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Seven council bosses face axe (From York Press)
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Seven City of York Council bosses face axe
10:40am Wednesday 6th February 2013 in News
By Mark Stead, Political Reporter
SEVEN council bosses are facing the axe from the department in charge of York’s biggest transport and building projects.
City of York Council is set to shed the posts from its city and environmental services (CES) directorate to save more than £1 million over two years.
Officials say “radical change” is needed immediately to cut costs at the authority, which must save £20 million by 2014/15, but a union boss says she fears compulsory job losses.
The Labour cabinet this week announced plans to raise council tax by 1.9 per cent next year, increase parking charges, cut streetlighting and road-cleaning budgets and leave parks unlocked at night.
If the job changes are approved by cabinet next week, the number of assistant directors in CES will fall from three to two, and the number of “heads of service”, the next tier down, will be cut from 11 to five.
Assistant directors are among the authority’s most senior officers and are paid £68,413 a year.
The cuts overall would save £1.05 million by 2015, but unions are concerned the work left behind will put strain on other staff and fear further CES job losses.
The directorate has responsibility for developments including the community stadium scheme, the York Local Plan for York’s future development, the Access York transport project, bus services, air quality, road maintenance and rubbish collections.
The department must cut costs by £2.9 million over two years and there is “pressure to deliver the required savings earlier”, the cabinet will be told next week in a report by Coun Dave Merrett, cabinet member for transport, planning and sustainability, Coun David Levene, cabinet member for environmental services, and CES director Darren Richardson.
Their report says the directorate has already undergone three reviews in recent years and “radical change” is now needed. Talks have been taking place since November.
Council leader James Alexander said Government cuts were causing challenges for the council.
He said: “I recognise we need to do all we can to secure essential services. I would like to pay tribute to staff across the council who continue to maintain a high standard of work and commitment to our communities, despite ongoing financial challenges and uncertainty.”
The report said the job cuts were an “interim” measure to see the directorate through until the end of 2014/15, and the council wanted to minimise the impact on services and residents and avoid compulsory redundancies if possible.
Mr Richardson said staff were the council’s greatest asset and would be instrumental in delivering the council’s priorities. He said: “Greater investment in staff development at all levels and encouraging a less hierarchical, more innovative way of working will be vital.”
Heather McKenzie, Unison’s branch secretary and lead convenor at the council, said: “There is great concern about such a radical cut, and even with the council’s best attempts, it is hard to imagine how it can be done without compulsory redundancies, while there will be significant effects for staff further down.
“Shrinking the upper levels of the CES structure in this way is bound to have an impact on lower-graded employees, where we also fear a reduction in posts.
“We will continue to work with the council to make sure the roles which remain can carry out the work.”
Comments(21)
Keeet Lemon
says...
11:45am Wed 6 Feb 13
YorkyBoy
says...
11:46am Wed 6 Feb 13
ReginaldBiscuit
says...
12:04pm Wed 6 Feb 13
Will they be publicly executed in Parliament Street? Will it be public viewing? Goody!
One of the problems chopping senior people is that if they choose to take retirement and some will, they still receive whacking great pensions which means they're effectively still being paid. I won't moan about this as the whole public sector pensions thing isn't sustainable.
The UK is the most indebted country in the world. The aggregate indebtedness of the UK - that's the sum of household debts, company debts, government debts and bank debts - had risen to over 500% of GDP, or over five times the value of everything we produce in a single year.
In short, the bubble will burst. How it affects all of us depends on how fast it happens. Loss of the coveted triple A rating will be the start. The writing is on the wall anyway because the Bank of England has already been placed on negative watch. Make no mistake, they UK is going for a Burton. Essentially what all this means is that pension funds won't be able to pay pensions at the appropriate rates and many more chiefs in the public sector will be publicly decapitated in their own Parliament Streets.
Jackanory2
says...
12:30pm Wed 6 Feb 13
bob the builder
says...
1:24pm Wed 6 Feb 13
meme
says...
2:31pm Wed 6 Feb 13
What on earth is going on here?
Plus if we have to save £20M by 2014/15 why did we borrow £20m to fund a living wage?
Perhaps I am mad and am missing the point or perhaps i am stating the bleeding obvious!
Paul2012
says...
3:17pm Wed 6 Feb 13
com/SayNoToTheGreenB
inIncreasedTax
Get Alexander OUT!!
Micklegate
says...
4:01pm Wed 6 Feb 13
R'Marcus
says...
4:04pm Wed 6 Feb 13
There are far too many "fat cats" in the council, as we all know.
johnwill
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4:21pm Wed 6 Feb 13
Sillybillies
says...
4:42pm Wed 6 Feb 13
truthseeker2
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8:27pm Wed 6 Feb 13
Silver
says...
8:48pm Wed 6 Feb 13
pedalling paul
says...
10:19pm Wed 6 Feb 13
johnwill wrote:If you choose to travel by bus after the A59 bus priority scheme is finished, your journey time will have artificially been made very competitive compared with the private car. The bus lanes to nowhere that you refer to are for queue relocation, and will operate similarly to those on the inbound side of Hull Road. Hence more uptake of bus travel and fewer single occupancy cars wasting our finite road capacity.
Just drive around York and see the millions wasted on useless unneeded highway schemes. Fulford Road into York half hearted bus lane waste of money and dangerous. Boroughbridge Road bus lane to nowhere happening now. Further down Holgate plenty of contractors machines on hire doing what? £20 million can easily be saved by cutting out waste and ill thought out schemes but I bet the first to go will be the brilliant street cleaner who walks through Leeman Road with a bin bag at 7.30 . Are Councillors business minded enough to run Cities? NO
Omega Point
says...
10:44pm Wed 6 Feb 13
Micklegate wrote:And why guess that then? Do you know these people, their qualifications, wether they have worked in private and public sectors?
I wonder how many of the assistant directors could get their £68,000 salary + pension in the private sector! I guess roughly 0
Just a stupid comment based on prejudice and ignorance
dweezil
says...
2:18am Thu 7 Feb 13
anistasia
says...
8:34am Thu 7 Feb 13
meme
says...
9:17am Thu 7 Feb 13
I thought there wass one boss and others worked under him/her?
anistasia
says...
9:19am Thu 7 Feb 13
Scarlet Pimpernel
says...
10:52am Thu 7 Feb 13
The ones who deal with housing strategy and development are not needed as no houses get built while these guys are stitching up the policy decisions.
Listening to Housing Director, Steve Waddington on Radio York this morning tells us why - he hasn't got a clue what he's talking about. He says the council hopes that York will see 5,000 houses built in the next 5-7 years - not a chance ! He should put his job on the line, and agree to leave if they don't. Better still he should just go now and save us another £68,000 - £88,000/yr !
capt spaulding says...
11:22am Wed 6 Feb 13