Coventry City Council to axe 1,000 jobs in new cutbacks

About 1,000 jobs are to go at Coventry City Council in the latest round of sweeping cuts.



One-in-six posts will be axed as the authority prepares for an estimated budget cut of £60million by 2017.

Only a handful of posts in children’s services, and frontline jobs such as bin men and grave diggers, will be shielded from the cuts.

The move means the council, which currently employs about 6,000 people, will no longer be the city’s biggest employer – falling behind University Hospital, in Walsgrave, and the University of Warwick.

These job losses follow on from 1,000 posts already cut by the council since 2010 and, initially, the council will seek to make the cuts by offering voluntary redundancy and early retirement.

Despite many employees having been through similar procedures before, council officials are confident large numbers will take up the chance to leave voluntarily.

Officials believe redundancy money and pension pay-offs will provide strong incentives – especially as 700 people have turned 55 since the last round of cuts.

Chris West, the council’s finance officer, said: “We are set to lose £60million from central government by 2018 and we have to make savings – most of our money gets spent on staff costs.

“The most effective and humane way of doing this is to offer voluntary redundancy and early retirement.

“We have no choice. We will not just be making job cuts, we will also want to make services much more efficient and modern.”

A pot of £12.5million will be available for redundancy payments if the decision is rubber stamped, as expected, on August 5. But officials say the job cuts are expected to save roughly between £25million and £35million a year.

Employees will be given the chance to volunteer for redundancy from September 15. If the required savings are not made through staff leaving voluntarily, the authority will review the situation and could force people out.

Labour’s Coun Damian Gannon, cabinet member for finance, said: “Some of the decisions we take are going to be quite brutal and define the council going forward.

“We are going to have to make some tough decisions over the coming months about the services we deliver to Coventry residents.”

While Coun Gannon said the council would look to remove top level and management positions wherever possible, he dismissed any suggestion that the number of city councillors could be reduced from the existing 54 to save money.

He said: “We are not looking at reducing the number of councillors.

“I think it’s a big mistake to go down that route. It damages democratic accountability and makes it more difficult for people to contact the council.”

Officials believe redundancy money and pension pay-offs will provide strong incentives – especially as 700 people have turned 55 since the last round of cuts.

Since when could anybody afford to retire at 55?

The move means the council, which currently employs about 6,000 people, will no longer be the city’s biggest employer – falling behind University Hospital, in Walsgrave, and the University of Warwick.

They're next!

I wouldn't find it so offensive if they started any cull at the top.

Face it, how many managers do you actually need? How many managers actually do anything of value? And how many so called managers in this lumbering leviathan could actually hold down a job in the 'real world'?

I nominate the ar$ehole who introduced the new untested phone system (with no way of contacting a real person) just as the council tax bills went out, as being the first to go. - Minus pension!

Union vents fury at Coventry City Council's cost-cutting plan to shed 1,000 jobs



Union leaders say Coventry City Council’s plan to axe 1,000 jobs is “completely avoidable”.

As the Telegraph revealed on Saturday, the authority says it must cut one in six positions as it prepares for an estimated £60million cut in central government funding by 2017.

But Unison representative Dawn Palmer-Ward said yesterday the council should first look at the services it delivers, and if cuts could be made elsewhere, before shedding jobs.

She said: “I think the job losses are completely avoidable.

“The council has a job to balance the budget. What does the council exist for? It is to provide quality services to the people of Coventry - not just the most vulnerable.

“We would like to see the council tackling central government in terms of distribution of money, other authorities get far more money than Coventry.

“I am concerned that the services the people of Coventry have come to rely on, or don’t need yet, are not going to be there.”

Ms Palmer-Ward also said news of the cuts did not come as a complete surprise.

She said: “We are not shocked because we know what the financial situation is for the council.

“They are being put to death slowly cuts on finances. The numbers don’t add up.

“We think it’s sensible to ask for voluntary redundancies first but we don’t know if that will resolve the whole issue.

“But voluntary redundancy will give more services a chance to survive.”

Union leaders have met with council officials following the announcement and ongoing dialogue is scheduled. They added no industrial action is planned at the current time, but it remains a possibility.

The council is expected to rubber stamp the 1,000 redundancies on August 5. Employees would then be given the chance to volunteer for redundancy from September 15.

The unions are part of the problem, yet they are too blind and stupid to see it.