Southampton City Council staff offered voluntary redundancy

All the council’s 4,500 workforce, excluding teachers, have been asked to consider voluntary redundancy as the Government prepares to announce savage funding cuts next week.

It is the first time Southampton City Council has pleaded with staff to sacrifice their posts to cut its wage bill, which totalled some £113m last year.

Unions fear that it is a move to soften up staff for a looming jobs cull to plug a £40m budget black hole over the next three years. More than 300 posts will be axed.

Fareham Borough Council has already asked all its 487 staff to consider voluntary redundancy to cut 42 posts and Hampshire County Council is encouraging certain employees to volunteer to leave to trim the authority’s £359m annual salary bill, excluding schools.

A letter circulated to Southampton staff suggests that they take voluntary redundancy, early retirement, unpaid leave or reduced hours.

Finance boss Councillor Jeremy Moulton said that the move would help the council to set its budget “more effectively”.

He insisted: “We don’t have a target. This will sit along the normal budget process.

“If we can match what people want to do with our business needs then it is a way of helping us to make savings.”

Cllr Moulton said that no extra pay-offs would be made.

Council leader Cllr Royston Smith said: “Each application will be considered on its merits but it is vital that we protect core services.

“Because of that, there will be some applications that we won’t accept because of the risk of damaging these key public services.”

Staff must put in requests by the end of October.

Unison branch secretary Mike Tucker said: “We believe that the Government should be adequately funding local services.

“Fewer employees cannot provide the same level of service to the people of Southamp-ton.

“The call for voluntary redundancies is a way is a way of conditioning staff to the idea that compulsory redundancies are imminent.

“They are raising false expectations among those older staff that may welcome redundancies but the council is less likely to make redundant because of the cost.”

Liberal Democrat group finance spokesman Cllr Steve Sollitt said: “Clearly there will be some staff that will want to take up some of these offers because they find their present work situation stressful or difficult to deal with.

“I would be concerned if it meant reductions in the services provide to residents.”

A Labour spokesman said: “This redundancyprogrammeis a blunt instrument that has nothing to do with efficiency and is all about cutting the wage bill.

“The Tory attitude has often been ‘everything must go’ but that’s now been extended to ‘everyone must go’.

“The Tories are in a big hurry to cut jobs, but after the redundancies are paid, it will take a lot longer for the savings to materialise.

“In the meantime, many experienced and skilled staff would be lost, along with the valuable services they provide to the city.”