£4.5m redundancy payments at Walsall Council

Cash-strapped Walsall Council has paid out almost £4.5million in redundancy payouts to workers over the last 12 months.

A total of 230 former employees at the local authority received the cash - and they got over a million more than was given to staff in the previous year - despite fewer workers taking redundancy.

Most of those who have gone have taken voluntary redundancy but some workers were also shown the door through compulsory redundancy.

Figures show that five workers who have left the council received a package of more than £100,000.

Councillor Keith Chambers, portfolio holder for personnel and business support, said: "The council continues to pay redundancy for its employees on the same basis that it has previously done.

"Redundancy payments are always going to be variable year on year , that's the nature of any large organisation.

"Payments are based on an employee's average earnings over the last 12 weeks before they leave and their length of service and all payments are made in accordance with statutory guidelines."

Hundreds of staff working at local authorities across the West Midlands have left their posts in recent months as jobs are shed in a bid to save cash.

But as they have gone bosses have had to help pay for pensions and payouts.

As part of the council's plans to cut £21million last year it had been originally announced that 332 posts would go but bosses later scaled down the job losses after terminating the contracts of some temporary workers and finding other savings elsewhere.

There were 29 compulsory redundancies in the last financial year, compared to 33 in 2012/13.

There were a further 201 agreed departures which was fewer than the 246 the previous year.

In total the amount the authority spent on redundancy packages was £4.461m, up from £3.379m in 2012/2013.

New Walsall Council leader Sean Coughlan has already warned that the next round of cuts could be worse than first feared.

He claimed this could be the toughest year yet of savings and the the financial position is worse than lead to believe.

The council faces £85m of savings over four years.

A budget consultation for next year has been launched and people can comment at www.walsall.gov.uk/budgethaveyoursay.