Hundreds of jobs set to be cut as Cornwall Council tries to save £18m
A letter has been sent to staff explaining that the wage bill needs to be reduced by March
Cornwall Council is set to cut hundreds of jobs after revealing that it needs to reduce its wage bill by £18million.
An email sent out to councillors on behalf of council leader Linda Taylor explained that they need to make the cuts by the end of March 2022.
It explains that this will be done by continuing a recruitment freeze and deleting vacancies and inviting staff to take voluntary redundancy.
The note does not provide details for the number of jobs which could be cut but it explains that it needs to save £18m from a current staff spend of around £200m. It states that compulsory redundancies “will be unavoidable” but says that measures will be taken to minimise them.
Conservative leader Cllr Taylor had already warned that there would be “tough decisions” ahead with the council facing its toughest budget setting yet while deputy leader David Harris, responsible for finance, has also warned that “there’s no money”.
The email to councillors reads: “At this stage, we have set a target to reduce our workforce spend by c£18m by 31 March 2022, against a current workforce spend of c£200m.
“This is our best current estimate of the financial reduction we will need to make from our workforce to meet our budget gap, and may change as work progresses to set out MTFP (medium term financial plan) over the coming months.
“We will be taking all measures to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies that may have to be made, starting with the recruitment freeze that is already in place, permanently deleting vacancies held in our staffing establishment, reducing non-essential spend and there will be opportunities for voluntary redundancy in the coming months.
“We will also be working to increase the agility of our organisation to deploy staff internally where posts are held as a result of the recruitment freeze and with partner organisations across Cornwall to support staff with redeployment and outplacement as we anticipate that compulsory redundancies will be unavoidable.
“At this stage we are not able to translate the £18m workforce budget reduction figure into a defined number of roles, as a lot will depend on how the reductions are made and the types of staff that will be impacted, and how much of the reduction can be made through removing vacancies.”
We have asked Cornwall Council for a statement and we are waiting to hear back.