STAFF have been told not to listen to rumours as Worcestershire County Council prepares to cut around 100 jobs.
The authority is planning to make the lay-offs as part of a major transformation programme aimed at saving up to £8.6 million a year.
At a cabinet meeting on Thursday (May 21), Councillor Karen May said: “I’m very fearful that many people will be watching this thinking ‘what’s my future is as an officer of Worcestershire County Council?’
CABINET: Deputy leader Adam Kent, leader Matt Jenkins and monitoring officer Hazel Best in cabinet on Thursday (Image: Phil Wilkinson-Jones/LDRS)
“We absolutely need to make sure our workforce, who are our hardworking, front-facing individuals, are protected in all of this.
“We need to protect the people who have worked bloomin’ hard for this county for many years but particularly since Covid.
“I’ve just watched the expression on some of the officers in this room and I’m extremely concerned.”
Council leader Matt Jenkins said: “We know this transformation plan includes a threat to staff, to their jobs.
“We know from the limited time we’ve spoken to staff, they are aware of the situation.”
The council says it needs to make savings of between £35m and £40m this financial year. At Thursday’s meeting, Cllr Jenkins pledged to reduce the authority’s reliance on government help and said any council tax increases would be below five percent.
Cllr Tom Wells said: “We are a people-serving-people entity and they are our greatest resource.
“Members of staff will be watching because their lives, their mortgages are dependent on the decisions we are about to make.
“How are we going to engage with staff so they are properly briefed rather than let the gossip machine drip?”
Chief executive Paul Robinson said: “We did it yesterday. We were very keen that before it appeared in the papers staff knew what was happening.
“Within the report there is no specifics against individual posts at this point.”
He said the council will be “fully transparent at all points”.
Mr Robinson said the “process needs to be about integrity”.
“We are all adults. People are not foolish. They know if we’ve got £60m being spent every year more than we’ve got in income, at some point there are going to have to be reductions in what we do.
“To pretend anything other than that would be nonsense.”
The chief exec said he has told staff: “Don’t listen to the rumour mill”.
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He added: “For the vast majority of people, this will be a change to the way in which you work, not whether you work.
“Yes there will be some areas where we have to make actual reductions in number but we might do that through natural wastage, through retirement, through people leaving for other jobs and we can move things around.
“We will be smaller but it doesn’t necessarily mean redundancy. We need to be clear who is affected and who isn’t because you don’t want the whole workforce in anxiety.”
