Jobs will be lost in council cutbacks

Jamie MacDonald • Published 17 Feb 2010 11:30 23 Comments

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Council chief exec Angela Leitch

COUNCIL TAX has been frozen for another year - but a raft of cuts are being brought in to balance the books for 2010-11.

Clackmannanshire councillors passed their budget for the coming financial year on Thursday, with one of the top priorities being to fill the financial black hole that has plagued the authority in recent months.

While council tax was frozen for another year, plans were also approved to reduce class sizes for 20 per cent of P1 to P3 classes to 18 pupils or less. And free school meals will be available to 20 per cent of P1 to P3 children in the county's most deprived areas.

Speaking at the meeting, council leader Janet Cadenhead said, "The overall financial climate is very difficult with significant contraction in public spending across the board.

"As always in a recession there is also increased pressure on available resources. This contraction is anticipated to continue year on year to at least the end of 2014.

"So even when this budget has been set we have to acknowledge, we will face similar challenges, if not greater ones, in the coming years."

Over £6 million of savings from the £119 million budget were identified to counter the financial problems.

Around 20 to 30 posts will go as a result of the cuts. The council was unable to give an exact figure on the number of actual jobs to be axed but it appears the majority of these positions are currently vacant.

Chief executive Angela Leitch said, "We are looking at alternatives and we are not anticipating redundancies, albeit we have offered severance to some people.

"We will be downsizing the authority and need to look carefully at how we organise our staff.

"We have to challenge ourselves to see do we need to do it that way or can we do it better."

A saving of £1.5 million will be made in education and a reduction in the kinship care allowance will cut £130,00 from the budget.

Further clawbacks identified include contracting the job of removing chewing gum from streets, amending the mobile library service and less frequent cleaning of bus stops.

Superloos will be installed in Tllicoultry and Tullibody at the expense of public toilets to generate a saving of £68,000.

Councillor Donald Balsillie, SNP group leader, said, "The public sector and the most vulnerable in our society will suffer.

"It is particularly annoying that in Clackmannanshire the need for these cuts is increased due to the need to make up for the blunders and bad judgement of this Labour administration."

At the beginning of the meeting the SNP group asked for the meeting to be put back by an hour to allow them time to study the budget in detail.

Nationalist councillors claimed to be angry they had not received the final budget until Tuesday night - giving them little time to suggest amendments or put forward their own budget. The request was voted down.

Mr Balsillie went on, "We do not agree with the council restructuring proposals which we have not been consulted on in detail and have little information. We have made our views known on this at the last council meeting as we did on Fairer Scotland funding and Kinship Care. We objected then and raise our objections again.

"We were promised these papers over two weeks ago. After persistent complaints, some of us received these on Tuesday evening of this week-once again paying only lip service to openness, consultation and consensus."

Ms Cadenhead responded by saying the budget was not finalised itself until Monday night.

She continued, "We had two meetings at the start of the year and they had all the working papers of the savings. It was not ready until Monday and very little changes had been made. If you get these details on Tuesday it should be possible to put the work in before Thursday."

The council leader added, "There is no way I can end today without acknowledging and thanking officers and staff for the amazing input and work involved in putting together this most difficult budget. In a time of change and uncertainty their commitment has been exceptional. In particular, finance staff who both individually and collectively have accepted increased responsibility and workload and risen to the occasions with distinction."

Have your say. Post a comment on this article.

Angry Bystander
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Feb 17, 14:08
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I suppose it's the need to save money that has led to a redesigning of the Council's logo. of course, when this is rolled out and made official the cnages on all the leaflets, headed paper, signs, software etc will cost nothing! Clearly a message regarding priorities, with one priority being the need for the Leitch to make a name for herself.

And with regard to efficiencies aimed at saving money, how can it be efficient that one of the Council's biggest components, its Housing Services (and by this I mean the assets, customers and staff involved) will be split between up to 4 different services - that'll save money and make ease of service access so much easier, won't it?!

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Angry Bystander
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Feb 17, 14:14
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I suppose it's the need to save money that has led to a redesigning of the Council's logo. of course, when this is rolled out and made official the cnages on all the leaflets, headed paper, signs, software etc will cost nothing! Clearly a message regarding priorities, with one priority being the need for the Leitch to make a name for herself.

And with regard to efficiencies aimed at saving money, how can it be efficient that one of the Council's biggest components, its Housing Services (and by this I mean the assets, customers and staff involved) will be split between up to 4 different services - that'll save money and make ease of service access so much easier, won't it?!

