03 January 2006
NCC Budget Cuts 2006-2008
Some of you may have seen the 2 reports about potential budget cuts in the Nottingham Evening Post on 30th December 2005: County Hall Jobs to be axed and Hundreds of jobs to go. The Branch has asked all Convenors to meet with their departments to discuss the possible impacts of the cuts. We will keep you informed of developments. For reports from Convenors, click on "comments" below.
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The Joint Environment Convenors met with Environment Dept Management yesterday afternoon. They indicated that we can expect:
"Cuts of 25 posts plus cuts to passenger transport services. Posts will mainly be in white collar support services and includes Senior Mgt level"
This is subject to confirmation by the Portfolio holder. We will find out more details at the Department's JCNP meeting on 18th Jan.
As the department with the DSOs (building, catering, cleaning, and landscape), our blue collar members usually face cuts later in the year as schools try to balance their reduced budgets.
Culture and Community Department:
I spoke to the Dept management yesterday. Nothing specific yet to report.
A members reference group is being set up to look at what the department needs/wants to keep and they should be able to report back by the end of January.
Regeneration is set to lose 45% of its budget over the next two years, so there will be some tough decisions being made at the end of January beginning of February.
Denise Smith
UNISON Convenor, Culture & Community
The Environment portfolio holder has now given her approval of the proposed cuts for the Environment budget. So, here's the bad news:
“Pressures”
• Been given extra £1m for increased waste charges but facing increased highways mtce costs due to increased cost of bitumen based products (increase in price of oil) and higher insurance premiums.
• Overall facing increased costs of approx £1.1m
• Also facing target budget reduction of approx £600k through merger etc
• Total cuts = £1.7m for 06/07
• “Under spends”? None available to use to offset cuts in Envt Dept.
Support services
• Will be targeting support services as Cllrs have said want to protect frontline services to public. So facing 10 to 11% cuts, mainly in Res & Dev division but also Prop Div where losing AD post.
• These support services will be at absolute minimum and cannot be cut further if anyone comes looking for more cuts.
• Cuts in: Customer Care, Energy Mgt, LTP, Conservation, Transportation and Waste = approx £200k
Passenger Transport
• Efficiency in Passenger Transport by lowering quality thresholds and merging services = approx £250k
• Reprioritising work etc = approx £350k
• Passenger Transport = approx £550k (biggest cut, approx 10% of their provision)
• Cutting 12 home to school transports where they are under the statutory distance, will affect about 500 pupils in Arnold, Sutton, Huthwaite and West Bridgford.
• 10 bus services to go plus approx 20 to have reduced services (i.e. evenings and weekends)
Highways
• Highways – cyclical mtce cannot be cut further (still at 1991 level of spending) so protected as far as can be bearing in mind pressures.
• “Good news”: Capital spending of £16m (£4m pa for 4 years) on highways backlog and enhancements of unclassified roads and footpaths etc, plus £10m LTP money gives £14m to spend next year, plus £4 from Building Better Communities for one off projects.
Posts
• 25 posts affected in total, all white collar, from approx 800 white collar posts.
• 10 currently vacant but were planning to fill them.
• Once 25 posts identified, will follow the usual process. Details will be brought to JCNP on 18th Jan.
ESC Implications
Management in ESC have indicated that we face cuts of about £106,000.
Management indicate that they have identified where the majority of this will come from without any need to consider staffing levels on the teams. They do not expect that any staff on the operational teams will have to be displaced as a result of this situation.
Maggie Pilmore, Resources Convenor
SOCIAL SERVICES
Report back from information meeting with Director on 10 January attended by Doug Walker and Lorraine Poundal, Joint UNISON Convenors, GMB and T&G.
The context they say is a “hard 2 year public sector recession”.
With the County Council proposing to make £21 million cuts, Social Services in “real” terms having a 2% increase in funding (£6.5m) but “service pressures” of £13.9. Social Services intend to cut £7.4m in 2006/7 and £9.1m in 2007/8. County Council intends to set council tax at between 4-5% to set above would risk Government threats of intervention and cap.
We were then told the savings would be of 3 types: Modernisation, Efficiency, Service Reduction – the latter we were told may not be needed (see if you think services will be reduced!)
The detail:
>> Continue reduction of number of older people in residential care – (no specific detail about future security of the majority of the Elderly Persons Homes – told no immediate threat.)
>> Homecare to be provided by Social Services directly for first 6/8 weeks only. Over 2/3 years reducing from 13,000 hours to 6,000 hours. Lose up to 380 staff over 3 years. “Hope to minimise redundancies.”
>> Introduce charges for services for people with learning disabilities for services which have been provided free of charge for 40 years.
>> “Remodel” respite care for disabled children (notice given that health are intending to withdraw finance from Big House, Edwinstowe.)
>> cut administration, finance and personnel costs by reducing posts and restructuring staffing. Reduce accommodation budget.
