£1m spent on 18 posts as Wolverhampton City Council jobs axe falls
Eighteen jobs are being created at Wolverhampton City Council at a cost of around £1 million – as a voluntary redundancy scheme for workers was extended by more than a year.
Council bosses have approved continuing the voluntary redundancy programme launched in 2010 as they try to cope with £60m of cuts they have to make over five years.
But they are to spend between £950,000 and £1.025m on salaries for 18 staff as part of an overhaul of back office systems.
The jobs include various experts on fixed term contracts, including computer specialists and a “business change manager”.
The council is using an outdated mainframe computer and needs to update its finance, human resources, payroll and procurement functions as well as IT equipment.
Councillor Paul Sweet told a cabinet meeting: “We need a structure to ensure we are equipped to meet the challenges of the coming months.
“It’s critical we have the right personnel in post at the right time.”
On the plans to extend voluntary redundancy he added: “It’s a sensible process and it has the support of the trade unions.
“It’s a pragmatic approach to the challenges we face.”
Since November 2010, there have been 635 people who have been made redundant from the authority, including 450 workers who departed under the voluntary redundancy scheme.
But hundreds more could go with the cuts coming between now and 2018, although bosses have refused to say how many.
There have been 130 workers who have taken voluntary redundancy in the current financial year, leading to redundancy payouts of £1.1m.
Individual redundancy pay will be capped at one and a half times someone’s annual salary, regardless of their length of service.
It means that it some cases it is well over a year before the council feels the benefit of the saving from letting someone go.
Comments for: "£1m spent on 18 posts as Wolverhampton City Council jobs axe falls"
Rob
"Since November 2010, there have been 635 people who have been made redundant from the authority"
And not one has been missed.
sports giant
They do doubt will be re-employing the ones made redundant, under a different job title and keeping their redundancy payments
Nigel Farcical
This is shocking news!
I can only see 5 posts in the picture, but even if there are 18 posts like that surely they shouldn't cost a million pounds. What a disgrace.
arrrrgh!
Are all the highly paid IT positions to help the Councillors and senior jobsworths use their new i-pads at a cost of £500+ each and £30/month each odd service costs? If people think supplying these dolts with expensive kit will make anything more efficient or save cash, you live in cloud cuckoo land; Its just another thread that they can spend our cash on for themselves; As i-pads etc are updated every year with a new one, you bet come April next year the current one's will be with their kids/grand-kids, as we fork out even more to 'upgrade' them; As paper doesn't break if you drop it, or rarely catches the eye of tea-leafs, how many will have to be replaced during each year? Also, once the precedent is set, you can bet the i-pads will trickle down the pay grades until even the receptionists at the Kremlin doors will demand them! So what starts as £12,000, plus another £6336.00 odd in online connections,plus how much for replacements during the year, upgrades every year etc etc; Then the hours and hours of tutorials at our cost of say £200.00 per user, that's another £2-4k; Why i-pads? There are plenty of good tablets on the market at a third of the price; Surely a generic model with the councils own computer system linked through the cloud is all they require; It will stop anyone using these for nefarious purposes, wouldn't it!
Robert
I am now completely convinced that the council is somply playing games with us. No one could now have any faith in their ability to run a council - they may stand a chance in a small fish and chip shop.
But to risk them with millions of pounds of taxpayers' money - ugh!!!