Reading Borough Council's union cash

It's the secrecy that I still haven't worked out. It's surely not that surprising that Reading Borough Council paid the salaries of three full-time union officials. That it added up to £1.4 million over 12 years doesn't seem outrageous. What is really odd is the Conservative claim that the payments were hidden.

This wasn't some throw-away comment. The Reading West Conservative MP Alok Sharma chose one of the prime political opportunities in the country - Prime Minister's Questions - to spring this allegation on an unsuspecting world.

Within the hour I had a response from Labour - which pretty much amounted to "So what?" Any decent employer would want to give staff the chance of union representation - which is best done by allowing workers to have a full time rep. In this case the unions were the NUT, Unite and Unison, and take a look at our strike record if you want to know whether it worked.

But what about the secret siphoning of cash?

Ah. The Labour reply is less forthright. They say Conservatives sat on the committees, so should have been aware. But is that good enough? Should these payments have been buried in the minutes?

The figures certainly look more startling in these tough economic times, but the Conservative-LibDem coalition that now run the council seem more startled to have alighted on these payments than you might expect.

The Prime Minister showed that there's plenty of political capital to be made by linking Labour with Union money in his reply "nice work if you can get it" but he knows all too well how political funding can be a toxic issue.

It all comes back to that fundamental enquiry. Who knew, and when did they know it?

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