John Osman Leader of Somerset County Council WWW.SOMERSET.GOV.UK Somerset County Council County Hall Taunton Somerset Tel: 01823 356663 TA 4DY jdosman@somerset.gov.uk 3 November 2014 Mr M Rigby Boume House High Street Bishops Lydeard TAUNTON TA4 3AX Dear Mike Council Meeting on 22 October 2014 Thank you for your letter of the 30 October. | note that you have copied the letter to all Council Members and to the press. | respond to the issues raised in your correspondence in the order you have raised them. With regard to the change of law on officer pay, this Council has fully complied with the change and as a consequence has had a Council agreed and published Pay Policy in place since the change came into operation. Indeed, such compliance is reinforced by the fact that the Council only two weeks ago, debated revisions to its Pay Policy and you attended that meeting with other councillors. | stand by my point concerning the Secretary of State being misled as the basis of this was an early belief that this Council hires workers through their own personal service company rather than through a recognised agency. Please let me re-state to you once again that interim workers, such as Peter Lewis, are placed with us via agencies and our contract is with the agent and not the worker. | am sure you are aware that the point put to me by MP Tessa Munt was in relation to questions asked of the Secretary of State by Somerset MP David Heath in the House of Commons, not a newspaper article. Therefore your criticism is not valid. Regarding your point about the terms of engagement between an agency and its worker, this is a matter for the agency not the Council as the Council is not the employer but simply the placement. However, | repeat again that the information we have received, both from the point of view of the executive interim worker and the agency itself is that the contractual arrangement between the two parties is via a personal service company. We are also informed by the agency we use most often that this is the norm within the sector for the reasons already given.In answer to your last point, | totally agree with you that market forces are driving up the cost of interims, particularly in children's services. | don't think this has anything to do with interims using personal service companies, but purely down to supply and demand. In summary Mike, | remain clear of the facts and | have not misled the Council. | am doing everything | can to appoint a permanent Director of Children's Services and until one can be appointed have no choice but to use interim cover via an agency at a market rate. If you have an altemative suggestion as to how such a statutory role can be filled by other means then I would be delighted to hear it. Yours sincerely John Osman Leader of Somerset County Council