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550 council jobs to be axed
A TOTAL of 550 council workers are set to lose their jobs over the next year as Sheffield implements £55 million of cuts.
The figure is 140 fewer job losses than originally predicted - but numerous posts are to go in services helping vulnerable people. Community transport will be cut and respite care beds axed.
Parking permit charges are to be doubled for thousands of households and businesses, a £90,000 small grants fund for community groups is being cancelled, there will be £78,000 less in the budget for city centre events and £21,000 less funding for the annual Sheffield Fayre in Norfolk Park.
Reducing refuse collections from weekly to fortnightly to save £2.44m a year could cost as much as £1 million - in ‘changeover costs’ charged by Veolia.
And £400,000 is to be spent on ‘appropriate communication to ensure customers understand the changes’.
Sheffield Council bosses insist everything is being done to protect frontline services, with the axe falling on ‘back room staff’ in IT, legal, finance and human resources departments.
Eight per cent of the council workforce will be axed in total, with spending reductions coming on top of £84m of cuts made during the current financial year.
The council’s redundancy bill for the coming year will be £13m, with this figure factored into spending plans.
And money must be set aside to continue to reduce the World Student Games debt, which will still stand at £243m in March.
Council leader Julie Dore said services people relied upon and enjoyed by thousands were being maintained, and there would be no closures of parks, libraries or museums.
The privately-financed flagship programme to repair the city’s roads also goes ahead as planned, with work due to begin later this year.
“We have been dealt an unfair hand by the Government and we have been forced to take some extremely difficult decisions,” Coun Dore said.
“We have tried to ensure a fair deal for the people of Sheffield, protecting the most vulnerable. But there have been difficult choices to make with regard to charges and waste management.”
City chief executive John Mothersole said while this was the second of a three-year programme of spending reductions - another £30m is planned for next year - the longer term position remained unknown.
“While we have possibly now had the worst of the squeeze, we are not out of the woods yet. But we have taken a clear decision not to slash and burn our vital services - we know that, once you have closed down services, it is very hard to reopen them again,” he said.
Sheffield had also decided against introducing pay cuts for staff, as had been seen in Doncaster. Instead, pay remains frozen.
Council tax will be frozen for another year, with support from a £4.9m Government grant for the purpose.
Opposition Liberal Democrat councillors said that while Labour clearly had to save money, the wrong choices were being made.
“While in power they have agreed to spend an extra £2.5m on the Park Hill project and have appointed eight council officers who are on more than £50,000 a year salaries,” said finance spokesman Coun Simon Clement-Jones.
“And by insisting council officers reduce wasteful spending on things like senior management costs and consultants, some of the reductions to frontline services could be avoided.”
The council budget will be discussed by the Cabinet next week, before going before a full council meeting in March.
Budget in numbers
11 - percentage reduction in council budget next year
5 - percentage cuts to adult social care
26 - percentage cuts to council IT department
690 - original number of estimated job losses
550 - revised number of job losses
8 - percentage cut to workforce
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Comments
There are 32 comments to this article
Page 1 of 3
ghost rider
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 08:57 PMHelen Sharman dropping the torch and putting the flame out was quite funny though.I think thats what the games was most famous for.
ghost rider
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 08:53 PMHow come you know so much about what the council does sheffmike,Surely you dont go to all the public meetings.If you do you have my sympathy ,if thats all you can find to do.Just a question,how many sheffield people watched any of the world student games in sheffield,not as many as go to hillsborough and bramall lane on a saturday i bet.
bingbong
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 07:48 PMYou'll probably find that respite beds for the elderly and also day centres were axed last year. The journalist who wrote this needs to get their facts straight
Charlie Farleigh
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 06:53 PMI make that a tax-free cash jackpot bonanza of £24k apiece. Not bad at all!!
PaulSheffield
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 06:15 PMBrilliant !!! Get rid of some more of them !!! Oh and Sheffield mike you must be the only plank in Sheffield that's unaware of the debt from the joke that was the WSG with vision like that you should be a councillor .... Typical Libour voter thinks its a free for all CUT HARD CUT DEEP
Wessex spanner monkey
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 05:13 PM‘Oh and by the way’ post #19 sheffmike, my point about the bus lane and bad parking cameras is that our elected Councillors and their officers seem to spend most of their interest, time and energy in thinking up new ways to enforce petty anti-car regulation, when what Sheffield really needs is astute insightful forward thinking leadership to help us generate wealth and try to encourage some economic growth in these hard times. Their priorities seem somewhat askew in my opinion.
sheffmike
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 05:11 PMpost 24 obviously you might 'seenitall' but you clearly do not know it all becasue if so you would know that any person can ask a question at the public session which takes place at the beginning of each full council meeting held on the first wednesady of the month in the Town Hall. By the way have you the proof asked for about Leeds?or is this a 'bar room braw' or reasonable debate?
