'Badly hit' Manchester City Council puts 2,000 jobs at risk

Published by Ross Macmillan for 24dash.com in Local Government and also in Communities

Around 2,000 jobs are at risk at Manchester City Council, it was announced today.

The authority said it has been "badly hit" by Government cuts and needs to reduce costs by 8.9% this year.

Officials are expected to unveil a new severance package to encourage workers to take voluntary redundancy.

The council said it will need to see its workforce reduce quickly and by about 2,000 staff - around 17% of the workforce.

Sir Richard Leese, leader of the Labour-controlled authority, said: "The unfairness of the Government's financial grant settlement for Manchester, one of the five worst in the country, has been widely reported.

"We now have to find £110m in savings next year - £60m more than expected - because of front-loading and the re-distribution of money from Manchester to more affluent areas.

"The accelerated cuts mean we can no longer achieve the staffing reductions we have been forced into through natural turnover which is why we are proposing a time-limited offer of voluntary severance and voluntary early retirement.

"At the same time we will continue to invest through our 'M People' employee programme to improve the skills and the productivity of the majority of our staff who will stay with us."

The Council said it plans to honour a pledge to avoid compulsory redundancies.

The up-front cost to the Council of the new severance package, which is subject to approval by the Council's executive on January 19, is likely to be in the region of £60m - but it will generate an annual saving of £70m.

Unite raised the threat of industrial action to fight the planned jobs cull.

Regional officer Keith Hutson said: "Our members are outraged. This is the clear result of the coalition's austerity measures and cutbacks to local government funding announced before Christmas. It will have a devastating effect on services and the people that use them.

"Unite will campaign to reverse these savage cuts, which will hit some of the most vulnerable in society, but these cuts won't impact on the bonus-riddled City elite that caused the financial crisis in the first place.

"Unite members will be considering a consultative ballot for industrial action to stop these cuts to a hard-working and dedicated workforce, providing important services to the community."

Unite's national officer Peter Allenson said: "What is happening in Manchester is being replicated across the country. The tally for job losses in local government will run into tens of thousands.

"As a result, vital public services that people have taken for granted for the past 50 years will either disappear or exist only in a skeletal form, and probably run by profiteering private companies."

Shadow local government secretary Caroline Flint said: "Councils are working hard to find savings by cutting top salaries and merging backroom functions and services with neighbouring local authorities, where it provides value for money.

"But the breakneck speed and size of the Tory-led Government's reckless front-loaded cuts to councils will hit local jobs, economic growth and the vital frontline services people rely on.

"These cuts are the Tory Government's cuts - and communities up and down the country are paying the price."

A spokesman for the Communities and Local Government Department said: "The Government has delivered a tough but fair settlement ensuring the most vulnerable communities were protected. If councils share back-office services, join forces to procure, cut out the non-jobs and root out the over-spends, then they can protect frontline services.

"Driving down the nation's deficit is the Government's biggest priority but we have made sure that extra money, powers and funding freedoms are available to protect frontline services and the public from council tax rises, offering real help to hard working families and pensioners.

"The settlement is fair between different parts of the country - north and south, rural and urban, metropolitan and shire. In calculating the settlement, ministers have ensured that formula grant funding per head is higher in those parts of the country with the highest level of need.

"In 2011/12 Manchester will still receive a central government grant of £713 per head, compared, for example, to £125 per head in Wokingham."

North West TUC Regional Secretary Alan Manning said; "This is yet another hammer blow to the region's economy and a real kick in the teeth to the council's loyal workforce and their families.

"The City Council has been the engine for Manchester's regeneration since the IRA bomb attack and has played a crucial role in bringing together both public and private sectors to boost the North West's economy.

"That work will inevitably now be badly affected by the loss of 2,000 staff.

"It is particularly offensive for the coalition Government to talk about 'non jobs' when decent, loyal and hardworking council staff are paying the price for a bankers' recession.

"It now takes the toll of job losses in town halls in the North West to 17,000 - but we fear that is just the tip of the iceberg. Putting people out of work is not going to grow our economy."

Unison laid the blame for the "tragic loss" of 2,000 jobs at the door of the Government, saying it was "shocked" by the targeting of such a deprived area, and warned that the impact of job losses on services and the local economy will be "devastating."

General secretary Dave Prentis, said: "The shockwaves of 2,000 job losses will spread across the City of Manchester and beyond. It is a tragic loss to workers who will have to break the news to their families that they are losing their jobs. It is also a bitter blow to communities who will lose services they rely on and will hit local businesses and trade.

"The Government's cuts have been targeted at some of the most deprived areas in the country and Manchester is clearly in the firing line. The council had been working with Unison to try to lessen the impact of budget cuts, but the local government finance settlement in December, was the final straw. It was the toughest in living memory and has forced the council into front-loading the cuts.

"We will continue to work with the council but the people of Manchester face the grim reality of longer dole queues."

The GMB said a total of 113,765 jobs were now under threat at 145 councils across Britain, with almost all of the authorities involved in a 90-day statutory consultation period with unions and staff on how to deal with the cuts.

General secretary Paul Kenny said: "The announcement by Manchester City Council of 2,000 job losses as a direct result of the cuts announced by the coalition Government is proof that the job losses that the GMB have been reporting in councils across Britain are real. They impact on real workers and impact on the services delivered to the most vulnerable members of our society.

"It has been frankly ludicrous to find Government ministers issuing statements accusing the GMB of scaremongering when we release the details of the number of jobs under threat in the pipeline.

"There are 113,765 jobs under threat at 145 authorities and councils. If the ministers persist in saying that these are not real job losses, then the public should conclude that they do not know what they are doing and are out of touch or simply don't care.

"This is the week when it became clear that the Government are going to do absolutely nothing to curb the greed and excessive pay of the bankers who caused this recession. Instead the coalition attacks the jobs and pay and conditions of the relatively low-paid workers who keep this country going. So what we have is another broken promise."

Local Government minister Grant Shapps said: "Labour hypocrisy on this issue is breathtaking. They admit there need to be cuts but can't say where they would fall. Ed Miliband needs to go back to his blank piece of paper and come back with a plan.

"We have been quite clear that if councils cut chief executive pay, join back office services, join forces to procure and cut out the crazy non jobs, they can protect frontline services. Yet Manchester has a chief executive on a pay packet of nearly £100,000 more than the Prime Minister, who won't lead from the front and take a pay cut, and a twitter tsar on nearly £40,000.

"It's equally disappointing that the council has so far failed to put all expenditure over £500 online so it can be exposed to full public scrutiny."

Margaret Eaton, chairman of the Local Government Association, said: "Local councils knew the cuts were coming and had planned prudently to reduce spending over the coming years. We cut more than £1 billion from our budgets in the middle of last year, rolled up our sleeves and got on with the job.

"But the unexpected severity of the cuts that will have to be made this year will put many councils in an unprecedented and difficult position. We have been clear that the level of spending reduction that councils are going to have to make goes way beyond anything that conventional efficiency drives, such as shared services, can achieve.

"No council cuts jobs lightly, but many are being left with no choice. Some jobs will go in natural wastage, not filling vacancies and voluntary redundancy, however, we cannot escape the fact that some losses will be frontline posts that, given a choice, councils would not want to see go. These are the tough choices we are going to have to make.

"Local government will have to make cuts this year of around £2 billion more than we originally anticipated. This stifles the opportunities for innovation and means some town halls will have to cut more this year than they first thought."