S.Wales Evening Post - 26 January 2010
HUNDREDS of jobs are to go as Swansea Council seeks to close a major gap in its finances.
Council leader Chris Holley has admitted that the authority will be forced to impose compulsory redundancies on staff and revise plans to cut staff numbers.
Last February, the council announced it was to axe 500 jobs by 2012 — hoping the numbers would be made up of natural wastage and voluntary redundancy, avoiding compulsory redundancy.
However, with just 130 of those positions gone, and in the face of a £15 million gap in its budget, the council has been forced to adjust its target, with hundreds more of the 13,000 total workforce facing the axe.
Councillor Holley said: "That figure (500) is going to have to be extended now because of the cuts the Assembly Government and national government are making.
"We did start this process at the point where we are going to have to have 500 job losses.
"That is the minimum.
"I suspect it will be more than that.
"I would say probably hundreds on top of the 500."
Asked about whether there would be compulsory redundancies at the authority, Councillor Holley said: "It would be impossible for me to say no. I sincerely hope there will not be.
"We will work as best we can to avoid them."
Councillor Holley said it was wrong for trade union Unison to claim it had not been consulted. He said: "Officially, we started discussing it with them two years ago."
However Unison, which has local government members working in the authority, say there has been no contact over the latest development.
Mike Davies, from the Swansea branch of Unison, said: "We had a joint consultative committee meeting last week, and we made representations that we are seeking urgent discussions with the council.
"Of course, it is a concern because, whatever the result of the budget, it is not likely to be good news.
"However, we want to be informed exactly what the position of the council is going to be."
Mr Davies added that, while the authority has not told Unison how many job cuts it is considering, he believed it "is well above the 500 from last year."
He said: "I think they are probably going to have to look at compulsory redundancies now.”
