Hundreds apply to leave city council
At least 400 employees have applied to leave Dundee City Council under a scheme designed to help meet the £40 million of cuts needed over the next three years — but the final number is almost certain to be higher.
- By Brian Allison, local government reporter
- Published in the Courier : 02.09.10
- Published online : 02.09.10 @ 06.42pm
The figures represent about 5% of the 7500 workforce and SNP administration leader Ken Guild said they were encouraging as a contribution towards the savings that had to be made.
The council is keen to avoid compulsory redundancies and the numbers applying to go voluntarily would help achieve that.
"I've consistently said we are opposed to compulsory redundancies and would only use them as a last resort," Mr Guild said. "As things stand at the moment we are not on track to have to use compulsory redundancy."
Unison branch secretary Rory Malone welcomed Mr Guild's comments and said the union would work with the council to stave off compulsory job losses.
The early retirement/voluntary redundancy scheme aims to cut the wage bill and the applications deadline expired on Wednesday. The scheme was to run until the end of July but the deadline was extended by a month.
Chief executive David Dorward said it would take time to collate the information about exactly how many people had applied but the figure at the end of July had been 400.
That did not necessarily mean all 400 would be leaving, he added, as an assessment would have to ensure it made financial sense for the council and would not affect service delivery.
No entitlement
"There is no entitlement to early retirement (or) redundancy and it may not be possible to approve all applications," Mr Dorward said.
"Approval will be subject to the retention of sufficient numbers of employees with the necessary skills to maintain an effective level of services to the citizens of Dundee and all decisions will also take account of the financial implications."
He said every application would be assessed individually to ensure those tests were met — and it will take time.
It may not be a case of giving applicants a simple yes or no answer to their request to leave as circumstances could dictate that it wasn't acceptable to let someone go in the short term but it might be possible further down the line.
Mr Dorward said he wanted everyone to be very clear that the financial problems facing the council were real and "in no way inflated."
He said the exact position would not be known until nearer the end of this year when the governments at Westminster and Holyrood have made their spending decisions.
The figure of £40 million in Dundee — starting with £20 million of cuts in the next financial year alone — was the council's best estimate on the basis of the information available at the moment.
That could change in light of central government decisions but, if it did, Mr Dorward said he believed it would only be for the worse as far as councils were concerned, with local government having to find even greater savings.
11.42pm - 02.09.2010 K M Smith - Våler i Østfold. , Norway Report This
Assuming that those people seeking early retirement will be an additional cost to the Local Government Superanuation Scheme, I am curious about the effect such a massive influx will have i any on theschemes ability to continue to fund the pension levels of existing LG Pensioners.
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