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******
Feb 17, 14:43
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council tax payer
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Feb 17, 14:43
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No doubt this Labour Administration shambles will have repercussions for many years to come, just like the wee bit bigger one in London but this one strikes a wee bit closer to home.

I am sure the Director of Social Work is a nice guy but yet another example of look after yer ain and nose in the trough. how can it ever be snctioned that his wife gets £ 1000's of council money as a Consultant when her husband is the epartment Boss. it defies logic and who in the corrupt administration is sanctioning this Consultancy spending. Do NOT say it is out of a budget, a budget is a sum of money paid by us the council tax payer and wasted on the wife of the director of the department. I think our local MP and MSP should be asking pertinent questions about this and see what else is uncovered if they dig deeper.

£9,000000 is a lot of noughts and that is what this corrupt Labour adminsitartion are - a lot of noughts completely out of their depth, local people only looking after their own expenses and vested interests like what freebies they can glean from their exalted position. Local Labour has been like this for years and will never change

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politicalposturing
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Feb 17, 15:15
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Chief executive Angela Leitch said, "We will be downsizing the authority and need to look carefully at how we organise our staff. "

I know which staff I'd be reorganising. Starting at the very, very top and moving down towards the incompentent self-interested councillors of ALL parties who are too busy fighting amnogst their own wee party politics to be bothered with the Clackmannanshire Council staff and the constituents that THEY were elected to serve!

From the Chief Exec's "Audience Development officers" to councillors "ma political party is better than yours is" - It's a mad world indeed!

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angela
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Feb 17, 21:17
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I think that this is all to do with the following.

1. New Chief Executive needs to get Single Statsus through ASAP

2. HR have taken longer to roll this out than 2nd WWorld War

3. Senior Management are all out of their depth

4. Staff budget is too high

5. Recession on right now

6. Budget not in placern7. Unions are not getting the support they need from Head Officers

Answer

1. Screw staff while rolling out Single Status - most will leave thus cuts the wage bill

2. fire all HOS this will stop them fighting their corner

3. slash the budgets

4. do this all at once so no-one can fight any single issuern5. get labour and SNP to fight with each other over theis while this is rolled out.

6. Make sure you are doing this wile Glasgow and Edinburgh are going through the same problems thus keeping the national press of your backs

Worse case senario - A few comments in the local press success!!

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omg
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Feb 17, 23:45
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council tax payer

The Standards watchdog Sir Christopher Kelly has said MPs must stop employing relatives if people are to be persuaded that expenses have been "cleaned up".

If it is good enough for MPs it is good enough for senior council officers.

This person is spending £350,000 or more on his "pet" project while council workers are being shown the door or loosing substantial amounts of money.

He is so sure of himself he did not even advertise for his wife's appointment. Try to find it (http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/)

If that were anyone else he would have been shown the same mercy as the head of finance was shown. Therefore, either they are colluding or someone is not telling the full story.

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Political Observer
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Feb 18, 00:03
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"If that were anyone else he would have been shown the same mercy as the head of finance was shown."

omg - i'd give decent odds on your comment being removed..... despite coverage in another local paper I think talk of that subject is largely off-limits on here for some reason. Why else would a MAJOR departure from the council receive so little coverage on here, despite being very much in the public interest to be fully reported. Cover-up.

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Political Observer
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Feb 18, 00:58
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I notice the proposed 'saving' of £1.2million from consolidating pay arrangements and recovering the advanced pay has not been included in the list of savings provided in the budget papers. This was the amount that was reported as a proposed 'saving' on 30/11/09 at the special council meeting. I wonder if it was realised that this wasn't an actual saving in budget terms.

I also note that the cost of single status over the 3 year period of implementation is shown to total £3.186M. I find it strange that in the budget papers last year for setting the 09/10 budget the cost of single status over the 3 years was budgeted to be £5.5M. Take from that what you will.

Last year-

http://www.clacksweb.org.uk/document/meeting/127/294/2827.pdf

This year-

http://www.clacksweb.org.uk/document/meeting/127/339/3114.pdf

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angwela
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Feb 18, 07:21
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Question

Council is shot of moneyrnAnswer

Screw staff through single status and slash all temporary posts

new question

What can we all do about this ??

Answers would be much appreciated

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Elsewhere
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Feb 18, 16:18
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May I ask why people are referencing stories from another local paper on the rival's website?

Neither the story about Grahame Blair's wife being employed by the council or the story about Muir Wilson (head of finance) resigning from the council were covered by the Advertiser.

Surely discussions surrounding stories should be done on the relevant publication's site?

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political posturing
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Feb 18, 16:46
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You have a right to report the comment "elsewhere" and it may be pulled if deemed unsuitable. It's really that simple.

