£20m saved in council budget - but 300 jobs go to pay for it (From Daily Echo)
When news happens, text SDE and your photos or videos to 80360. Or contact us by email and phone.
£20m saved in council budget - but 300 jobs go to pay for it
7:53am Tuesday 13th November 2012 in Politics
By Matt Smith, Politics and business reporter
Previous cuts sparked union protests
THREE hundred jobs will be axed and services slashed in Southampton’s deepest ever council budget cuts.
Labour leaders last night confirmed plans for record job losses, cuts to services and hikes in charges that will slash £20m from the council’s budget next year – with the prospect of even more pain in coming years.
Labour and the unions have blamed Government funding cuts and Conservative economic policies for the dire state of the council’s finances.
But the leader of the last Tory administration to run the city council claimed the current council chiefs were responsible for a “disaster” which had betrayed staff who trusted them to protect their jobs and pay.
Children’s services will be hardest hit with £6m of cuts and 126 job losses planned.
The council’s residential children’s unit for traumatised eight to 12-year-olds, Our House, will close.
The council’s youth service, which aims to create opportunities for 11 to 25-year-olds, will be axed with 30 job losses.
The budget for the city’s Sure Start children’s centres will also be cut by £1m a year.
Labour bosses, who pledged to do all they could to stop job losses and avoid compulsory redundancies, are proposing to axe 279 full-time equivalent posts – the council’s largest ever jobs cull. It is thought that 327 of the council’s 4,000 staff are affected.
Park keepers, street cleaners, librarians, social workers and care managers are also among the casualties.
Cllr Royston Smith, whose Tory group was ousted from power in May, said: “It’s worse than I expected. The word betrayal doesn’t come close to what they have done to people who trusted they would have pay restored and their jobs would be safe. Now we know 327 people are going to lose their jobs.
“Everyone is going to pay more and get less. They could not have managed the budget process worse if they had tried. It’s a disaster.”
Redundancy payments to top £4 million
For the the full list of where cuts - click here
Mayor's famous number plate to fetch £100,000?
Comments(18)
Rockhopper
says...
11:04am Tue 13 Nov 12
Well SCC is hugely over-staffed at
supervisor/middle-ma
nager
level.
There are too many faceless staff attempting to justify their existence when a clerical/admin worker could be doing the same job for a lot less money.
nedscrumpo
says...
11:19am Tue 13 Nov 12
Miguel Raton wrote:The answer is no, senior management will be bloating further
''Children’s services will be hardest hit with £6m of cuts and 126 job losses planned.''
''Park keepers, street cleaners, librarians, social workers and care managers are also among the casualties.''
Any chance that any higher paid staff have gone or are the cuts hust for the plebs ?
sotonlad79
says...
11:59am Tue 13 Nov 12
CBeck01
says...
12:46pm Tue 13 Nov 12
I am not surprised this is happening. It suits their national party and Union paymasters agenda, 'not our fault, it's the tories'.
Same old Labour.
Chas O'Bursledon
says...
1:17pm Tue 13 Nov 12
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
2:09pm Tue 13 Nov 12
nedscrumpo wrote:Looks clear that it will be senior jobs going - can be no way they can cut £1m from Sure Start children’s centres by losing 12 jobs unless very senior staff are being lost.
Miguel Raton wrote:The answer is no, senior management will be bloating further
''Children’s services will be hardest hit with £6m of cuts and 126 job losses planned.''
''Park keepers, street cleaners, librarians, social workers and care managers are also among the casualties.''
Any chance that any higher paid staff have gone or are the cuts hust for the plebs ?
Junior staff do not cost the council £83k a year each !
Heads of Centre could cost around that much I would imagine, once you add in employer's NI, pensions etc...
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
2:11pm Tue 13 Nov 12
CBeck01 wrote:Any work for unions on council time should not be paid, unless by the unions themselves.
I would like to know how many Pilgrims (aka Union staff being paid out of the public purse) will be cut? How much money does the council spend on Pilgrims? I am fed up with these people portraying themselves as front line staff, but are in fact 100% working for the Unions, on our money - it is a disgrace!!
I am not surprised this is happening. It suits their national party and Union paymasters agenda, 'not our fault, it's the tories'.
Same old Labour.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
2:15pm Tue 13 Nov 12
Surely better to keep staff in post, and give everyone a small pay cut, much fairer, preserves services, and keeps as many as possible in a job.
But of course that is exactly what the conservatives were doing.
The unions and labour have let down the people of Southampton, and have let down the employees.
