Report by

managers 'is like a Python script'

ADRIAN Gregson and his chums at Unison haven't been pulling the punches lately.

Mr Gregson, the union's branch secretary for Worcestershire, works part-time at the county council's Spetchley Road headquarters.

But that hasn't stopped him from having a pop at the management in the last edition of Newscast, the magazine for all good unionists across Worcestershire.

Edited by Mr Gregson, who is also a Worcester city councillor, the magazine branded 2000 as a year of problems, errors and unease" for members.

One paragraph was particularly juicy.

Headlined "The Grand Illusion", it read: Our political masters always say we only complain about things and are not positive about the wonderful things the county council does for us.

Well, what about the positives? A list of achievements which COMB (Chief Officers Management Board) regaled themselves with recently read like a script from Monty Python, its grasp of reality was so slim.

The newsletter then hurled a series of potshots at the grandees who run Worcestershire.

Privatisation of services, low pay for teachers and the standard of the council's information technology were among the topics that provoked some heated comment.

Elsewhere in Newscast, director of education Julien Kramer "and his Praetorian guard" came in for some flak.

The choicest remarks were reserved for the bigwigs nominally in charge of social services.

After its director Peter Gilbert went off sick, chief executive and former director of social services at Hereford-Worcester County Council Rob Sykes stood in briefly before hiring consultants Ian White and Robin SeQueira.

Since then Mr SeQueira has made an exit, and a director from Bath, Jennie Bashforth, has been drafted in.

To lose one director is happenstance. To lose two is a coincidence. To lose three begins to look like a deliberate plot," declared the Unison rag.