesday): “I gave my life to Camden but I was unfairly targeted. This didn’t need to happen. I think there should be an inquiry at the council to see how this could happen and to stop it happening again to anybody else.”
His damages are capped by law at about £58,000 but the panel ruled he would otherwise have been entitled to a significantly larger sum.
The council’s dramatic budget savings, which saw 350 posts axed, were a point of such tension that protest marches were staged when councillors approved the economies last year.
Mr Laidler was one of a series of well-known and long-serving officials who left the council shortly after the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition swept to power. He joined Camden in 1975 and described himself at a three-day tribunal hearing in September as one of the “old guard”.
By the council’s own admission, Mr Laidler had an “exemplary” career, often working on tense fraud investigations. He was regarded as an “unsung hero” by colleagues for helping his department win a series of national service awards which the council was quick to showcase and celebrate publicly.
But when orders came from on high that swingeing savings had to be found in council budgets, Mr Laidler was shown the door by finance director Mike O’Donnell, one of chief executive Moira Gibb’s closest aides.
The tribunal’s verdict – seen by the New Journal after its release last week – states that Camden had not satisfied the panel that an “open mind” had been kept about Mr Laidler’s position. It adds that he was not properly consulted about his future.
In a damning ruling on the council’s handling of the case, the panel’s final report states that Mr O’Donnell breached Camden’s own employment procedures in 10 areas.
The panel found that:
l There was no attempt to avoid a redundancy situation.
l There was no detailed costing of the restructure.
l There was no adequate planning of the restructure.
l It was an unfair selection process with regard to Mr Laidler.
The report states that there had been “a curious differential treatment” between the handling of Mr Laidler’s position and that of an assistant director on a similar grade, who was given a “two-year rundown” to leave her job.
The panel found: “The whole of Mr O’Donnell’s approach to the matters appears to have been coloured by the view, as we find the erroneous view that he held, that the claimant wanted to go, a view that Mr O’Donnell had formed before he had actually taken up duties as Director of Finance.”
It is 10 years since someone as senior as Mr Laidler, ranked in the top 30 officials in Camden, has gone to an employment tribunal. It has proved embarrassing for staff orchestrating the “Better and Cheaper” restructure.
The relentless savings drive, which helped Camden freeze council tax last year, is now in danger of being undermined.
The council will not only be ordered to pay Mr Laidler‘s compensation but has also to count the cost of external legal advice brought in to defend its position.
It is not clear whether the case has repercussions for others made redundant because any unhappy staff would have had to make a claim within three months of leaving the council. Unlike Mr Laidler, other senior staff are thought to have signed compromise settlements and been handed large pay-offs.
Mr O’Donnell spent two days answering questions during the tribunal hearing. He insisted that Mr Laidler had indicated that, with job cuts on the horizon, he was keen to leave the council. “My understanding from previous discussions I had with Mr Laidler was that he did want to take early retirement and he was keen to leave the council,” he told the panel. “I was hoping it could be a relatively smooth exit and at the end of the day one that Mr Laidler would be happy with.”
Last night, council chiefs were limiting their comments on the case but senior staff will be horrified at the ruling, which risks undermining earlier claims that the changes at the Town Hall had been completed with the co-operation of staff who had embraced the overhaul.
Mr Laidler was the only staff member to reach the post of assistant finance director without having a personal assistant. Out of principle he chose not to join a bonus scheme for top officials.
He wrote a lengthy letter to Lib Dem council leader Councillor Keith Moffitt to alert him to his concerns after his exit. But he was dismayed to receive a reply barely stretching beyond four lines, which he described as “totally inadequate”. Mr Laidler is still waiting for a reference from his old employers.
“This could have been resolved amicably,” he said. “They could have sat down and talked this through but there was none of that. They had decided my time had come.
“It should be a concern to the council – an excellent authority – that so many of its own procedures have been breached. The prime reason I took it to the employment tribunal was that things went on that had to be said in public.
“They thought I would just go away. Camden should be having some sort of inquiry to find out how its procedures could be broken on so many levels and whether it has happened in other cases and whether it is still going on.”
A council press official said: “We have received the Employment Tribunal’s decision on the case involving Joe Laidler. We will be looking carefully at the judgment before considering our options and assessing the appropriate next steps.” |
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