I’ll keep digging until I find truths
The well-known phrase ‘you couldn’t make it up’ comes to mind as more and more scandal comes to light over Renfrewshire Council hiring school cleaners who haven’t been properly vetted.
Since the Paisley Daily Express highlighted the concerns raised by myself and other Labour councillors last week, some even more frightening revelations have come to the surface.
Someone sent me an email claiming that for months the council has been employing a cleaner in one of our secondary schools, who has been convicted for armed robbery.
And it was only months later when eventually a Disclosure Scotland Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) check was made that the cleaner was dismissed.
I’m demanding to know from council officials if this really was the case and, if this allegation is true, how could this possibly have been allowed to happen and who allowed it to happen.
It beggars belief that the SNP-led council administration has allowed private outside agency cleaners to work in our primary and secondary schools who didn’t have a PVG certificate.
To get this certificate, the person has to be vetted by Disclosure Scotland and shown that they don’t represent a danger to children and vulnerable groups.
The email about the alleged armed robber working in one of our schools wasn’t the only alarming message I’ve received since the story appeared last Friday.
I had another email urging me to ‘dig a lot deeper into the goings on’ within the particular council department that deals with these matters.
And the message ends: ‘Honestly, it is worth digging into.’
And that digging I certainly shall do. Labour councillors plan to move a motion at the full council meeting in two weeks time demanding a full-scale probe into this outrageous dereliction of duty to our children and young people.
Our motion will also call for a halt to the hiring of school cleaning staff who do not have the proper PVG certificate.
Without these checks on staff, you have no way of knowing who is allowed to work in close proximity to our children.
The council shouldn’t be employing agency staff anyway as it should have enough cleaning staff itself to cover the work needing done in our schools.
This is what happens when you get rid of your own staff and privatise council services - you lose control of the job and the people doing the jobs.