A blog about Wirral Council, Wirral Council's councillors & officers
A blog about Wirral Council's public meetings, Wirral Council's councillors, Bidston & St. James ward and other public bodies on Merseyside
Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee 14th November 2012
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Apologies for the first two items (declarations of interest and minutes) missing from the footage. Video starts part way through item 3 (a presentation about CIPRO).
Employment and Appointments Subcommittee 13th November 2012 Appointment of a Strategic Director (Families and Wellbeing)
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Present
Cllr Tom Harney (Lib Dem)
Cllr Simon Mountney (Conservative)
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Phil Davies, Chair (Labour)
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour)
Officers
Graham Burgess (Chief Executive)
Chris Hyams (Head of HR and OD)
Andrew Mossop (Committee Services Officer)
Unknown female officer
Press/public
Johnathan Swain of Penna PLC
John and Leonora Brace
Well the Employment and Appointments Subcommittee, part of the final process to select a strategic director (Families and Wellbeing) following the officer interviews today, was predictably short (well the public bit anyway). Jonathan Swain of recruitment consultants Penna PLC once again stayed for the exempt part of the meeting, even though as far as I know being a private sector employee working in the private sector would be classed as part of the “public” (unless they’ve temporarily made him an officer).
An opinion piece on staff cuts at Wirral Council and the current consultation.
OPINION BY JOHN BRACE: Well as promised at last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, Wirral Council has published its option papers for part two of the What Really Matters consultation.
As explained on the website the options are about 25% more than the savings required (so the consultation is really about the 25% of things Wirral Council does in the options the public would like to save). Despite stating on their website that the consultation lasts until January 31st 2013, some decisions will be have to be made at the special Cabinet meetings on December 20th 2012 to comply with legal requirements on consultation with the workforce.
There will be more unspecified “consultation events” and of course staff/trade union consultation too. What does this mean for staff working in service areas identified as a budget option? It means basically one of two things if you’re an employee in a service area that’s become an “option”:-
(a) you’ll could be lucky this year and end up in the 25% of options that aren’t cut, due to public/staff support in this current consultation or other reasons (but this doesn’t rule out your post being cut in future years),
(b) once the special Cabinet meeting (followed by the Employment and Appointments Committee) of 20th December 2012 meets your job could be at risk under the new (recently approved) less generous redundancy scheme
How many jobs will go at Wirral Council as a result of this? Well the law requires this kind of consultation for over twenty redundancies, the real figure partly depends on a bunch of decisions yet to be made, however if you add the predicted shortfall of £25.4 million next year to the current required in-year savings of £13.2 million, you get £38.6 million.
Obviously not all the £38.6 million will be staff’s salaries and some staff are directly employed by schools. These figures are based on full-time equivalents, as Wirral Council employs a lot of part-time workers, the real figures could be higher than this estimate.
However by my rough estimates it would be around 154 to 1,026 FT employees that will need to go to balance the books. With those types of numbers involved it won’t just the normal reasons people leave and there will have to be redundancies. The specifics of who, how many and which service areas has yet to be decided (apart from some Executive Team decisions on the current in year savings).
Employment and Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012
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The short Employment and Appointments Committee was held after the well-attended Cabinet meeting.
Report on Cabinet meeting of the 8th November 2012 Part 1 with video.
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Last night’s Cabinet meeting was so well attended, that the room venue had to change at the last-minute from the Council Chamber (capacity fifty) to the Civic Hall (capacity hundreds). Its usual venue of Committee Room 1 is being used for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections.
Unusually both the Civic Hall and the balcony were packed following a picket at 5pm outside Wallasey Town Hall.
In scenes that haven’t been seen at a Cabinet meeting since the Labour/Lib Dem Cabinet tried to close Wirral’s libraries (which led to the public inquiry led by Sue Charteris), the Labour Cabinet Members were booed on entering the Civic Hall. The first video (part of a longer playlist of the meeting) shows the first three items of the meeting, which are Declarations of Interest, Minutes and Workforce Change and Consultation and the report for this last item can be found on Wirral Council’s website.
There was a change to the original recommendation proposed and seconded by the Labour Group which was circulated to those at the meeting. This amendment (which was agreed) is below:
Proposed amendment
Agenda Item 10
12.1 a) 4. The potential impact on staff of the officer budget options including redundancy
b) Immediately suspend applications to the council’s existing employee enhanced Voluntary Severance Scheme
————————————————————————————————–
Revised recommendations (agreed)
12.1 That the Chief Executive is authorised to:
a) Open formal consultation with Trade Unions and staff under TULRCA (Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992) and as a matter of good practice on:
1. Changes to the council’s enhanced discretionary severance scheme policy under the Local Government (Early Termination of Employment) (Discretionary Compensation) (England and Wales) Regulations 2006.
2. Changes to the local conditions of service.
3. The terms upon which to implement the final stages of Job Evaluation, under the 1997 National joint agreement.
4. The potential impact on staff of the officer budget options including redundancy.
b) Immediately suspend of the council’s existing employee enhanced Voluntary Severance Scheme.
12.2 To recommend to the Employment and Appointments Committee that this report is considered and the Chief Executive is authorised to open consultation as outlined in Recommendation 12.1 (a) and that Recommendation 12 (b) is implemented.
The Chief Executive will report back on the progress of consultation the special budget Cabinet on 20 December 2012.
Below are links to the various videos of this Cabinet meeting.
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Part 1 Workforce Change and Consultation
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Part 2
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Part 3
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Part 4
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 8th November 2012 Playlist