TOWN Hall chiefs at Warrington have moved to reassure council employees they will be fully involved in any cost-saving changes the authority is planning.
The leader and deputy leader of the council, Ian Marks and Keith Bland, say the town faces a “tough reality” and the council has to change the way it does things.
They say: “We know change brings uncertainty but we want to reassure council employees that we will keep them fully involved and will give them every support through this process.”
Coun Marks and Coun Bland (pictured) have issued a statement in reply to criticism from the main unions representing council workers, Unison and GMB, who have accused the council of “an irresponsible and ideologically driven attack on local jobs and local services.”
The unions claim around 100 job losses will be proposed on July 1 with more to follow.
Coun Marks and Coun Bland say in their statement: “We must put what we’re doing in Warrington in context.
“We all know that there will be £6.2bn in cuts because our national finances are in a real mess. It’s against this national backdrop that we’ve been doing everything possible in Warrington to see how we can do more with less – 
how we can continue to deliver high quality, value for money services but with a reduced budget. People understand that the public sector is not immune from the savings that are necessary.
“We have been going through a series of reviews of all our services, to make sure that we have the right people, with the right skills in place. Despite the difficulties, we are determined to provide outstanding services to our customers. All of this has been done in full consultation with our trade union colleagues and we are committed to take full account of our employees’ views as we reshape the organisation.
“So far a number of people have left the council voluntarily and a much smaller number have been made redundant. We are committed to minimising the number of redundancies through seeking alternative employment opportunities wherever we can. Speculation about numbers is often wildly wide of the mark and rarely helpful to the debate.
“But we have to face a tough reality, and Warrington is not alone in this. Other councils face just the same pressures. We will have to change how we do things and we are exploring options for new ways of working. This may mean trading some of our services, or sharing resources with other authorities. It may mean outsourcing where appropriate. But at the forefront of our minds at all times will be how we can provide cost-effective services to our customers.
“We know change brings uncertainty but we want to reassure council employees that we will keep them fully involved and will give them every support through this process.”
Job cuts: staff will be fully involved
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
9 Comments
I suppose it would be hard not to fully involve staff when you’re sacking them…
The council could probably get rid of a third of their staff involved on ‘special projects’ and never even notice they’d gone. Less time spent on meaningless paper pushing and task groups that target a tiny minority of people in the borough and more time spent on providing good quality, value for money services and yes, I work for the council!
Front line staff and services and risk once again, invented job titles to justify meaningless and over paid jobs, here is a realistic idea, instead of job cuts, would it be wise for employees, Councillors and outside agency workers of the Council to take a wage decrease to reduce the burden of government funds and the community charge and hopefully to save jobs?
Yes I think a pay cut would be a good idea – not just for council staff but for everyone!
Deprived of a portion of their income, people would spend less so businesses would have to cut prices (and would be able to because they would be paying their employees less).
However, judging from the response in Greece and Spain, where pay cuts have been introduced already, the idea would not go down well with the public.
You couldn’t make it up. This is happening because of the £6.2 billion National cuts?
Our leaders at the Town Hall must have a crystal ball, because they were doing all this before the bubble burst.
They offered redundancies and allowed all the most experienced people to leave, which put pressure on their replacements to take on the work that the departees did, which then causes stress and sickness.
No one in the council has their fingers on the pulse, choas rules, and the Third Sector are taking the brunt of the cutbacks. The lunatics are definitely running the asylum.
“We have been going through a series of reviews of all our services, to make sure that we have the right people, with the right skills in place.”
Perhaps it would be more effective if they started the skills reviews from the top down instead of the bottom up! It would also make more financial sense as the loss of a handfull of the highest earners would enable the retention of a far higher number of those who actually do deliver our front line services!
I can understand the private/public secctor issues. I worked for the public sector briefly and am ashamed to be associated with them. There are so many earning wages to ‘push paper’ . Let’s hope that the new government will ask for transparency of wages of the senior directors Mrs Terris has appointed in Warrington. What were thieir credentials elsehwhere? Does anyone ask?
I too have worked in both private /public sectors and have found both to have staff who push paper, and are over paid for doing so, however the vast majority at the Council are professional and work very effeciently for the salaries they earn and do not deserve the insults they receive from the public.
Why does that picture of Ian Marks appear on everything bad happening in the town…he realy is the Grim Reaper!