£16.4m paid out to departing Shropshire Council staff in the last two years
Staff who have left Shropshire Council in the last two years have reportedly received payouts totalling £16.4 million.
The stark figures were revealed by Councillor Roger Evans, the portfolio holder for finance, at a meeting of the council's cabinet this week.
He said that, during the 2023/24 financial year, 76 members of staff received a financial package and “an encouragement to leave the council” at a cost of £3.5m. That rocketed during 2024/25 when 217 staff received a total of £12.9m after leaving the organisation.
According to Councillor Evans, 10 people received more than £200,000 each.
“These are what are legally required, but it shows a number of staff who are still left,” he said.
“Part of the passover of the funding from last year involves £17m in reductions in ‘right-sizing’, as it is called. Staff are telling me and other members around the table ‘we just can’t operate now with the numbers of staff that are there’.
“One of the functions of the [Improvement] Board is to look at the staffing situation and to make alterations as is deemed necessary.”
In July 2024, Shropshire Council – then run by the Conservatives – announced it was looking to cut the equivalent of around 540 full-time posts, largely through voluntary redundancy and the removal of vacant positions. This, it said, would save £27m.
However, Tanya Miles, the current interim chief executive, said the authority is not looking to make compulsory redundancies this time round.
“The Corporate Peer Report highlighted that there are some services in Shropshire Council that have become too small,” she said.
“We’re undertaking a number of essential benchmarking service reviews at the moment, in particular around finance, legal and our revenues and benefits teams. They are critical teams to ensure the functioning of Shropshire Council.
“We are not looking at compulsory redundancies. However, there will be some services that do need some modernising and do need to change.
“As part of that, we could be doing things differently. But in terms of the benchmarking, we should be able to get some reports coming through to various committees over the next couple of months.”
Latest forecasts show that Shropshire Council is projecting an overspend of just over £47m by the end of the financial year. This has risen by nearly £12m from the figure quoted last month after the council carried out a “deep dive” excercise into its finances.
'The speed and scale of the deterioration is damning'
Councillor for Shifnal South Ed Bird, who represents the Conservative Group, questioned what the Liberal Democrats have done since gaining power in May.
“Our Conservative Group does acknowledge the sheer scale of the financial pressures and the primary drivers of this crisis soaring,” he said.
“It’s a crisis faced by almost every rural county across the nation, and is a crisis our group, when in administration, repeatedly and loudly lobbied central government to fix. And that commitment stands.
“However, the report is not just a general reflection on national finances, it’s a clear reflection on the governance of this council in the last five months.
“The most damning indictment in this report is not the headline figure, but the speed and scale of the deterioration after the new Liberal Democrat administration took control.
“The breakdown of the financial situation has worsened dramatically on the new administration’s watch. The period five report to the end of August forecasts a significant overspend of over £35.55m.
“Yet, just one month later, the quarter two report up to the end of September reveals that this forecast has ballooned up to £47.069m.
“The Conservative administration left challenges, but also left the budget framework that aims to be balanced. Does the leader and portfolio holder actually believe they acted quickly enough when they took office in May to address the inherited savings gap, and whether the September emergency declaration came too late to prevent further deterioration?”
In response, Councillor Evans said he was “a little bit surprised” by the question because the budget was set in February by the previous Conservative administration.
“We are taking action, and amending and improving it where we possibly can,” said Councillor Evans.
“Yes, £47.069m is a big rise from period five. But what we are trying to do is be as open as possible, and calling on staff to do a report just four or five weeks after the end of the previous month, which has never been done before.
“We were concerned how the reports were going earlier in the year. In the report, it said a detailed review was carried out for quarter two, period six.
“It was said this was always going to be carried out, and that is why the figure of £35m to £47m arose. It says the delivery plans were not in place.
“How can you set a budget and not have delivery plans in place? There was £17m passed to this administration of right-sizing.
'Our staff are being overloaded'
“If you look at the vacancies, they are still there. We have not got sufficient staff to do what is being required. Many residents are not getting the answers they want because our staff are being overloaded and trying to do things when before, there was more staff doing it.
“How can you make staff redundant and put a budget in place with no delivery plans?”
The council is awaiting to hear from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as to whether it will agree to grant £15m of emergency financial support (EFS), even if it is “in principle”.
“If you look at the last administration, they took £29m in EFS to balance their budget, plus other items that were in the cupboards,” added Councillor Evans.
“There is nothing in the cupboard for this year. There are no savings, no balances we can take at all.
“The 2022/23 budget said £50m was needed to be saved. They also said they were using earmarked reserves to balance their budget. So even then, there was money taken from their reserves to balance budgets.”
Councillor Heather Kidd, the leader of Shropshire Council, added: “I’m quite disappointed that it’s suggested that we didn’t take action.
“We brought in the Local Government Association in July, which was really rapid because we only really took control on May 22, and the seriousness of the situation became very clear.
“One of the recommendations was to take a deep dive into the finances which was to look at the actuals, rather than the projected figures. We looked at the actuals, and that is why we knew exactly where we were.
“Many of the projections from the last council were actually inaccurate.
“Most of the previous budgets were propped up by using the General Fund Balance (GFB). Unfortunately the amount in the GFB now has depleted.
“This is why we are where we are, and until we get out of this period, we are hamstrung. I’m not going to take any lessons from anyone about where we are because none of us came into politics to actually be in the position we’re in.
“We’ve done exactly what we need to do, trying to get us back on track. But it’s not going to be comfortable, and we won’t be able to do many of the political things we would like to do.”
The council's deputy leader, Councillor Alex Wagner, said the increased sum has not arisen because of “some unforeseen circumstance,” and accused the previous Conservative administration of having no plan to deliver the savings it said it would in the budget.
“If the same people who were in cabinet were in cabinet now, we wouldn’t know that we were that far adrift now,” said Councillor Wagner.
“In terms of changing the model and changing the way of doing budgeting, that is, frankly, it’s bordering on maladministration. It’s negligence.
“The public aren’t interested in who did what, they’re interested in what we do.”
