Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Town Hall job cuts
Job cuts at Town Hall
As the Borough faces up to tougher financial restrictions following the limited central government allocation of cash, and the net overspend of more than GPB 4 million last year, a number of high ranking jobs have been cut at the Town Hall.
Executive Directorships including the posts of Trevor Doughty, Amanda Skelton, Julie Alderson, David Slater, and Kim Bromley-Derry have all been culled in a sweeping move to cut out a whole layer of high cost management. The savings in salaries will amount to over GBP 440,000.
Further reductions will see more senior managers lose their jobs as three Heads of Service see their posts cut.
The Council is also seeking an undisclosed number of voluntary redundancies as it attempts to reign in spending.
It will be remembered that Trevor Doughty's Social Care and Health Department was responsible for an overspend exceeding GBP 11 million last year , and that Amanda Skelton's Neighbourhood Services Department was embroiled in controversy after "burying" the Trow Quarry Report for more than a year, before National Trust Warden Peter Collins exposed it's damning details of toxic poisons to the Shields Gazette. Meanwhile, Kim Bromley Derry's department is bogged down in the details of the drawn out consultation exercise to help find a site for the town's new "super school" to replace King George and Brinkburn comprehensives, readers will recall the outright opposition to the "preferred option" (number 1) to site the school at Temple Memorial Park.
It seems, at last that the Council's Cabinet has awoken from it's slumbers, to discover that these acts of mismanagement of theirs were not bad dreams at all - it all happened for real! They realise that they now need to be taking very tough decisions in order to fulfill next year's budgetary requirements. The average salary of the Executive Directors to lose their jobs is 50% of the Prime Minister's and it will probably be found that Heads of Department, reporting to the Chief Executive will carry on doing the Council's business with no effect being felt by "Joe Public".
This should be seen as a first step, and if, as we keep getting told, our Council is "excellent" and "award winning" they should be able to demonstrate the ability to reduce spending much further without massive impacts on public services. Planned additional spending for medium term plans needs to be re-assessed and adjusted as necessary and policy ought to be driven towards "value for money" services.
The new Alliance opposition group and others, now need to be scrutinising next year's budget with a fine tooth comb to deliver an imaginative, realistic strategy to offer to the electorate in May's elections. Our friends in the indecisive Liberal Democrats also need to learn that their role is to oppose and offer "alternative" policies to the ruling Labour group if they wish to be taken seriously, they need to remind themselves that they were elected by people who preferred not to have a Labour Councillor. If their electorate were to know in advance that a Liberal Democrat would continually support the Labour Party, there would be little incentive for them to cast a vote for the Lib-Dems.
By working together, the opposition groups could find a way to propose a zero increase budget for next year, it's unlikely that Labour will wish to wear such a bright logo on the back of their shirt!
The Council is in the process of conducting a public consultation on it's budget plans for next year, Council Leader Paul Waggott says
"We have not made any decisions yet. We do want to include the whole community in our decision-making. This is genuine consultation and I want to reassure residents that their views will inform the final outcome."
You can access the consultation questionnaire here, you will need to post it back to the Town Hall by 31st. January.
My recommendation on question 2 is to strike through the three options to increase Council tax and add in your own "zero option", unfortunately the form is not big enough for me to include all of my proposals for further spending reductions or increases in income.
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