Wessex spanner monkey
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 05:11 PMPost #17 sheffmike, I refer you to post #20 (Archangel) regarding my immediate response to your view of the student games debt. Our opinions appear to differ with regard to the debt incurred for the student games facilities, but the point I’d make is that these facilities wouldn’t exist except for the student games; ergo the mortgage on them is therefore student games debt. I'm not saying the people of Sheffield don't get benefit from them, but it's nowhere near their actual cost in my opinion. This “independent research analysis’ you mention wasn’t commissioned by the Labour party, Fabian Society or the Guardian was it? Or maybe by one of the other liberal-left deficit denying numpties that spent this country to the brink of bankruptcy? In my opinion this city’s pretty much flat on its ar$3 at the moment so where the ‘great boost’ is to the city’s economy from these sports facilities I don’t know, I certainly can’t see it. And whilst a few athletes spending a few weeks in Sheffield before the Olympics is welcome and might boost the hotel sector a little (if they come), it’s only short term and hardly justification for the outlay of several hundred million. Moving on to Park Hill, SCC has sunk several million into the project already. I don’t know which Dept’s budget this has come out of, but that’s pretty irrelevant because the money still belongs to us (the Council tax payer). Go on, if you’re released from the psychiatric ward in time, ask how much they’ve sunk into it (so far) at the next SCC meeting!
seenitall
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 04:46 PMThere is no wonder that our city is in such a state if the pompous and arrogant rantings of ' sheffmike'. are typical of the calibre of the party in power...According to his post #17 I take it that he must be one of our elected representatives.... since he offers to ask a question at the next Council Meeting. I wonder,whatever happened to reasoned and reasonable debate in this city? I am apa by his final statement and would remind him that there is legislation which can deal with this sort of behaviour...and that if he is a Councillor he should act approprately and not like some bar-room brawler.
sheffmike
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 04:35 PMpost 20 I am not a cllr but i do know that thousands of sheffielders (ie local people!!) do use the facilities on a daily basis just ask Sheffield International Venues and without this investment would not be able too. Some people have complained at my using the word idiot etc and I agree and apologise but some people will insist on making idiotic comments which are clearly false or at the best misleading. post 10 where is your proof??
SheffieldForever
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 04:26 PMPerhaps we ought to ask the Govt to divert the £35 million loan PROMISED to Forgemasters last Nov to Sheffield City Council, especially as Forgemasters are making redundancies.I thought we were giving tax payers money to Forgemasters to CREATE jobs. Interesting that the Star doesn't let us comment on this story in the Sheffield news section and Business Section. Too embarrassing for everybody? - just like the Labour controlled Council.
Blue-Stratos
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 04:20 PMAt the end of the day everyone will be paying for Labours World Student Games fiasco for years. They have no concept of how to spend money, thats why the country is in the debt it is today. Alistair Darling even suggested that if re-elected Labours cuts would have to be deeper than Thatchers, and now we have Ed Balls saying that Labour wont reverse the cuts or give any pay rises, and this is after months (18 months to be precise) of stirring the Public Sector workers up. Now he realises that the government wont buckle decides its time for Labour to look credible in relation to austerity measures Total idiots. I carnt wait for the TUC conference to dissafilliate from the Labour party.
Archangel
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 03:45 PMShefffool, Whether a motgage or not its a debt paid for by us, the people who have hardle benefitted from these facilities. Bet you are a councollor or one of their cronies.
sheffmike
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 03:28 PMoh and by the way WSM i asume by your last comment that you are one of those who think it alright to break the law when it comes to parking or bus gates. My view is if you break the law you pay the price so I am all for the cameras
Blue-Stratos
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 03:26 PMWhat on earth are Sheffield City Council playing at, the Coalition Government has given them 4,9 million pounds to freeze Council tax, they are offering to pay for the continued weekly bin collections, and what do Labour do give over 2.5 million to Parkhill flats of Sheffield tax payers money. I bet the Council employees are well and trully hacked off, especially the bin men who's jobs are at risk. The money is in the bag for the weekly bin collections to continue so why dont the Labour controlled Council just take the money. Labour do like to make it look like were a City of soup kitchens and cloth caps, they really have scored an own goal on this issue, how much more money and on silly things are this Council going to spend hard earned tax monies on.
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