Council to cut £4m in staff costs
Nottingham City Council has agreed measures to save £4m over the next year by altering some employees’ terms and conditions. The council says the move will save 165 jobs.
However, the news has been met with an angry response from the GMB union, which has called the measures “draconian”. The union says it will hold a consultative ballot of more than 2,000 GMB members employed by Nottingham City Council over the decision.
The changes agreed at ACOS (Appointments and Conditions of Service Committee) meeting on 8 March included: removing competency based pay for all senior leadership level managers; introducing car park charging for council staff and councillors at council offices; and reducing the time that staff who are made redundant can spend on the council’s redeployment register from six months to three months.
The measures will all be implemented from April this year.
Nottingham City Council chief executive Jane Todd, told Insider: “The government’s cuts are reducing our budget by a third and we cannot make such savings without reducing staff numbers. But we have been determined to limit the number of people we have to make compulsorily redundant.’’
“To do that we have come up with these measures that will save £4m in next year’s budget and will continue to make savings for us in years to come.’’
“We hope that our staff and their union representatives will understand that, although these are difficult decisions, they are being implemented in order to minimise the number of people who will involuntarily lose their jobs. As a council we have been successful in recent years in creating local job and training opportunities and remain committed to doing so.’’
Chris Needham, GMB full-time officer, said: "The proposals are totally draconian and that effectively this will lead to severe hardship for all workers at NottinghamCityCouncil. Not only is there a two year pay freeze imposed through the failure of the local authorities to implement the £250 pay offer from the central government, which was announced by David Cameron, but there is also an intention to freeze incremental pay for 2 years from April 2011 onwards. As a result this will further reduce the spending power of all employees within Nottingham City Council."
