“This is not about wholesale redundancies across the council” – Chief Exec on council budget

Opposition councillors have called for Wrexham Council’s ruling executive board to be cut from 10 members to eight in a clash over how the authority will plug the £23m hole in its budget.

Last week the council’s leadership revealed the stark situation it is facing just two months into the financial year with an overspend of £23m predicted unless immediate action is taken, despite a six per cent council tax rise being rubber-stamped as recently as February.

Chief amongst the pressures on the budget is spiralling inflation and increased expenditure on children’s and adult social care.

Department leaders are being asked to make 15 per cent savings and the ruling Independent / Conservative led executive board was quizzed about this at its July meeting.
Ruabon Cllr Dana Davies, leader of the opposition Labour group asked how the authority was squaring potential staff reduction with the need to put agency workers in social care on council contracts.

She also asked about communication to staff about the situation.

Deputy leader, Pant and Johnstown Cllr David A Bithell (Ind), chairing this part of the meeting as leader Esclusham Cllr Mark Pritchard (Ind) is lead member for finance, said consultation is already taking place between HR and unions, and staff are being communicated with.

This was confirmed by chief executive Ian Bancroft who moved to try and reassure councillors they were not talking about ‘wholesale redundancies’, and that if social care costs could be reduced so could the potential job losses.
“If we manage demand, particularly in social care, we reduce the impact in potential redundancies”, Mr Bancroft said.
“That message is really important to get out that this is not about wholesale redundancies across the council.
“This is actually about good management on demand and moving some agency staff on to contracts that actually helps us manage the budget and the impact of redundancies.
“There are going to have to be elements of redundancy, and we will go through that with services and those staff at the point we reach that in the formal ways we have available.
“It’s really important we’re communicating, being up-front with staff and working through proposals about changes to their services but also about minimising the impact where we can by bringing agency staff on to contracts and reducing demand.”

Alwyn Jones, the council’s chief officer for social services said measures were being looked at to reduce expenditure in the department.
Wynnstay Cllr Malcolm King (Lab) said the situation is “fairly easily the biggest financial crisis facing Wrexham (Council) in its history”.
He asked the council to take measures that will reduce the impact on the least well off.
In response, Cllr Bithell pointed to the success of the cost-of-living working group, adding that anti-poverty work is going on behind the scenes and also played down the scale of potential redundancies being bandied around.
Cllr Davies asked whether the executive board could be reduced in number, and this was also suggested by Rhosnesni Cllr Andy Gallanders (Plaid).
There are 10 members of the executive board who receive salaries of around £35,000 per year.
Cllr Gallanders said: “Can I assume any reduction in our workforce will be from the top down, left to right?
“On that basis, if we’re asking departments to make 15 per cent cuts, may I suggest a 20 per cent cut in the executive board by reducing the membership to eight. That would save a lot of money and officer time.”
Cllr Bithell said that suggestion was noted and everything was under review as part of the process.
But despite speaking in support of the role of scrutiny earlier in the meeting, leader of the council Cllr Pritchard went further and said the number of scrutiny committees should be looked at as well.

Wrexham Council has five scrutiny committees, and the chairs of those receive salaries of around £26,000 per year.

Cllr Pritchard said: “It’s easy for the opposition to throw stones at the executive board but look at yourselves? Do we need as many scrutiny committees and as many scrutiny committees as we’ve got.
“Let’s have an open conversation about that.”
Cllr Pritchard called on more money from the government, particularly for social care.
He said: “They should give us more money every year, they should fund us appropriately so we can deliver first-class services across Wrexham.
“We’ve put £22m extra into social care. Where do you think that comes from? It comes from other services. It should be coming from central government. The pressure across the country in social care has exploded, they need to deal with it because it’s not sustainable.
“All we’re doing is taking money from non-statutory services to prop up statutory services.”

The executive board voted to follow the recommendations including immediate actions such as increasing the green waste collection charge to £35, reviewing council car parking charges and cancelling the funding the authority pays towards PCSOs.

By Rory Sheehan – BBC Local Democracy Reporter