Day 181 - 01 Nov 95 - Page 32


     
     1        before us, as you have rightly pointed out, is a certain
     2        amount of transparency of publicly available information
     3        which was never available when wages councils were in
     4        operation.  It could -- it was only hypothetical, but
     5        I think the question you are putting to me is of that
     6        nature.  Hypothetically, if this information, such as you
     7        have revealed, had been available to someone like me in the
     8        mid 80s, as a council member, I would have probably
     9        referred it on for a report.
    10
    11   Q.   One final question on this matter of overtime, Mr. Pearson,
    12        and then I am going to turn to something else.  Do you
    13        happen to remember -- this is really a request for
    14        assistance -- the name of the principal Inspector, if there
    15        was such a thing, in the London region in the late 1980s?
    16        A.  No.  His number is in my diary still, in fact, but I do
    17        not -- Baldwin, Mr. Baldwin.
    18
    19   Q.   Never mind.  I thought it might be on the tip of your
    20        tongue, but it is a long time ago.  I am not criticising
    21        you for that.  Can we pass on, please, to the question of
    22        turnover.  That is my penultimate topic and then we will
    23        have a look at health and safety at work and that will be
    24        it.
    25        A.  I dealt with the Secretary of the Wages Inspectorate,
    26        Mr. Cottingham.
    27
    28   Q.   Mr. Cottingham, that was the Secretary, was it?
    29        A.  Yes.
    30
    31   Q.   It maybe a different thing, but thank you very much.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Cottingham?
    34        A.  I think the name is in the order.
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:  I see.
    37        A.  It can be checked.
    38
    39   Q.   He is a national Civil Servant, is he?
    40        A.  Well, I do not know what he does now.
    41
    42   Q.   No, no -- was?
    43        A.  But then he was the Secretary of the wages councils and
    44        he was actually the contact point.  You would not go to the
    45        Senior Inspector; you would go to the Secretary.
    46
    47   Q.   Just a few questions, please, Mr. Pearson, about turnover:
    48        What do you understand by turnover in this context, when a
    49        Company says its annual turnover of staff is 120 per cent
    50        and so on, what do you take that to mean? 
    51        A.  Well, the staff changes numerically, the corporate 
    52        number changes at least once a year and a shade more. 
    53
    54   Q.   Once and a bit.  What it means, does it not -- see if I am
    55        right about this because I always find it slightly a
    56        conundrum -- at least 20 per cent of the 120 per cent, yes,
    57        has arrived and left in the same year?
    58        A.  No, no.  100 per cent turnover is that numerically they
    59        have all gone.  If you have a work force of 100 and the
    60        turnover is 100 per cent, have they not all gone

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