Shropshire Council puts freeze on jobs
Sunday 6th June 2010, 11:00AM BST.
Shropshire Council is putting a freeze on jobs for at least the next 12 months in a bid to save millions of pounds and protect frontline public services.
Bosses at the county’s largest employer are hoping the move will enable it to avoid compulsory redundancies as it faces up to what are expected to be massive cuts to local government funding.
The council also recently started a wide-ranging “transformation” programme to redesign the way its services are provided.
News of the jobs freeze follows a recent warning from council leader Keith Barrow that the authority will have to slash 25 per cent from its budget over the next three years and that “nothing is untouchable”.
There are some posts that will be exempt, such as those in social care, because the public would be unable to receive vital services without them. They have been put into a “special” category and will be filled if any become vacant as current staff leave.
As well as reducing costs on staff wages and salaries quickly, the council believes the jobs freeze will help reduce the risk of redundancy for its current staff. The process means that only essential jobs will be filled, but these will be offered first to existing staff whose jobs are at risk of being cut.
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about time too this is long over due!
also this is fairer for staff than redundancies
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Ha – those Shropshire Council ‘communications officers’ are at work again, I see.
They have *no choice* but to take these actions – the Government has pretty much told them and every other council what to do (and more importantly, what not to do).
For the council to suggest that they are doing this ‘proactively’ off their own bat is simply not true. The amazing thing is, that most people have seen this coming for months and yet still the council have been filling ‘non job’ vacancies like there’s no tomorrow!
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lets hope this means less red tape and beurocracy for local pubs with all the licencing and inspections
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this is long overdue in my opinion, i have nothing against the real jobs like the bin men but the office workers are all on massive wages relative to local farm workers and have gold plated pensions too and there are too many jobs shuffling paper around and organising and attending meetings, i pay them over £2000 a year and they cant even keep the roads open in winter its a disgrace
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“but the office workers are all on massive wages relative to local farm workers and have gold plated pensions too”
Really, and I suppose you know that for sure don’t you? Absolute rubbish, and so typical of the anti council worker comments which frequent these threads.
For your information, I’m a council office worker employed on a front line service. I earn significantly less than the national average, though accept that I may earn more than some farm workers. However, I have worked hard for it.
Will I receive a “gold plated pension?”; I don’t know – maybe compared to many others. However, if it helps you sleep a little better, I pay far higher contributions to my pension than I ever did with any private sector employer.
Don’t believe everything you read in the Daily Mail.
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It seamed not long ago that they where moving staff around so that alteration can be made so that management have better office space. Where did that money come from to do the alterations !!!
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i dont see how this can really work , because u cannot refill a teaching post with a non teacher or a planner with a cleaner or wat ever
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Glad the Tory government is doing this – lets hope thats the least advert for “community safety officer” “neighbourhood renewal manager” “play co-ordinator” or walking to school officers i see in the paper then, this non job creation has been good for massaging unemployment figures but has done nothing for the economy or society for the last ten years, what we need is low taxes so that businesses can thrive and create wealth for all
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I work in public services supporting adults with profound learning and physical disabilities. I fear this is just the start and public services will be decimated, important jobs lost and the private sector will be waiting like vultures to pick of the profitable bits.
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yeah i work in the public sector too as an admin assistant in the police. they are already planning to cut posts here because we are considered to not be “front line” enough but how can the police do their job with out us to support them?
its very stressful and with insecurity you cant get a mortgage or settle or anything, it gets me down a lot too because im only on £15 k, the police men are on 3 or 4 times that and so that would save more to repay the bank debt
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sack the lot, they all do meaningless jobs for bloated pay packets and would not be missed
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What an “intelligent, well reaearched” contribution to make. You’ve just got to love the keyboard warrior wind up merchants whose only satisfaction in life is to post pathetic dross such as this.
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less teachers just means bigger class sizes, i have never seen the problem with big classes – its more cost effective do it, what possible difference can it make if there are 10, 20, 30 or even 40 kids in a class room??
I mean if you go to a university lecture – some of the best education in the world – there is oftern 100 + kids in there,
Ulimately if you are bright enough you’ll get on ok and if you dont like it there are always private schools instead
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good, there is too many people in the public sector, we need to lay some off to get the economy going again and teach them a lesson in work ethic
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Teach them a lesson in work ethic you say?
Perhaps you’d care to share with me details of your average working week then. For instance, do you frequently work for twelve days in a row with little or no lunchbreak?
Are you always in before 7am and often not out until gone 6pm?
Do you also hold down a second job to supplement your main income?
If you regularly do all of the above, then I will give your comment credit; otherwise come back when you have something to say which is based on fact and not assumption.
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there are some good kind people in the public sector, we should not slag off the nurses and bin men etc its all the millions of pen pushers and managers who need to go not the front line workers
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the cameron government will make britain take its medicine, especially in rural areas there is too much reliance on councils and hospitals and schools for jobs, we need real jobs in farming and manufacturing and this government will do the right thing to deliver this and get Britain Great again which is to shrink the public sector
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