Row breaks out over council’s redundancy plans

Labour describes the voluntary redundancy being offered at the West unitary as a ‘debacle’ while the council’s leader has called it ‘sensible forward planning’.

By Sarah Ward

Staff are being given the option to take redundancy, early retirement or reduce hours as the West unitary tries to reduce its outgoings. Nadia Lincoln image.

The two main parties on West Northamptonshire Council have become engaged in a battle of words following the decision to make redundancies to rescue this year’s budget.

The authority announced this week that it is offering a blanket voluntary redundancy to its staff, in a bid to cut costs. Early retirement packages and reduced hours are also options for staff at the authority, which according to its latest in year finance report is £3.81m over its £418m budget, after already spending the £10m contingency budget.

Yesterday the Labour group’s leader, Cllr Wendy Randall, said the out-of-the-blue announcement was a ‘shocking development in the council’s ongoing financial debacle that has the risk of reducing our already stretched services.’

Cllr Randall

She said:

“The Labour group and I are furious that it has had to come to asking staff to consider lowering their hours or taking money out of their pensions through flexible retirement after three years of the administration watching public money trickle away.

“Lots of our services are stretched as it is. Waiting times on phones can already be in upwards of 45 minutes, while case work for our social workers, revenue and benefit employees and our EHCP team continues to pile up. What we really cannot afford now is a largescale departure of essential workers.