Dorset County Council to Axe 300 Jobs in order to make £28million of savings by 2011

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DORSET County Council is planning to axe 300 posts as it fights to save nearly £28 million by 2011. The authority has launched a three-year efficiency programme – ‘Fit for the Future’ – to balance its books.

Council chiefs say 300 posts will be lost through voluntary redundancies and restructuring. Unison, which warned 100 jobs could go by October, said workers were feeling the pressure.

Dorset County Council designed Fit for the Future to save £8.6 million – hopefully nearer £11million – by 2011. But the Government wants authorities to make annual savings worth three per cent, which equates to £27.5 million for Dorset.

The county council says it needs to become ‘more efficient’ to achieve the targets and provide quality services. Head of business change and efficiency Emma Lindsay said: “We estimate over the length of the programme 300 full and part time posts will be lost through a mixture of redeployment, voluntary redundancy and reorganisation. To date, no redundancies have been made. Reducing duplication and streamlining process mean some posts will become redundant over the course of the programme.  However this does not necessarily mean large-scale redundancies. Our staff play a vital role in delivering excellent services and we are committed to supporting them.”

Mrs Lindsay said the losses would be managed through natural turnover, redeployment and ‘careful’ vacancy handling. Dorset County Council said it would be reviewing where the posts would be lost over the next year. A spokesman said: “As the programme is implemented redundancies will take place, potentially across all services.”

One worker, who did not want to be named, said: “We understand the county council is trying to save money like everyone else. Hopefully that won’t mean too many job losses. They are concentrating more on people moving departments and changing positions than actual redundancies.”

Unison Dorset secretary Pamela Jefferies (pictured) said there could be 100 redundancies by October. She said: “That’s across all departments. There aren’t many services not being touched. It’s putting lots of pressure on workers. It’s hard for people who working flat out, trying to deliver services.”

But Mrs Jefferies said the majority of the job losses would be achieved through redeployment and restructuring. She said: “There’s a reasonable staff turnover anyway and it’s worked well so far in terms of redeployment. The authority doesn’t want to pay out redundancy and early retirement costs. It’s managing its expenses. We’re doing what we can. But these are efficiency savings, which of course means jobs going."