Sandwell Council spends £2.8 million on redundancies
A Black Country council spent more than £2.8 million making staff redundant last year, it has been revealed.
A report revealed the amount was spent on redundancy costs and termination benefits.
Cash-strapped Sandwell Council has cut more than 1,000 jobs over the last five years.
A total of £2.88m was spent on ‘redundancy costs and termination benefits’ during 2016/17, documents showed.
Bosses said there had been no compulsory redundancies during that time – but that 87 people did leave. Most of the amount was spend on pension contributions, the council said.
The authority said it has been forced to trim staff numbers due to budget cuts from the Government, but the number of workers being taken off the books has come at a considerable cost.
Councillor Steve Eling, leader of Sandwell Council, said: “The council continues to reduce the size of our workforce in order to meet the ongoing challenges of the Government’s austerity programme.
“During 2016-17 there were no compulsory redundancies but the council was required to make payments totalling £2.88m in relation to 87 employees who left our employment.
“The majority of these were contractual payments to the West Midlands Pension Fund.”
Redundancy costs continue to be drain on council resources after it was revealed last year a massive £18m had been spent cutting jobs in Sandwell since 2012.
Councillor Eling has previously labelled the spiralling costs associated with redundancies as ‘madness’, blaming the Government for imposing large budget cuts.
