An organisation owned by Labour controlled Glasgow Council is at the centre of a row after spending almost £55,000 changing its name, whilst at the same time slashing 150 jobs and cutting workers holidays and overtime pay….
An organisation owned by Labour controlled Glasgow Council is at the centre of a row after spending almost £55,000 changing its name, whilst at the same time slashing 150 jobs and cutting workers holidays and overtime pay.
Culture and Sport Glasgow (CSG), whose Chief Executive Bridget McConnell is wife of former Labour First Minister and new member of the House of Lords Jack McConnell, paid the money to a consultancy firm linked to one of its own board members; the millionaire banker Sir Angus Grossart.
The rebranding process comprised two stages, which were ‘strategic research’ and ‘design and implementation’. The contracts for each were awarded to Edinburgh-based Tayburn Ltd. Sir Angus’s firm, Noble Grossart Ltd, is a major shareholder in Tayburn’s parent company.
CSG was established by Glasgow Council in April 2007 to deliver cultural, leisure and outdoor recreation services for the city.
The revelation that cash had been spent on ‘corporate rebranding’ has added fuel to an ongoing industrial dispute over planned cuts of £3.4 million the company plans to make. Unions have already staged a three-day strike at Tollcross Leisure Centre.
The news will cause acute embarrassment to Labour’s Holyrood leader Iain Gray who was recently involved in a public row with Skills Development Scotland after claiming the organisation was planning to spend £555,000 changing its own name to ‘Scotland – The Works’. The organisation hit back immediately by pointing out that the proposal had been dropped months earlier.