Carol Altmann – The Terrier

South West Coast MP Roma Britnell is taking action in response to a leaked copy of an explosive Lyndoch Living staff survey.

Could this be the moment when someone with power grabs the wheel and steers HMAS Lyndoch away from the iceberg?

Many of the long-suffering staff – past and present – will hope so.

Before I give you a snippet of the damning survey responses (brace yourself), I asked Ms Britnell if she had received a copy and what she intended to do about it.

She could have said, “sorry, Terrier-blogger-journo-social-media-brat, no comment”.

But, in a statement to The Terrier today, Ms Britnell said she was concerned, and that the survey mirrored issues raised by a number of people she had spoken to over recent months.

Ms Britnell said she will now meet with the Lyndoch board and CEO to ask what is being done. This is significant, because MPs don’t wade into troubled waters easily.

I can also confirm that the federal Member for Wannon, Dan Tehan, has asked the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to investigate concerns raised earlier by constituents.

This, as we know, comes on top of growing unease among staff at the Warrnambool Medical Clinic, who – I suspect – are starting to understand why two GPs quit last April when that clinic was sold to Lyndoch Living for a total of $1.6m.

The WMC Practice Manager has also resigned and leaves in two weeks. (“Ahoy me hearties, iceberg ahead!”)

First, here is what Ms Britnell had to say in full:

“I received a copy of the report via email on Tuesday morning and had some concerns about its contents.

I am now seeking a meeting with the Chief Executive Officer of Lyndoch Living and Members of the Board to discuss these matters.

I also note I have been approached by several different people over the past few months who have shared with me concerns which relate to the matters contained in the report.

Lyndoch is a vital institution in our community and it’s really important it retains its long held reputation as a high quality home for the elderly and a great place to work.

That’s why it’s important concerns raised by staff or residents are appropriately addressed – that is information I will be seeking from the CEO and Board. “

 

One wonders how much longer the Lyndoch board can continue to deny the obvious, which leapt off the page in the leaked confidential staff survey.

Lyndoch received the survey results in January, they went to the board in February, but still it has done nothing to address the damning assessment of the CEO’s leadership that was contained within.

Here is a snippet which I believe people need to see in the public interest, not just the watered down version as reported in the Warrnambool Standard:

“A small sample of around 10-15 respondents stated that the CEO’s culture of intimidation, manipulation and bullying greatly impacted their safety, health and wellbeing. They said they witnessed her bullying others and making decisions in regard to her own self-interests and not the organisation as a whole.”

Read that again. Up to 15 people is not a “small sample”. That is shocking, especially when you consider the Lyndoch corporate area has about 40 staff in total.

For even one person to claim to be enduring the “CEO’s culture of intimidation, manipulation and bullying” is one too many.

To have 10 to 15 warm-blooded, real people feeling that their “safety, health and well-being” is suffering, is disgraceful.

And what has been done in response?

Instead of leaping into action, Lyndoch hired a consultant – yes, another big fat fee on the public dime – to offer the board a counter assessment of the results:

“Look, over there! Over there! Nothing to see here!”

In LyndochLand™ , it’s the fault of the senior staff, the older staff, the kitchen staff, the person who takes out the bins on a Friday, the woman walking past the Lyndoch Milk Bar, the person who posted a nasty comment on Facebook, a pesky little journalist….anybody, anybody, but the person at the very top of the tree.

Is that a cover up, pure spin or clever public relations?

I don’t know, but what I do know is that the board – at the end of the day – will wear any consequences of not acting decisively.

The board are the people who are at risk of serious reputational damage. In light of these survey results, they can no longer say that they didn’t know.

And it is poor Lyndoch, owned and loved by the community for 60 years, that could face both reputational and significant financial damage.

Compensation payouts of hundreds of thousands of dollars are being awarded to individuals who have suffered workplace bullying and harassment. This is not a game.

On top of that, consider this: if the iconic Warrnambool Medical Clinic was to fall apart because of similar issues filtering into its workplace, then there is no more “goodwill” and Lyndoch will have paid close to $2 million* for fresh air.

All this before even a sod is turned on the new $12 million medical centre to be built at Lyndoch to house the WMC and up to 20 GPs.

The pushback against those who dare to speak up and out is enormous – it’s all just a “social media” beat up – and meanwhile the HMAS Lyndoch lurches ever closer toward the iceberg.

At least now Ms Britnell and Mr Tehan are helping to lower the lifeboats.

There is a Lyndoch board meeting next Tuesday: we can only hope that the board leaps in and starts paddling.

*The $2 million includes $1.6m for the WMC and $300,000 for the Health Spot, plus purchase fees and charges.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

WORD has it that dozens of Lyndoch Living staff have filled out the recent staff survey with honesty and courage.

This is a huge step, and one taken despite fears of being identified.

The next step is for the full results of this survey to be presented to the Lyndoch board, not just a summary or extracts, but the full picture. The board must demand this be the case.

