Review at YHN may see 80 jobs cut
SOCIAL HOUSING LANDLORD’S SAVINGS BID
A CASH-STRAPPED social housing landlord could axe around 80 jobs to help save £2.3m from its budget.
Your Homes Newcastle (YHN), which manages council-owned properties in the city, is consulting staff and managers in a number of departments about the proposed cuts.
It has been claimed that staff are being asked to re-apply for their jobs as part of the restructuring of the company.
The concierge rapid response team – which provides support to tenants during incidents such as fires – is also under review.
Tina Drury, managing director at YHN, said there could be compulsory rather than voluntary redundancies.
She added: “At the moment we are consulting with all staff working in our finance and commercial and assets and development directorates, and with managers within our customer services directorate.
“If the proposed structure is implemented our current forecast is that approximately 80 posts will be deleted from the overall structure, which, in conjunction with other changes and rationalisations, will help us reduce our costs by £2.3m.”
Mrs Drury said a “range of options” have been put in place for staff leaving YHN or moving to new roles.
She added: “In common with many other public sector organisations our budgets have come under increasing pressure.
“We have been successful in reducing our costs by 5% in each of the last three years, but want to go further so that we are ready for the future challenges that we need to meet.”
Mrs Drury said they are also looking to “modernise and enhance” the concierge response service as welfare changes stretch the personal finances of YHN tenants.
Under the proposals, it is claimed shift patterns could be changed so staff have to work Monday to a Saturday.
She added: “We have to ensure that tenants get good value for money for the services that we provide, so we are looking at how we can modernise and enhance our concierge service at a reduced cost for our customers.
“At this stage we are talking to our staff about what could be done to achieve this, and no changes will be made to the concierge and response service until we have consulted with customers.”
The team attended a fire at Cruddas Park House, Elswick. A total of 60 people were evacuated from the tower block on November 20 and firefighters rescued four people.
Mrs Drury said the company worked closely with Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service to establish practices in the event a fire breaks out in any of their buildings.
She added: “At the recent incident at Cruddas Park House, the fire service took full control of the scene and the safety of the affected residents.
“Our role was to support the emergency services, and our concierge service rapid response team played a part in this by securing the scene and performing checks once the fire service had dealt with the fire.
“Our staff are continuing to work with residents in all our high rise blocks on issues related to the fire.”
The review is the first one carried out since the social landlord was formed in 2004.
Trade union representative Derek Muse, who is convenor of YHN for Unison, said they are in consultation with the group over the proposed cuts.
He said it was too early to know the exact number of positions that would go, but said the aim is to have “minimal compulsory redundancies”.