Report of the Director of Law, HR and Asset Management to be circulated separately

Further to minute 119 (31 January 2011), the Director of Law, HR and Asset Management presented an update, by Department, of the numbers of staff leaving the employment of the authority as a result of Early Voluntary Retirement/Voluntary Severance (EVR/VS) between December 2010 and June 2011. The total at present was 1123 and he confirmed that all had been subject to detailed analysis, prior to being approved. In response to a question from a Member in relation to additions to the total reported, the Director confirmed that in the light of decisions taken by the Council in respect of service provision, after the December 2010 deadline, those members of staff who were directly and materially affected by the proposals had been given a second opportunity to apply for EVR/VS. Following this, an additional 36 members of staff in DASS and an additional 9 in CYP had been given approval to leave. Elsewhere, there were redeployment opportunities and no one would be required to leave to meet the budget.

In response to a further question from a Member, the Director commented that behind the departure of staff under EVR/VS was a restructure of services presently being undertaken by Chief Officers for which an amount of £2m had been set aside. The restructure plans would be completed in the coming months.

The Chair referred to comments that had been made by Diane Kelly, Assistant Branch Secretary, Wirral UNISON, at the meeting of the Committee held on 16 February 2011 (minute 122 refers) in relation to stress suffered by managers and staff. He referred also to a ground breaking case for stress at work (Walker –v– Northumberland County Council, 1994) and sought assurance that the issue was being addressed. The Director reported that substantial training had been given to managers, to identify and combat stress in the workplace, which had been discussed with trade unions at regular corporate JCC meetings.

Resolved – That the detailed analysis be noted and a further update be presented to a future meeting of the Committee, once the overall total is known.