Ernie Clark. Hilperton Division, Wiltshire Council.

WCC is accused of mis-use of a database.
The Leader of West Wiltshire District Council, Graham Payne, has demanded an apology from Wiltshire County Council after confidential staff information was used without permission.

The county council holds a database of all district council staff in order to run the monthly payroll, but confidentiality rules mean this can only be used for payroll purposes.

However, a two page letter promoting the county council's bid for unitary status was added in with the May payslips.

Cllr Payne said: "The county council made a blatant attempt to contact our staff by including letters with their payslips. This was without our authorisation and in complete disregard of the confidentiality that they are supposed to respect.

"Some weeks ago, the county council's chief executive invited any members of staff with concerns about the unitary bid to contact him directly, and we passed that on to our staff. Somehow, I very much doubt the county council would show us the same regard if we wanted to directly inform their staff that the 200 plus job losses proposed by this half-cocked scheme will affect them as well as our employees."

A decision on which unitary bids will go forward is not expected until the end of July at the earliest. National consultation is currently underway, and will end on 22 June.

Cllr Payne lambasted the county council for the way it has promoted its bid: "It seems incredible that an authority forced into service cuts and budget recovery plans just a year ago can suddenly afford £350,000 to make this unitary submission. We've seen senior officers hawking their wares all around the county when they should be concentrating on delivering the services people want. This latest mailshot smacks of desperation to me, and I have demanded an apology for this outrageous abuse of confidential information."

Details of the unitary bid, and the District Council's objections to it, can be found using this link