£80 , 000 PAYOFF DEAL FOR COUNCIL STAFF

£32million bill for workers leaving Ulster’s local authorities after mergers

AN average of £80,000 was paid out last year to workers who were let go when Northern Ireland’s councils merged, it has been revealed. A study also showed £32million was spent in total on redundancy packages since 2011 – with half paid out last year alone. The aim of the council reform was to reduce costs and deliver services more efficiently. But the Local Government Auditor, who released the figures, said staff savings “may be difficult to identify”. He added the “new councils appear to have only implemented limited regional collaboration”. The redundancy packages were put in place to help local

authorities reduce staff numbers as the 26 old councils became 11 “super councils”. The packages were offered up until 2015-16, when the 208 staff who left took home an average payout of £80,000. The total cost of these exit packages alone was £16.8million. Since the 2011-12 financial year, 555 council staff have been paid to leave their jobs. Of that total figure, 101 workers got a payout of £100,000 and the average package sizes increased from £35,000 in the first year to £80,000 in the last. Over the five financial years from 2011-12 to 2015-16 a total of £32million was spent on staff exit packages. Northern Ireland’s 11 new councils employ around 10,000 people full-time and spent £860million in 2015-16. The Local Government Auditor also found that 81 complaints about councillors had been passed to the Public Services Ombudsman up to March 31 this year. He added that to date one councillor has been suspended for three months and another disqualified for three years. Commenting on the report as a whole, Federation of Small Businesses Northern Ireland regional chair John Friel said: “The Local Government Auditor has again drawn attention to the failure by councils across Northern Ireland to meet their targets in respect of paying their suppliers on time. “We will be publishing our league tables of performance by council area later in the year and encourage all stakeholders in this issue, including the 11 councils and Department for Communities, to redouble their efforts to tackle these delays.”