A total disgrace.Im sure the bill could have been a lot lower than this .This country realy is a joke pigs with there snouts in the troughs as all else go to pot.get my one way ticket out a few more years of saving.

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Government work. Do the minimum but be seen to perform, if you get into fix either pass on the blame or if your options are really out, go running to your union. 35 years of greasy pole slithering, get patted on the head claim your pension prize and wander off into the twilight.
Lovely. Except the culture is about to change. The private sectors patience is starting to wear thin.

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Sir Digby Jones thinks the civil service could function with only 50% of the staff, i suspect this is true of local government too,

just how much could this country really achieve without the burden of the public sector, like a parasite on our economy

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So each person made redundant will cost on average almost £64,000. Having been made redundant three times in my working life the total I received for all theee times was less than a tenth of that. The states employees have no concept of how the ordinary taxpayer has to struggle to give them a lavish living.

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And now for the reality check.

Local Government workers are notoriously low paid, as anyone who’s ever worked in local government will know. I earn around £11,000 a year before tax, and lose about £100 of my salary to that and another £100 to national insurance, pensions and anything else on the way.

Where I work, two colleagues have essentially lost their jobs because of the change. One is being forced to move to a completely different role, and the other – who has been a manager for some years – is just being made redundant. Her redundancy packet is not enough to even pay off her mortgage although she has recently moved house, and she will have to find work again as soon as the terms of her contract allow. This will probably not be anywhere near her position at the current time.

The cuts are happening to real people at low/average levels of income. Nobody where I work earns anything like the amounts people see in the press. Even at the most senior role of where I am, the pay is well well below what management in a private sector company earns. Our budget has been cut consistently year after year, we are often short staffed, left understaffed and dealing with difficult situations yet our standards are meant to be maintained throughout. The council isn’t just fat cat councillors or people pocketing money at Shirehall’s expense. They are people providing social services, library services, transport services and many many other things all across Shropshire. These are the people who are ACTUALLY affected by the cuts.

Do not believe everything you read in the press. The cited cost is not just being paid to staff but it has paid for the reorganisation of the council and the the advertising for temporary posts to fill gaps, the advertising for posts that have become permanent, communication and meetings on all of these changes and updates and whatever else has needed to be done to implement the new structure.

*Very little* of that money is going into any former employee or current employee’s pocket. At least not in the directorate which affects my current colleagues. (Who will, incidentally, be much missed and who do not WANT to leave but are being MADE to by the changes implemented over their heads)

I can’t speak for the rest of the council, but at least I can speak as someone who knows a bit about the reality of it, as opposed to the above posters who really don’t seem to understand what local government workers actually do…

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Amber – well said.

Andy – total nonsense which speaks volumes about you I’m afraid. So councils refuse to accept people from the private sector do they? – well here’s a reality check for you, I’m employed by a local authority but by far the greater part of my work history has been with the private sector. In fact, I also still work part time in private industry. Many of my colleagues have also come from the private sector.

Usual baseless opinions in the main here, posted by generally clueless individuals who have obviously formed their opinions on what they’ve read in the tabloids.

Dear oh dear, is it any wonder that this country is in such a state?

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Andy,

Only the first £30,000 of any redundancy payment is tax-free. The rest is taxable at the relevant rate for the corresponding year.

I love the idea that the council ‘don’t like taking people from the private sector’.
I wonder how many of the people here who constantly offer ill-informed criticism of those that work for the government/council have ever applied to work for either? They probably either didn’t meet the minimum qualification levels, or weren’t prepared to put up with the poor pay.

But hey, – let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good whinge…

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Amber’s statements have encouraged many good folk to rally to the support of council workers. No problem there, and it’s true that the argument should not be too one-sided.

However, from Amber’s comments, it’s possible to get an idea of the way of thinking that percolates into the council employee mind-set and gradually creates the problem:

For example:

1) Shock, horror! One colleague being forced to move to a completely different role! (Goodness me, they’re demanding job flexibility!)

2) Another colleague is just being made redundant! (Oh, a bit like thousands in the private sector and totally unlike Powys CC who have a no-redundancy policy which means that they’ve created jobs but now can’t get rid of them to save money, so taxpayers pick up the tab for that piece of inefficiency.)

3) The redundancy package won’t pay off the (newly-acquired) mortgage. (!?!?!, why should it, it’s just a payment to cushion the transition into a new job, it’s not a payment to buy your house and then go onto jobseeker’s allowance at the expense of the taxpayer.)

4) Cited cost isn’t just redundancy payments? Well, only if the Star’s report is wrong. It says quite clearly that the amount is to cover redundancy payments and pension top-ups.

5) “A colleague will be missed and didn’t WANT to leave but was MADE to leave.” Well, I suppose all those redundant workers in the private sector won’t be missed, wanted to leave, but weren’t made to leave.

6) “Advertising for temporary posts to fill the gaps.” What? Why don’t they ask those colleagues who are MADE to leave, to fill them instead, and save taxpayers a load of redundancy money and other money involved in finding people. How nice! An employee actually taking on more people, (to fill posts that they’ve just paid people to leave.)

7) “Cost is for for the reorganisation of the council and the the advertising for temporary posts to fill gaps, the advertising for posts that have become permanent, communication and meetings on all of these changes and updates and whatever else has needed to be done to implement the new structure.” – which the relevant people advised was done to save cost! How nice – creation of temporary jobs, then creation of permanent jobs. In short – make people redundant, and then employ people to take their place. (Wonder how many workers made redundant will manage to pay off their mortgages before being taken back into exactly the same jobs again.)

I DO accept that there are people working in the council who strive to give service and are lowly paid, but from the comments made by Amber, it’s clear to see that there’s a world’s difference in attitudes of the public sector compared to the private sector. As it carries on all the way to the top, one wonders just how much of the cost mentioned would have occurred if the same project was being implemented in a private company.

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Additionally:
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The HOUSE is newly acquired. The mortgage is transferred. I’m not talking about a brand new one being paid off but the remains of her old one. Sorry for not being clearer. The colleague in question has more than 20 years long service and a lot of overtime t’boot. She’s probably the last person who expected this to come at this point in her career.

As I said above, all council jobs have to be advertised. This is council policy, as is the filling in of a specific application form rather than submitting a CV to apply for a job. I don’t know if it is right or wrong doing it that way. But that is how it works.

My point wasn’t that the council is right or wrong in all of this. That’s an entirely different debate that I want no part in. My point is simply that council staff are always criticised for being overpaid and that’s not the case at all. (I wish it was. I’d like a nice holiday abroad…)

I don’t know what the star was reporting on or which departments it was talking about. As I said in my original post, I only know that it does not apply to the department in which I work.

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Amber….With all these cuts to your department shouldn’t you be doing some work? I think being made redundant shouldn’t be your worry, but being sacked for wasting time, maybe?

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