>> By staffing cuts and re-structuring, staff cut £350k from each of adult commissioning and children’s commissioning services, as well as dis-establishing children’s peripatetic teams.
>> Meal service to accelerate more towards frozen food (80% frozen) with job losses
>> Arising from the councillors “Value for Money Group” care homes to have no inflation uplift until October 2006
>> Revised Learning Disability Management Structure and scrapping of Project Manager post
>> Close another children’s home
>> Cease currently planned office accommodation work at Queens Buildings
>> Central procurement to spend £400k less
>> Cancel contract for private providers to act as personal advisors for care leavers
>> Various (as yet unspecified) “efficiency savings” from Supported Employment and other Direct Services
>> Savings from family centres through the introduction of new children’s centres – only detail currently that Education Department are “leading on developments” and a £200k cut is expected over 2 years
>> The “Service Reduction” which they are hopeful they can avoid by prioritising and raising charges completes the outline of proposed cuts, which will go before the Council on 23 February at County Hall
We will be arranging member meetings in the coming month and hearing what our membership is saying. Don’t forget with the prospect of redundancies the County Council are currently attempting to impose drastic cuts in redundancy payments. It appears sensible to take the view that as we know services direct, commissioning and support, are already desperately overstretched each of these cuts will mean a service reduction. Each of the cuts will mean either job losses and redundancy and/or those remaining expected to do more work for less generous terms of employment. Please attend meetings and make your view known.
DOUG WALKER
Joint Social Services Convenor
Staff in the Regeneration Division of Culture and Community Department received a briefing dated 13th January.
What follows are extracts from the briefing that indicate the level of threat to our members. As previously reported, they are facing cuts of 45% over 2 years.
Staff have been told that the budget and MTFS decisions were reached by Cabinet at the conclusion of a politically driven process during the autumn. The final proposals took shape during discussions in Cabinet and Labour Group during December and were only confirmed just before Christmas.
Management are indicating that the impact on the Regeneration Portfolio budget has been particularly severe because of the “non-statutory discretionary nature” of their economic regeneration work, the level of the County Council’s expenditure on this work being higher than other similar Councils, according to national statistics, and concern that their work “duplicates that of other partners in this arena”.
They are proposing to review the budget in two phases:
Budget: Members consideration of where in the Regeneration Portfolio budget savings should be achieved, the future priorities for the Portfolio and the future allocation of the reduced budget to those priorities. This will be undertaken by a Member Reference Group chaired by the Leader and including Cllrs Bosnjak, Carter and Winterton.
Divisional structure: Management consideration of the organisational structure necessary to deliver the revised budget and priorities
The first phase will be the subject of at least two Member Reference Group meetings. The first will be held on 19th January and the second on 14th February. During this phase, information submitted to the Member Reference Group and regarding the decisions the Group reaches will be shared with staff and service managers.
The second phase will follow on from the conclusion of the Member process. If the first phase member process concludes in mid February (i.e. Members do not decide to hold a further meeting), the review work for the second phase will take place over March and April. It will be undertaken in line with the Council’s usual approach to these matters. Namely, staff and service managers’ views will be sought as part of the review work and organisational design process. The Director will then form his proposals which will be subject to formal consultation with staff and the Trades Unions. This is likely to be concluded by the end of May.
The review of the organisational structure will cover the whole of Regeneration Division. It will also be undertaken bearing in mind the forthcoming structural changes in the Council as a whole.
It is envisaged that implementation of a new structure would then begin in June and July. Implementation will be undertaken under the broad umbrella of the Council’s Enabling Document. It will only be possible to set out further local detail of the specific process for Regeneration when the likely shape of the new Divisional structure, including numbers, types and grades of posts, becomes firmer during the Spring.
Corporate and departmental approaches to redundancy, re-deployment etc will run in parallel with the specific Regeneration Portfolio Budget and divisional structure review exercise. The outcomes of both processes will join together as structure proposals are finalised and implemented.
Denise Smith
UNISON Convenor, Culture & Community
Budget News from Chief Executive’s Dept
Management have advised that the proposals are:
>> Make one-off savings of £700,000 which arise from the delay in establishing the Contact Centre
>> Make permanent budget savings of £326,000
>> Meet a number of budget pressures to take on additional necessary work.
They have siad that although they will do their best to minimise the impact on staff, "this scale of reduction cannot be achieved without affecting staffing levels".
They estimate that the job cuts for the Chief Executive’s Department will be between 7 and 10 posts.
Management have indicated that the next stage will be to consider two things:
1. Where they intend to reduce work – this will then determine any posts that are ’at risk’ of redundancy.
2. Whether anyone in the Department wishes to volunteer to be considered for redundancy.
They intend to work in parallel on these things and will be inviting anyone who wishes to express an interest in redundancy to let them know. They will then get some idea of how easy it will be to re-shape the work of the Department.
Maggie Pilmore, Resources Convenor
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