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84 jobs to go as council looks for £10m cuts
Reporter: JANICE BARKER
Date online: 13 January 2010
A second round of Oldham Council budget cuts will lead to a total of 84 redundancies and £10 million savings from April, members will hear on Monday.
The first round of cuts, totalling £8 million and meaning 80 redundancies, was discussed in November, although not yet implemented.
The second round will be scrutinised by the Performance and Value for Money Select Committee next week. It will debate plans which include axing four more jobs and making £2.7 million more savings.
Latest cost-cutting ideas include:
:: Reviewing second, third, fourth and fifth-tier management in the Economy, Places and Skills directorate to save £100,000 and cut two jobs.
:: Cutting another £100,000 off the council’s £5 million security budget, by commissioning only from the council’s First Response Service.
:: Cutting £25,000 off the Bloom and Grow budget for North-West in Bloom competition.
:: Saving £250,000 on management costs, security and maintenance by selling or demolishing unwanted council buildings.
:: And saving £50,000 by cutting recruitment advertising and improving the council website.
Fees and charges across the council will increase, and there will be efficiency savings, IT installation and reviews of services and supplies.
Details of the first round of cuts include:
:: Closing and demolishing West End House and moving Street Scene staff to Moorhey Street (£70,000).
:: Reviewing the car-parking contract (£150,000), taking the car parking income from the Bradshaw Street car park when used for Coliseum parking (£12,000) and enforcing car parking charges in district centres after two or three free hours (£100,000).
:: Bin delivery teams will be cut from three to two (£30,000) while nine posts will go from refuse collection (£258,000) after the roll out of alternative weekly collections.
:: Parkview Family Centre will close (£20,000), Positive Steps Oldham will lose £100,000 funding, and Westhulme Park will be sold (£30,000) in a land swop with the Pennine Acute Hospitals’ Trust.
The Liberal Democrat administration has promised council tax will not rise by more then 2.5 per cent. Cuts will be found by providing minimum levels of statutory services, closing buildings, and increasing charges.
Next year’s cuts follow a £21 million saving in the current year, including over 400 job losses and a major redundancy programme.
Comments
and what level of service are we going to recieve after all these cuts? There are big savings to be made if we cut from the top. Get rid of charlie boy and also the man behind the vance miller persecution fiasco.
Car Parking Income! Whilst I don't doubt that cuts to any of the items above will cause problems. Why do motorists constantly get hammered. I was at Dovestone Resevoir (legally parked) on New Years Day at 3:00pm when a team of Parking Wardens swooped and booked dozens of cars. What other council services were open that day? A usless waste of space.
what a joke charlie parker and his 'angels' have turned out to be - not that anyone in oldham, apart from themselves, thought they would be value for money. they need to be ashamed and slash their overblown salaries before they announce job losses, making cuts on services and clkosing buildings.
Will it be £10 million, or £10+another £5 million?
i can list four to go straight away. and i bet their wages alone will save ombc and us the tax payers a packet.
1. Howard Sykes
2. Mark Alcock
3. Charlie Parker
4. Tony Allen
Perhaps id Charlie Parker and his cronies hadn't spent £5 million trying to close down Vance Millers business, then some of these jobs could have been saved
Unbelievable, Latest cost-cutting ideas include
‘Reviewing second, third, fourth and fifth-tier management in the Economy, Places and Skills directorate to save £100,000 and cut two jobs’
How many tiers of management are there in OMBC Towers and how many are needed?
‘Bin delivery teams will be cut from three to two (£30,000) while nine posts will go from refuse collection’
Typical, that staff who actually carry out the work are not deemed as necessary as the chiefs!
Well you can only agree with fedupoldhamer, the sad thing is we all know it won't it won’t be the case, ombc only employ people at that level with zero business intelligence and no common sense and they are the last to leave the taxpayers gravy bowl
of all the cuts listed none will work.
the best way to solve it would be.
1. top tier officials taking 50% pay cut or more.
2. scrapping the First Response Service (has anyone used this?)
3. scrap the Bloom and Grow idea. total waste of money!
4. do not sell off anymore council property for peanuts!
5. leave the refuse services as they are, they struggle now
also stop wasting money on:-
a. helping latics new stadium, if they want one let them pay for it but dont waste ombcs money on this white elephant.
b. stop chasing companies and people like vance miller and using the tax payers money to do so.
c. stop chasing the idea of the metrolink down union st. this is one of the biggest engineering disasters waiting to happen.
d. stop wasting money persuing the bars and clubs of oldham with your silly ideas of queuing for drinks and limited amounts you can buy. oldham would be a complete ghost town without these.
e. get the roads and pavements fully repaired, the amount of money in claims against the council for damages is costing thousands!
Not wasting £5 million on the Kitchen Caper and £6 million on Beal Valley would have found the £10 million plus some
I'm glad I can write 'Former' in front of the word Oldhammer!
Neither Charlie nor any of his 'angels' even live in Oldham. Now they are getting rid of even more people who know our town and have essential knowledge of relevant background.
No wonder they have no control of what is going on.
Shame on Oldham Council for wasting even more money on a prosecution that was doomed from the start. The people responsible should be the first to be made redundant, they don't deserve their pay.
Sept 15 '09: OEC carries a report re OMBC recruiting a new Borough Solicitor. The post offers a salary up to £100K this is a rise of over 11% from the previous incumbent's £90K. Any news of the position being filled & the salary rate? Same article covers recruitment for 8 or 9 member procurement team. Cost £325K. Nicely settled in place now are they? Job spec for BS is:- to lead, manage & develop legal & democratic services. Did BS lead us into latest fiasco & manage to blow £5M+ of our tax?
If the council wants to cut costs they should start with their own pay packets.
Half a million on tarting up the Civic Centre. Layers of incompetent management on upwards of £50k a year, hundreds of thousands more on staff and vehicles for the pointless and useless First Response team, 200 grand on flowers, 100 grand on a logo, yet they can't afford to buy enough grit or have enough staff to clear a bit of snow!! Not hard to spot where money is wasted.
fedupoldhamer - I totally agree with everything you have said.
I suppose after the Miller case there will be another round of redundancies. Yet - I don't believe anyone connected to the Miller case will be selected.
and just look at the similar articles links. of the 6 listed 4 are about job losses in the council. all while the lib dems have been in control.
how much more lower level workers can you get rid of? theres hardly anyone left in there. except for the idiots in charge.
if i was sykes i'd have stood down in shame along time ago.
oh and stop wasting money on survey after survey on the old town hall. dont just put pretty pictures on the boarded up windows. get something actually done with this landmark instead of letting it fall further and further into disrepair.
we all know that they just want to pull it down and thats more land to sell for peanuts!
Have Your Say
There will be even more jobs lost now thanks to Charlie Parker and Tony Allen.
By ArthurD @ 13/01/2010 12:29:44