Shropshire Star

Shropshire Council boss defends £12 million pot for redundancies

A Shropshire Council boss today defended setting aside more than £12 million to pay for redundancies over the next three years.

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James Walton, the council's head of finance, governance and assurance, said the organisation needed to save money because of Government cuts which will leave it facing a gap of £45 million between what it receives and spends by 2021/22.

He also said that the council's attempts to cut bureaucracy would leave it needing fewer workers.

The authority said that the figure of £12.5 million has been based on the annual cost of redundancy at the council, which stands at £4.1 million.

It comes after the council revealed last week that 60 staff are in the process of being made redundant, with another 150 the subject of consultation.

Mr Walton said: "Like all councils, we're faced with the need to make further substantial savings in the coming years. By 2021/22 we currently estimate that, despite the work already undertaken, we will still have a funding gap of £45 million, between what we receive and what we currently expect to spend each and every year.

"One way in which we are looking to close this gap is to achieve savings by cutting bureaucracy, by changing the way we work, and becoming more efficient as a result. The more efficient we become, the fewer staff we need to deliver our services.

"We anticipate further service redesign and restructuring in the coming years as we work to meet the challenges posed by government funding cuts, and this is likely to result in further staff leaving us through redundancy.

"Over the last five years, the average annual cost of redundancy has been approximately £4.1 million. Based on this figure, we've anticipate that redundancy costs over the next three will be £12.5 million."

Mr Walton said that the ongoing savings from redundancies will save the council about £90 million year on year.

He said: "It's important to reiterate that this is a small fraction of the savings we have made by changing the way we work. Over the past three years, redundancies have cost £18.6 million, but have so far saved the council £161 million, and will continue to save us another £90 million each and every year into the future."

The latest proposed job losses are made up of 17 workers being made redundant from the council itself, and 43 from schools. Another 73 council jobs are the subject of a 45-day consultation period, along with 99 members of school staff.

The authority has spent £18.6 million on redundancies in the past three years, with 1,119 workers leaving the authority. It said that 72 per cent of the job losses had come through voluntary redundancy.

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