If Lyndoch plans to be fully transparent to the community, a summary of the survey results and any issues identified should also be made public.

As Dr Bernadette Northeast recently proved by taking on the Warrnambool City Council and going public as a whistleblower, the truth can only be fully revealed if all of the evidence is on the table. It takes people like Dr Northeast and brave Lyndoch workers and ex-workers to ensure this happens.

I have now written 14 stories on the complex and multiple concerns swirling around Lyndoch, having had contact with more than 60 sources from Warrnambool, Seymour and Plenty Valley.

Some of these stories are temporarily unavailable for viewing, and I will leave you to speculate as to why this is so.

What I can tell you is that the concerns around Lyndoch are very real.

People from right across our community, including many past and present Lyndoch staff, are genuinely worried about its new direction and its financial future if plans for a multi-million-dollar medical centre go ahead.

To put it bluntly, they fear Lyndoch could go broke.

Others are worried about staff morale, and the trickle-down affect on residents.

Many are outraged by Lyndoch’s ongoing spending on a horse race and a corporate marquee at the May Races.

I can assure you that I will continue to fight for the full facts on all of these issues to come out.

South-West MP Roma Britnell is also taking action.

Ms Britnell has responded in writing to those who have contacted her with their concerns, saying she is “taking these matters seriously” and has already had “several meetings and discussions on these matters” on behalf of her constituents.

Some people are organising meetings with Ms Britnell for early in the new year.

Others have now lodged applications to become members of Lyndoch, including me, with a decision to be made on these applications at the next board meeting.

Questions have also been put to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission on whether Lyndoch’s race sponsorship and building a medical clinic fits with its classification as a charity and Public Benevolent Institution.

The community is mobilised, it is energised and it is – once again – finding its voice.

Lyndoch workers are also finding theirs.

The only voice still missing is that of the Lyndoch board and CEO who, between them, could allay all of these concerns by simply being fully transparent.

What happens with the results of the Lyndoch staff survey, which closed last Thursday, will be the first test.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

The time has come to use our voices, stand up for Lyndoch and show that Warrnambool will not tolerate bullies, no matter who they are, where they come from, or what they promise.

I have now had contact with 33 people, including past and present Lyndoch workers, about the toxic culture and the warped priorities that have allegedly taken root within its walls. By the end of this weekend, I will have spoken to 36.

We can’t turn away and expect the victims of this culture to fix it; they can’t.

Instead we, as a community of terriers, need to get involved, to step up and hold the Lyndoch board to account for what is unfolding on its watch.

We did this with the Warrnambool City Council credit card scandal and we can do it again.

Some of Lyndoch’s most senior and experienced staff are among the 70 to 80 people who have left in the past two years and the resignations just keep coming, yet the board remains silent.

If this was happening in a primary school, or our hospital, or inside TAFE, it would be front page news.

So would some of the decisions around the use of public funds.

As it stands, Lyndoch Living – as a registered charity – has spent more than $100,000 on gambling via sponsoring a steeplechase and hosting a corporate marquee at the May races, and somehow this passes as core business.

We also know that Lyndoch plans to spend millions of dollars to build and run a new medical centre that nobody has asked for, while at the same time it doesn’t have enough experienced nurses to fill shifts, and basic furniture needs replacing.

Enough.

I am unable to look on while personal power trips are pursued at the expense of Lyndoch staff wellbeing and, ultimately, the care of our elderly.

So this is what we can do:

– contact the board: chair Kerry Nelson (knelson@mpower.org.au) or any of the other board members: Andrew Paton, Cr Sue Cassidy, Ron Page, Percy Eccles, Kane Grant, Peter Downs, Suzanne Coulson and Lorraine Mielnik via a letter to Lyndoch Living, 10 Hopkins Rd, Warrnambool.

– ask the board about staff morale, staff resignations and Lyndoch’s core priorities;

– contact our local MP Roma Britnell (roma.britnell@parliament.vic.gov.au) and ask her to investigate, just as her Liberal colleague Cindy McLeish did in response to the troubles at Seymour Health;

– write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper which, unfortunately, no longer does investigative journalism;

– most importantly, become a member of Lyndoch: it’s free to apply, can be done by filling out a simple form, and means you can have a say on where Lyndoch is heading and who is in charge.

 

At the moment, Lyndoch has very few members, including the nine people on the board, two life members (Ron Patterson, David Atkinson), the CEO Doreen Power, and four senior staff.

It’s a tight little shop.

Under the new rules of Lyndoch (last year it changed from an association to a company limited by guarantee), these members have significant powers, including standing for the board, voting for the board, and being involved in the AGM.

In fact, unless you are a member, Lyndoch has no obligation to even tell you when the AGM will be held.

This is what happened last October when, for the first time, the Lyndoch AGM was not advertised, nor were the board vacancies.

But here’s the rub: the board gets to decide who can become a member of Lyndoch, so even if you apply, you may not be accepted.

