Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

200 jobs gone from local authority

Plaid Cymru Assembly Member Rhodri Glyn Thomas has raised concerns at the significant rise in redundancy costs paid by Carmarthenshire County Council over the past two years from £139,662 in 2009/10 to a staggering £821,978 in 2010/11, with an additional £735,448 being spent in just the first six months of the current 2011/12 financial year on an additional 79 redundancies.

The local authority has spent almost £2 million on both voluntary and compulsory redundancy payments for 288 members of staff in the past three and a half years.

Mr. Thomas raised concerns at the potential of 400-500 job losses in May 2010 after being provided with a copy of an internal council letter noting these figures.  A statement was subsequently released by the county council’s Labour group accusing Mr. Thomas of ‘scaremongering’.  Mr. Thomas, said the loss of 190 jobs since May last year confirmed Plaid Cymru was justified to raise concern and was further concerned at an almost 6 fold increase in expenditure on redundancies that was seen last year.

The AM for Carmarthen East & Dinefwr and Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson for Local Government Rhodri Glyn Thomas said:

“It wasn’t that long ago the Labour party accused me of scaremongering when I legitimately raised concern at a potential loss of 400 to 500 jobs.

“The most recent figures demonstrate that just 17 months later almost 200 jobs have been lost from the local authority, whether voluntary or compulsory, at a cost of over £1 .5million. Plaid Cymru was justified in raising our concerns last year.

“We are only half way through this financial year and the redundancy costs are already alarmingly close to that of the whole of last year.  The number of job losses for the last six months are too worryingly close to the whole of last year with just 32 fewer redundancies.

“I understand local authorities are facing tough economical challenges, but as many employees face significantly reduced salaries, the authority must make sure that the rate of redundancies doesn’t increase and the associated costs don’t see a 6 fold rise again this year.

“The Independent and Labour run council must do everything it can to keep redundancies to a minimum and ensure high earning executives also take their share of the cuts”.

ENDS

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