Compulsory redundancies 'very likely' at Shropshire Council in bid to meet budget targets

Last week, the authority revealed it needed to make £27million worth of staff cuts, equivalent to around 540 full-time posts, but said it hoped most of those savings could be found through voluntary redundancies and the removal of vacant posts.

However only around 90 people have so far been accepted for voluntary redundancy as the council finalises its slimmed-down operating model, and the authority has warned that “last resort” compulsory job losses may take place in order to meet budget targets.

The figures were revealed by Shropshire Council’s Chief Finance Officer, James Walton, at a meeting of the council’s scrutiny committee this week.

New Labour group leader Rosemary Dartnall said staff were paying a “heavy price” as part of cost-saving measures, and warned a loss of in-house capacity could lead to further third party spending.

“It seems to me that our staff are taking a heavier blow than third party operators and I worry about that trend because it will mean that we have less staff and more third-party operators and that sounds to me like a lack of accountability,” she told the committee.

“Many millions of Shropshire residents pounds being paid for services that won’t be monitored as well as they are today, which many of us think aren’t sufficient.”

But in response, Mr Walton said that in reality both in-house and agency staffing levels would have to come down – and that some services coming back in house may lead to staff levels rising again in future.

He added that around 110 people were on a waiting list to find out if their voluntary redundancy applications had been successful.

“There will be changes in terms of third party spend,” he said.

“If your staffing bill is going down, it doesn’t automatically mean your third party spend will go up – the reality is that both of those need to come down.

“We’ve made decisions around 90 individuals, and I think there were about 200 that applied. The majority of the 110 that aren’t in that 90, we haven't said ‘no’, we’ve just said not yet until we’ve worked through the detail in that [staffing] model.

“There are very likely to be some compulsory redundancies. The point I’m making is that’s a last resort and they will only be undertaken because financially we have to balance the books.”

Addressing cabinet, council Chief Executive Andy Begley said the senior management restructuring process currently underway along with the voluntary redundancy programme and other measures would mitigate the need for redundancies.

“Everything we’re trying to do is to minimise the need for [compulsory redundancies] – I’m absolutely not saying that there will be no need for that but all those steps I’ve just described should reduce the need, ” he said.

Council leader Lesley Picton added: “This is about the council that we need to be, but also about the council that we can afford to be.

“Whenever the word redundancy is mentioned that’s a very difficult subject but I meant what I said and Andy means what he says – we are doing everything we can to mitigate the number of compulsory redundancies.”

Unison’s Shropshire branch was contacted for comment but had not responded by the time this piece was published.