Meeting documents

To sign the minutes of the meeting held on 23 June 2010

The minutes of the meeting held on 23 June 2010, copies of which had been circulated previously, were agreed and signed by the Chairman.

There were no declarations of interest.

Following the decision at the meeting on 23 June 2010  the Committee received a report setting out the estimated savings on the hybrid options c(i) - c(iv) together with details of new options 6 (d), 7 and 1 (b).

Councillor N Rose opened the discussion on the report by saying that the Council’s financial position was considerably  more bleak than the picture he had described at the previous meeting following a presentation that had been given by Helen Bailey at the Local Government Conference held this week.  At the request of Councillor Rose the Chief Executive gave details of this presentation the main message of which was that the coalition government would be reducing the Country’s budget deficit at a rate much quicker than had previously been understood. As a result, areas previously thought to be ring-fenced were not so now. The overall picture would not emerge until the announcement on the Comprehensive Spending Review in the autumn but the omens for local government were not good.

On being asked to comment, Ian Snudden said that with the pay freeze imposed for the next two years the increase in VAT and changes to pensions, staff were already aware of the pressures and their effects which was why the Staff Side was keen to enter into meaningful negotiations to minimise the impact of any changes to the performance related pay scheme.

Councillor Rose referred to the spread sheet that had been circulated indicating the savings of £2m that would be required over the next two years if the Council was to remain a viable entity and said that it was difficult to see how this level of savings could be achieved without reducing staff costs. Whilst the contribution made by staff was appreciated, there were no easy options and if the savings could not be made through the PRP scheme then they would have to be found through other means e.g. redundancies.

The Council was reluctant to pursue the redundancy option and would prefer to find the savings by making changes to the PRP Scheme through, for example,  option 6 c(ii) and in particular the option of the revised scheme having a lower maximum average of 1% to produce a saving of £209, 750 as set out in the report. Councillor Rose wished to emphasise that the example he had quoted was not an agreement to anything at this stage but was being put forward as the basis for exploration.

Alan Whichelow, after pointing out that membership of UNISON had increased to 50% since the Council had indicated its intention to scrap the PRP Scheme (which in itself was an indication of the desperation and angst that this decision had created within the workforce) said that he was very pleased to hear that the Council now appeared to be willing to negotiate after three meetings during which the Council had spent a lot of time lecturing instead of entering into negotiations which the Staff Side had always been prepared  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.