News / Councillor airs disquiet over staff pay-offs
A SHETLAND councillor claims the local authority is guilty of a “complete waste” of public money by handing “substantial” pay-offs to social care staff and then re-hiring them.
North Mainland member Andrea Manson made the remarks following Tuesday’s audit committee meeting, suggesting Shetland Islands Council had been too hasty in laying off staff to save money in recent times.
Community health and social care director Simon Bokor-Ingram said that, of 74 staff given either early retirement or voluntary redundancy, 15 were now working within the service on “temporary relief” contracts with no guaranteed hours, while one individual had been re-employed on a part-time contract.
But Manson told BBC Radio Shetland she wanted to know how much the council had paid out to departed staff, before several returned to work for the local authority.
She said: “There was perhaps too many paid off at the time we did the cuts in the care sector – there was people that left afterwards through natural wastage, through perhaps finding that the jobs were harder than they used to be because there were fewer of them to do it.
“And now we’re having to take some of them back who have already had substantial packages, and it’s just a complete waste of council money.
“Perhaps the cuts were a little bit too savage, and maybe a kneejerk reaction to the council’s need to save money, and maybe it wasn’t just thought through properly.
“But the bad management – that would roll over beyond the managers into the council, because we [elected members] actually approved the cuts.”
Bokor-Ingram said he did not wish to get into a public dispute with councillor Manson, but said that last year the council had no alternative but to reduce staff numbers due to budget overspending.
He said those employed as temporary relief were on contracts “where we can give no hours or as little hours as we need” in order to cover gaps in rotas.
“In order to meet the budget envelope, we needed to make savings on non-pay and pay, so we needed to look at our staffing numbers,” Bokor-Ingram said.
“Seventy four staff went last year [a mixture of voluntary redundancy and early retirement], and out of those 74 people who left, 15 people are working in the service on temporary relief contracts.
“We’ve only got one person who has been employed on a permanent basis out of that 74, and that’s somebody on a part-time contract.”
Trade unions have previously expressed concern about the prospect of remaining staff facing heavier workloads once the workforce was cut.
Bokor-Ingram said the SIC remained committed to working with the unions and addressing any concerns.
“If there are any concerns in particular areas they raise those,” he said. “Staffing levels in our care centres were agreed with the care inspectorate, so we’re fully compliant with the levels of staffing that we need to have.”
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