It’s open to all sorts of manipulation and perhaps explains why the current board is such a curious mix.

There are no GPs on the board. There is no lawyer.

But there is the former CEO of the Warrnambool Racing Club, Mr Downs, who now lives in Melbourne and works for Moonee Valley: if that’s not a massive conflict of interest between the board and Lyndoch’s support for racing, Barry the Bullshite Detector and I will run three times around the racecourse.

(Actually, Barry, we will need to do four laps, because Ms Power and Mr Downs also have shares in a racehorse.)

The Lyndoch company secretary – a former PA to Ms Power – also has no accounting or legal qualifications, despite now monitoring a multi-million-dollar organisation.

From all the evidence, none of these people in charge are asking the hard questions about Lyndoch’s operations, or none are asking them publicly.

Cr Cassidy, for example, has gone from being a power house to a mouse. The bold woman who stood up and exposed the games behind the council mayoral race has nothing to say about Lyndoch. She won’t return my calls.

Chair Kerry Nelson? Not a word.

They are supposed to be our eyes and ears, yet all we have is silence.

To me, the entire Lyndoch board and senior executive are accountable for the distress of every single Lyndoch person who is suffering or has suffered.

So I am going to keep exposing what I know, and I am going to also apply to become a member of Lyndoch, although I doubt I will be accepted, even though my mother was in Lyndoch for 10 years, and my late Dad, as a bricklayer, helped build some of it.

Warrnambool people started Lyndoch, we still own it, and we all have a stake in caring for its residents, its staff and its future.

What started as an important story for me is now a campaign – unashamedly – to restore a bold community voice inside Lyndoch and to stand up for those who need us to be strong.

On we go.

You can find the Lyndoch membership form here and its new constitution here.

Next: digging into the multi-million-dollar medical clinic.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

In the cashed-up world of the Warrnambool City Council, a staffer travelling on the road can spend $90 a day on dinner, $40 on lunch and $30 on breakfast, and not have to pay a cent of it.

That’s a total of $160 per person, per day, paid for by you, the ratepayer.

Send five staff members to a conference and bang, you could have up to $800 a day in just food expenses, without adding the accommodation – and the WCC does send five people to the one conference.

I can’t remember the last time I spent $90 for myself on a dinner out, but I suspect I would have had to dress up.

But wait, there’s more. There always is.

This $90 daily dinner limit is part of the council’s new travel policy, drawn up last November, in response to revelations of excessive spending on food and drink on council corporate credit cards.

Did you see the word “new” in there? This is the new policy, not the old.

This, according to the council executive, has tightened things up.

This, according to the council executive, is the council being frugal, cutting costs, saving every dollar it can: good grief, I dare not think what the policy looked like before we started asking questions. (*Update: the new policy has higher limits than the last policy. Go figure.)

It does make you wonder what planet the WCC hierarchy lives on, because for the rest of us, spending $90 for one person on dinner is called “a very special occasion”, not part of a road trip.

Many ratepayers would love to have a breezy $90 to spend each night for dinner and dessert while brushing up on their networking skills, but the truth is, most people could never dream of it.

These are the people I write for.

It is no wonder the WCC hierarchy keeps these policies secret, because remember, we are not allowed to see these “internal” policies even though we fund them.

Fortunately we have other people who want the truth out there.

Because it is clear that those in charge at the council can’t possibly justify this sort of spending by some of its staff while bumping up rates pool by 4.5% this year and the next.

And they can’t possibly justify it while hitting ratepayers and residents with increases in everything from parking fines to pet regos to sports ground fees.

They can’t justify it, but they do it anyway, and that is the disgraceful part of this entire culture of entitlement that I am trying to expose, one eye fillet and one glass of pinot gris at a time.

I can still see the hand-wringing as the council agonised over which services would need to be cut unless it broke the rate cap: childcare, meals on wheels, sweeping the streets?

The 81 corporate credit cards didn’t rate a mention.

And the $160-a-day meal allowance racked up on some of these credit cards didn’t rate a mention. (Note, most WCC staff don’t get to spend these amounts  – the policy is designed to accommodate a select few.)

By the way, the Australian Tax Office suggests a “reasonable” meal allowance while travelling is a maximum of $101 a day, including around $48.60 for dinner.

If you are a big wig earning more than $217,000, the dinner allowance is $70.50. Many councils use the ATO figures as their guide.

The NSW public service is even more frugal.

Up there, public servants can spend a maximum of $53.90 for dinner in a capital city, or $49.60 for the country. What a bunch of soursops they are in the NSW Treasury! No creme brulee for you!

If only it were so funny. For the stressed out souls turning up at Bethany trying to work out a payment plan for their rates, it is far from funny.

South West MP Roma Britnell today used the first day back of Parliament to call for a full and independent investigation into the governance of the Warrnambool City Council.

As this travel policy shows, it can’t happen soon enough.

Again, thankyou to everyone who helps to keep The Terrier digging. You can be part of it by tossing something into the Tip Jar below.

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