Cash-strapped councils fork out £70 million in redundancy payments
Cash-strapped councils across the Black Country and Staffordshire have spent more than £70 million on redundancy payments to staff in the last five years, new figures have revealed.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request shows that Staffordshire County Council has shelled out almost £30m in redundancy payments since 2010/11.
Dudley Council has paid over £21m, Wolverhampton Council spent more than £13m, while Walsall Council spent £5,947,094. Across the four authorities 5,391 staff were either made redundant or took voluntary redundancy.
Sandwell Council failed to respond to the FOI request despite being given 60 working days to do so.
The huge payouts have come at a time when the region's authorities are battling to meet swingeing cuts to central government grants.
Wolverhampton Council, which has seen its central government funding reduced by £120m over the last five years, paid 1,546 workers a total of £13,680,707.
The payouts included £6,742,427 in 2013/14 when 777 employees were either laid off or took voluntary redundancy. In 2011 one high level civil servant was paid £57,744, while in 2014 there were five payments made of more than £35,000, including one of £47,856.
The biggest payout came in 2014/15 when 777 employees left the council at a cost of £6,742,427.
Wolverhampton Council's staff has almost halved to 3,355 over the period.
The authority's finance chief, Councillor Andrew Johnson, said: "We have tried to make the council run efficiently. Our biggest cost is staffing, and those who have remained have effectively had a pay cut when you take inflation into account."
Staffordshire County Council has laid off 1,774 workers over the period at a cost of £29,537,431. The council has made more than £150m in savings since 2010. The highest payout to a single member of staff was £132,722 in 2012/13, while last year saw an individual payout of £100,685.
Deputy leader Ian Parry said: "The way we did things in the past has had to change in order to make local government more efficient."
Dudley Council paid out £21,334,000 to 1,447 departing staff members. The figure includes almost £8.5 million in redundancy payouts in 2010/11.
Walsall Council, which needs to find £80m of cuts by 2019, paid £5,947,094 to 624 staff who left the authority. They included a payment of £83,665 to one departing staff member in 2011/12.
Council leader Councillor Mike Bird said: "There will always be a slimming down of staff as a result of the council offering fewer services due to cuts
."
