Fife Council’s leader has given his full backing to officers for their efforts to safeguard jobs at Kingdom Bakers in Kirkcaldy following criticism from his opposite number this week.
Councillor Peter Grant also branded as ”despicable beyond belief” an attempt by Labour leader Alex Rowley to suggest council workers had sped up the demise of the firm, which collapsed just a few days ago.
The company laid off 135 workers when it was forced to call in the receivers a week ago today, prompting suggestions from Mr Rowley that the council’s move to freeze funds was the catalyst for its closure and calls for the creation of a ”rapid response unit” to deal with similar situations in future (link).
However, Mr Grant said council officers have been trying for months to get the firm to accept support to help it survive after a lengthy period of exceptionally difficult trading results.
”There’s enough information in the public domain to indicate that the company’s chances of survival had become slim at best, regardless of what the council did,” he said.
”For example, The Courier itself has already reported that they were well past the statutory deadline to complete their accounts for last year and that the previous year’s accounts showed a serious downturn in their finances.
”In addition, public documents from Companies House show that they had recently appointed a new director who has previously been a director of 35 companies that have been dissolved.
”This is perfectly legal but it all paints an unmistakable picture of a company in serious and potentially terminal long-term decline.
”What makes Councillor Rowley’s attack even more shameful is that through the senior position he holds in Fife Council he has been given access to further information, much of which cannot be made public, about the scale of the company’s problems.
”No rational person in possession of this information could hold Fife Council officers responsible in any way for the company going under. In fact there’s a strong argument that it was only thanks to the support of these officers that they were able to keep trading for as long as they did,” he claimed.
”When you consider that the same officers Councillor Rowley is now bad mouthing have put a lot of time and effort into making sure he was kept informed about the true story, his actions are despicable beyond belief.
”He may think it’s OK to ignore all the facts and make wild accusations against council officers as long as he says he respects them afterwards. I doubt if the people he’s just kicked in the teeth will see it that way.”