Deletion of job roles at Slough Council
SLOUGH: Deletion of job posts and slashing agency staff use will still go ahead at Slough Borough Council as major restructure work gets under way, writes
James Bagley, Local Democracy Reporter.
As part of the council’s ambition to be a ‘world-class organisation’, the authority is undertaking restructuring work to delete job posts and redeploy employees into outstanding vacant posts or roles held by temporary workers.
This involves switching to a new operating model known as a ‘one council’ staff team approach to meet the rising demand for Slough’s key services – such as adult social care – as government funding is slashed.
This new model will be creating support for residents to ‘self-service’ their needs by providing them information ‘at the front door’ – which will supposedly cut the admin part for staff like social care workers so they can focus on their primary tasks.
The council hopes this will be fully implemented by April and believes this will save them £5.2 million for just over a year period.
The 47-day phase two consultation – which looks into roles below the senior management team – was concluded on December 21.
At an employment and appeals committee councillors heard officers could not yet share the responses of that second survey due to the ‘sheer volume’ of counter proposals received from the council’s workforce. The associate director for customers, Surjit Nagra, told members they received approximately 130 counter proposals and are reviewing all of them and will give a detailed report at the next meeting in April.
Ms Nagra said those who are at risk of redundancy due to their job post being deleted will be given the opportunity to ‘express interest’in up to five vacant roles within the council to hopefully secure them in a position during the restructuring process.
She said: “If they aren’t successful, we will still carry on looking for roles for them within the council and put them on the redeployment register.”
The meeting took place on Thursday, January 21.