Agenda item

Councillor Ross Henley introduced the circulated report which considered the redundancies of the Principal Planning Officer and Digital Services Manager. The necessary financial approvals were already in place via the Business Case for Transformation and these costs were already included within reported figures. This request for Full Council approval was a separate requirement of the Council’s HR policies where severance costs exceed £100,000 per case.

During the discussion of this item, Members made comments and asked questions which included:-

·         A query was raised over whether in the legislation those who were offered a job could then still take Voluntary Redundancy (VR) and over whether the trial period was statutory.

·         A question was asked as to the figures of those who were offered a job and then subsequently took VR.

·         The Voluntary Redundancy Scheme agreed by the previous administration was not capped. A trial period was a contractual provision underpinned by statute, and there were no longer any officers on a trial period and eligible for VR.

·         Were the posts being made redundant still to exist in the organisational structure?

·         Yes this was confirmed.

·         It was stated that Transformation Business Case was a process that was still ongoing and this was part of that and terms and conditions of employees must be honoured.

·         It was queried as to the risk of not approving this redundancy and the potential net loss to the Authority?

·         A written answer would be provided.

·         A question was asked as to whether lessons had been learned from this process?

·         The Leader stated that there would be a full Audit of the Transformation Process that she had instructed the Chief Executive to commence.

·         The Portfolio Holder for Corporate Resources stated that the new administration would learn those lessons from the past. Local Government was always in a process of change.

A written answer was provided to all Councillors on 10^th July 2019 as follows;

Q) It was queried as to the risk of not approving this redundancy and the potential net loss to the Authority?

The risk to the authority of not approving the redundancy would relate to a possible claim for constructive dismissal and claim of discrimination.  Discrimination likely to be on the grounds of age but may also be sex discrimination.

Employment Tribunal claims for discrimination claims, whistleblowing claims are unlimited (in theory).

Loss to the Council would be:

·         Reputational damage;

·         Cost of defending employment tribunal claim – for a constructive dismissal/discrimination claim such costs could be in the order of £20,000 to £25,000.

·         Potential Costs awarded by Employment Tribunal for loss (in this case access to pension which is a statutory requirement for someone age 55 or over in the Local Government Pension Scheme – so could range from 52 weeks pay through to 52 weeks pay and compensation for loss of access to pension (a tribunal would determine how to calculate this) but ;likely to be the difference between reduced pension which could voluntarily be taken and unreduced pension one might realistically expect to achieve.  I would expect this to be between £100k and £250k.

Trial Period

A person declared redundant and offered and accepting an alternative role has the statutory right to a 4 week trial period which should be put in place.

RESOLVED that the Council approved the redundancies of the two posts of Principal Planning Officer and Digital Services Manager with effective end dates of 20^th September 2019 in accordance with financial details set out in confidential appendices.

Councillor Davies abstained from voting.