Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director of Resources

Further to Minute 58/16, the Committee considered a report of the Executive Director of Resources which sought the necessary approval for exit packages through the 2016/17 Early Retirement /Voluntary Redundancy (ER/VR) programme. As previously requested by the Committee, the report referred to all exit packages in the programme where the benefits payable to the employee and the costs to the Council exceeded £100,000. The report also referred to the request that the total costs of agreed exits under the current programme be reported on.

With the agreement of the Chair, Councillor Bains, the report had been circulated as urgent business, the reason for urgency being the need to agree exit packages through the ER/VR programme at the earliest opportunity and, in particular, before the end of the financial year, noting that the next meeting of the Committee was not scheduled to take place until April, 2017. There was also a corresponding private report detailing the confidential aspects of the programme.

The report indicated in the last six years the Council had had its government funding cut by more than £95m and further savings rising to an additional £36m by 2020 were required. The workforce was by far the biggest area of Council spend therefore in November, 2016 the Council launched the sixth round of ER/VR since 2010. Applications were invited across the Council and all staff were eligible to apply. The scheme closed on 31 January, 2017. All applications had been considered by Directorate Management Teams and approved by the respective Executive Directors. Managers were asked to consider the deletion of posts where there were anticipated service redesign/ transformation projects or service remodelling that would seek to reduce the number of posts required in the future. Where there were multiple applications from a particular service area, the criteria set out in the Security of Employment was adopted. All applications were moderated by a panel of representatives from the Corporate Leadership Team. In total 307 applications were made of which 83 were approved and 224 were refused.

The exit packages took into account the costs to the local authority as well as payments/benefits to employees. This meant that the pension strain costs were added to the redundancy cost for the total cost of severance. Appendix one to the report detailed the costs and savings of the agreed applications below the £100,000 threshold. Further information on the exit packages over £100,000 was included in a second appendix attached to the private report. These total exit payments amounted to were £1,191,148. 

The Committee noted that the deletions of the listed reports would realise savings of around £2,215,000 ongoing which would contribute an overall savings target to the Council. Also the deletion of posts would support current service redesign and transformation programmes where it was already anticipated that the posts would be deleted.

Reference was made to the consultation undertaken with the Trade Unions. 

The Committee discussed the impact on individual employees of having their applications for ER/VR continually rejected. Members also asked about having a breakdown between redundancy and pension costs. 

RESOLVED that:

1.  The anticipated cost and savings of the agreed ER/VR applications below the £100,000 threshold, as set out in Appendix 1, be noted.

2.  Subject to consideration of the private report detailed in Minute 74 below, the exit payments set out in Appendix 2 to the private report be agreed in principle.

3.  Future reports on the Early Retirement Voluntary Redundancy Programme to provide breakdowns of redundancy and pension costs.