BLUNDER COSTS ORIHUELA COUNCIL 100,000 MAN HOURS IN SALARIES

According to a report published in the daily newspaper Informacion, Orihuela council pays its 700 employees to work 37.5 hours but they only actually work 35.

For anything over the 35 hours, employees are then being paid at overtime rates, a cost to the council last year of 800,000 euros.

The report says that according to the Councillor responsible for Personnel, each Orihuela employee should do an additional 150 minutes work per week. Workers in Orihuela traditionally start work at 8am and go home at 3pm, ie 7 hours per working day, half an hour less than should be the case.

Adding up those 30 daily minutes and multiplying them by the number of workers in employment adds up to 7,000 hours per month which are being lost to the city services. More of a concern however are the 800,000 euros, 1.8% of the municipal budget for 2012, that are then being paid in annual overtime.

It would seem that some staff work even fewer hours during the summer months, another unfortunate anomaly, with the working day for many, between June and September, reduced to 9am-2pm. But what we don't know is if those hours are made up elsewhere. The ‘Informacion' report suggests not!

The report goes on to say that the agreement was adopted with the personnel department by the previous PP government in order to reconcile work and family life

An analysis of the staffing throws up many other issues of interest including the fact that the council is also paying workers for services that are being provided to other administrations.

The Councillor has said that she is now attempting to reconcile the matter with a number of immediate actions including getting all workers to work the hours for which they are contracted. The second action to be implemented will be to change the policy whereby the entire workforce works a reduced schedule during the summer, and third, the elimination of the high cost in overtime.

Only measures such as these can ensure a more efficient management of municipal resources which seem to have a mind, and a budget, of their own.

Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/32248/

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