City council's top staff must fight for new roles in cost-cutting drive
EVERY senior officer at a cash-strapped council will have to apply for their own jobs as part of a major shake-up.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council plans to save £1.3 million by getting rid of 14 of its most senior officials and axing two of its six directorates.
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John van der Laarschot
The restructure would leave the authority with two fewer directors, saving an estimated £246,000, and cut the number of heads of department from 31 to 19, to save almost £1.1 million a year.
It is part of a cost-cutting drive to save £30 million over the next two years.
But papers leaked to The Sentinel reveal that all 37 staff in the authority's top two salary bands would have to submit applications to keep their posts.
Council chief executive John van de Laarschot, who will not be affected by the management purge, told staff in a memo: "All staff at tiers one and two will be required to complete a job skills and competency template and an online personality profile.
"These will be forwarded by human resources during the first and second weeks of September.
"Meetings with the human resources committee are scheduled in September to assess them and to confirm placed appointments."
But Mr van de Laarschot said where more than one officer had applied for the same post, the candidates will have to go through a full interview process to fill the vacancy.
No applications will be accepted for the posts from outside the council, unless they remain unfilled due to a lack of suitable internal applicants.
The papers also show staff have been invited to register an interest in early retirement if they do not wish to go through the application process.
Any officers who fail to secure a post will be earmarked for redundancy, unless they can be redeployed to a less senior role elsewhere in the organisation.
The papers also reveal that some senior staff have been paid extra to oversee aspects of the transformation programme, sparking complaints from those who were overlooked for the roles.
The 10 staff were supposed to revert to their normal pay but the chief executive said: "This never happened and has caused great concern to other staff not on the transformation scale, and it now appears to be unfair, inappropriate and unsuitable."
"It is therefore proposed to delete the salary scale to offer consistency and fairness."
The consultation document shows that officers have until Wednesday to submit their job applications, and the successful staff will be notified on October 1.
Any redundancies will be made on December 31, in readiness for the new structure taking effect on January 4.
Community Voice Councillor Mick Salih said he supported the policy of reducing the number of staff on high salaries.
But he is concerned that the process may cause instability at the highest levels of the authority.
He said: "I have got no problem with reducing the number of senior staff, providing there is a suitable structure in place at the end of the process.
"But these proposals don't really give us very much detail about the underlying structure within these departments."
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8 Comments
by Paul, Trentham
Friday, September 10 2010, 7:40PM
“I cannot understand why Bert lives in Keele when he is such a fan of SoT City Council.”
by anon, hanley
Friday, September 10 2010, 10:19AM
“Typical Stokie mentality, anyone earning over £50k is wrong. No wonder no one wants to invest any skilled well paid jobs into the area.”
by gaz, Bradwell
Thursday, September 09 2010, 10:47PM
“Its going to fun up the council with this looming... All those little "secrets" they know about each other, who has what to hide, who is best at backstabbing, and on and on. George hit the nail square on, more costs looming, lets hope we don't get a mass retire on our hands, we cant afford that many golden handshakes...”
by Chris, SOT
Thursday, September 09 2010, 10:41PM
“Thank god for once someone dicided to trim from the top line instead of front line workers. For every 1 of the senior officials that go i bet at least 5 front line staff are saved that will help with local unemployment rates.”
by Bert, Keele
Thursday, September 09 2010, 8:24PM
“It's the 'I'm not bitter show'.
For God's sake change the record.”
by Paul, Trentham
Thursday, September 09 2010, 12:07PM
“Q? How many of the existing directors will have to reapply for their jobs.
A. None.
With the departures of Jeanette McGarry & Tom McCartney, the remaining 4 directors will be placed in the 4 new directorships!
HR at the City have been incapable of recruiting these 37 officers in the first place and have passed their responsibility for recruitment to recruitment consultants.
So how are they now capable of assessing the suitability of the 31 current heads of service for the 19 new posts?”
by up'anley duck, Staffs
Thursday, September 09 2010, 11:01AM
“I agree George. For far too long this council has awarded itself huge wages, It is deplorable when the rest of us have to manage on much much less. It's time they lived in the "real" world and had to budget like the reat of us. Let's see how they'd manage on £25k a year. So yes sack them all and put their jobs up for all to apply. There are many people in this area who would jupm at the chance and for less salary. They'd probably do a better job too without delegating their work load to lower paid staff.”
by George, Kidsgrove
Thursday, September 09 2010, 10:02AM
“This article reads like something from Monty Python.
The people assessing those applying for their own job are incapable of doing so. This is well documented ny the number of times 'HR' have outsourced.
The corridors of the Town Hall are barren and derelict, very much like the City. They should all be sacked and replaced.”