I hope the council workers who didnt bother to vote against the strikes realise now their mistake. They must stand up for themselves, and vote down the militants, whenever they rear their heads, as they do more harm than good.
fairdinkum
says...
5:59pm Tue 13 Nov 12
It's all bad news, but the already underfunded provision for teenagers and young people seems particularly likely to store up future trouble
Plum Pudding
says...
8:46pm Tue 13 Nov 12
mr nobody
says...
9:54pm Tue 13 Nov 12
ToryTrevor
says...
10:18pm Tue 13 Nov 12
Children, council workers, not the office staff, but those out on the streets doing their best to keep Southampton streets clean and tidy.
The weekly bin collection goes. Nice. Bigger bins all round then? Not likely.
And the poorest families pay more in council tax. Children hit again for there's no slack in their purse.
Give yourselves a pay rise, dear councillors, and hold your chins high.
And when the family breaks down, where do they go now. Where are the spare Social Workers, the spare placements.
Why not cut foster placement fees while you're at it. There's always the beached and forests for the homeless.
But you'll tax that too!
mr nobody
says...
10:19pm Tue 13 Nov 12
tootle
says...
9:01am Wed 14 Nov 12
Lone Ranger.
says...
9:17am Wed 14 Nov 12
mr nobody wrote:So you think that your darling Tories would have been better for childrens services.
I still want to know why are they hitting children s services before cutting wages of Councillors and the amount of them, thinking of them self's again and their bank balance's you very sad people .
.
Well here is the list of the TORY PROPOSED CUTS in CHILDRENS SERVICES:-
.
Children's services.
Reduce subsidy to city catering because take-up of healthy school meals not as bad as thought, £100,000
.
Better use of local authority grant to fund education support services, £450,000
.
Restructure policy and planning team, £55,000, 1 job
.
Reduce community subsidy to schools for extra-curricular activities, £100,000
.
Merge community learning services and encourage charities to take on neighbourhood learning centres, £38,000, 1 job
.
Efficiency savings from Connexions service for young people coming in-house, £100,000
.
Withdraw council social inclusion grant from schools which helps poorer pupils, £580,000
.
Cut management, leadership and governance advice and support to schools, £30,000, 1 job, 1 post
.
Efficiency saving from management and admin costs across children and family services, £57,000, 1 part-time job
.
Close residential home that deals with youths with behavioural problems, £300,000, 14 jobs, 4 posts
.
Trim funding of music service which could result in higher fees, £40,000
Restructure IT support for education, £38,000, 1 job, 1 post
.
Speed up city-wide schools reviews, £51,000, 1 job
.
Merge management of the early years and childcare team, £151,000, 1 job
.
Cut payments to city college for social inclusion work, £49,000
.
Scrap community language service for ethnic minority communities, £84,000, 3 jobs
.
Reduce funding children's play schemes after getting external funding, £287,000, 12.5 jobs
.
Reduce staffing of special educational needs team, £15,000, 1part-time job
.
Reduce council services to tackle badly behaved pupils, £50,000, 1 job
Cut senior management and admin staff in learning services, £58,000, 3 jobs
.
Merge family centres into Sure Start children's centres, £175,000, 7.5 jobs, 3 posts
.
Hows that suit you then ...... wonder if you are happier now
boilerman
says...
10:29am Wed 14 Nov 12
I know this is probably not the way to work it out but if all 4000 employees lost 15 days leave, if you multiply this out it works out that the council employee approximately 290 extra staff to cover the annual leave.
So if 300 staff are going to lose their jobs it evens it out.
Ben Durutti
says...
1:04pm Wed 14 Nov 12
Sotonians_lets_pull_Would you trust Royston to run things though? He was driving around without a seatbelt on & no insurance! What would have happened if he had seriously injured (or worse) a child?
together wrote:
Why waste £4m on redundancies? Surely better to keep staff in post, and give everyone a small pay cut, much fairer, preserves services, and keeps as many as possible in a job. But of course that is exactly what the conservatives were doing. The unions and labour have let down the people of Southampton, and have let down the employees. I hope the council workers who didnt bother to vote against the strikes realise now their mistake. They must stand up for themselves, and vote down the militants, whenever they rear their heads, as they do more harm than good.
Miguel Raton says...
10:40am Tue 13 Nov 12
''Park keepers, street cleaners, librarians, social workers and care managers are also among the casualties.''
Any chance that any higher paid staff have gone or are the cuts hust for the plebs ?