Staff made redundant at Southampton City Council will now receive less money.

The council had offered compulsory and voluntary redundancy pay levels above the statutory minimum.

Councillors signed off on changes which were said to “improve the affordability” of restructuring the council.

Now staff will receive the statutory payment levels whatever the type of redundancy.

The rates are based on the employee’s age and the length of employment, with the latter capped at 20 years.

Statutory redundancy pay has a maximum threshold of £19,290.

Chris Bishop, acting head of human resources and organisational development, told members of the governance committee voluntary redundancy pay had been 1.25 times compulsory redundancy, which in itself was higher than statutory requirements.

The impact of the changes for employees depends on their grade in the council.

Those in more senior posts could see redundancy pay half from around £38,000 to £19,000.

Mr Bishop said no direct financial target had been set in relation to redundancies.

He said forecasting savings was not possible as it was dependent on how many people were being made redundant and who they were in terms of grade, salary, length of service and age.

Based on average redundancy costs the saving for a compulsory redundancy would be £1,150 and for a voluntary redundancy, it would be £3,088.

The officer was asked why a member of staff would take voluntary redundancy without an additional financial payment.

Mr Bishop said it would save them having to go through a selection process which was an incentive.

Discussing engagement with unions, he said: “I would say we are talking to the unions and will be increasingly so about a number of changes that we are proposing.

“They haven’t said ‘yes, we absolutely support this’, but neither have they fought against it and we have had conversations.

“They have acknowledged that if it was this or other changes that we might have to propose, then they prefer this. I think that’s as close as I can go to say they support this.”

A report to the governance committee said: “In light of the council’s financial situation, these changes will improve the affordability of transformation and will not have a detriment to the lowest-graded employees.”

The current redundancy rates or a smaller reduction in payment levels were described as “unaffordable”.

The adoption of statutory redundancy payment levels was approved by the governance committee.