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political observer
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Feb 18, 17:08
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elsewhere - the question you have to ask is why public interest stories have only found their way into one or other of the local publications. I think the coverage in the Advertiser has been really good on some of the recent issues however it is strange that a few high profile stories have been missed. The public have a right to know what is going on in any local authority and the newspapers reporting on issues saves people from having to negotiate published council reports or lodge freedom of information requests. There's meant to be a drive towards transparancy in government these days... I'm sure that is meant to apply to the Clacky bubble too.

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Jimmy Neebur
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Feb 19, 00:03
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Am a bit concerned aboot Alex Salmon's mob not gettin tae see the budget in enough time fur the meetin. We need openness and a budget that is open tae scrutiny so that aw the voters of the county are seen tae get fair representation and a say in how the cooncil is going tae move forward in these difficult times.

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political posturing
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Feb 19, 00:25
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Jimmy Neebur - What could the SNP have done if they had have seen the proposed budget cuts earlier? Rejig few figures in the budget and then put their figures in front of the council meeting as an ammendment. End of the day the COuncil still has a £9million hole in the budget. Money still has to be saved from somewhere.

The SNP Group in Clackmannanshire Council, just like the Labour Group, are more interested in playing party politics in the local media than actually trying to solve matters.

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Jimmy Neebur
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Feb 19, 02:21
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They might no have done much bit it still disnae mean that it's right that they didnae get tae see yon papers. Ye get tae that stage an ye may as well jist disband the council meetings and have the heid councillors and heid managers run it like a dictatorship. Naebody wants that surely?!? Ah dinnae have much faith in ony of them if am honest, except yon Holden as I like the way he shakes things up.

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political posturing
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Feb 19, 02:44
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"Ye get tae that stage an ye may as well jist disband the council meetings and have the heid councillors and heid managers run it like a dictatorship"

Ahhhh Jimmy! Now your get what's really being played out behind the scenes! What chance do the Clacks workers have in all this?

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Elsewhere
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Feb 19, 09:08
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Political posturing - Yep I understand that. But maybe it's because the Wee County has done a better job on finding out the information? Perhaps asked the right questions when the Advertiser failed to see a good story? Which is why I thought it should be discussed on the other publications website.

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political observer
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Feb 19, 12:13
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discussing it on here highlights the embarrassment of 'missing' a story that everyone and his dog knows about.

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Elsewhere
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Feb 19, 15:39
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Fair enough...

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WTF
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Feb 21, 22:21
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The said gentleman shouldn't have got the job if he was incapable of doing it with out bringing in a consultant. It just goes to show the higher you go the higher level of incompetance. What does our local MP say about this appointment. Heads should roll....jobs for the boys eh ?

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GB
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Feb 23, 17:32
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WTF

There is a model called the The Peter Principle is the principle that "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle so I guess that covers that then

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red
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Feb 23, 17:34
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This is what the government specify what our councillors should do

Longer-term planning • To what extent are we planning for services beyond 2010/11, taking full account of financial projections and other intelligence?

• How robust are plans to achieve the savings required to meet our priorities?

• To what extent do we have a clear plan for achieving the most appropriate size of workforce and skills needed to deliver our goals?

• To what extent do we have a clear plan for ensuring that expenditure and investment in our asset base achieves value for money and most appropriately supports the delivery of our goals?

Decision-making and prioritisation • How clear are we about the priorities of local people?

• How good is our information on performance and the costs of providing different levels and quality of services to assist us in setting priorities and taking decisions?

• What action are we taking to prioritise spending?

• How aware are we of the relative risks and rewards associated with our decisions, and how well placed are we to manage identified risks?

Outcomes • To what extent are we considering the impact of the recession on our service outcomes and our commitments in our Single Outcome Agreement?

• How are we comparing our service outcomes with others, for example by benchmarking?

• What evidence do we have that our service outcomes represent  best value?

Keeping informed • How well are we kept informed of the impact of the recession on our finances and service performance?

• How effectively are we monitoring and planning for changes in demand for services?

• Are our training and development needs fully addressed?

Working with others • How well are we working with our partners and/or neighbours to deal with pressures caused by the recession?

• Are we exploring all possible options for the delivery of local services?

• What quantifiable efficiencies or improvements are resulting from working with others?

I think someone in the government should explain this to our councillors

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Grace
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Mar 11, 18:54
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Hey Red ....

You don't expect Cadenheads cronies to understand all that do you??? Maybe if you got a local entrepeneur businissman to explain it to them they'd understand. better still, why not get the same bussinissman to take them to the recs and wine and dine them while he was explaining it to them!!!

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