Children’s service cut to save cash

Dec 13 2007 by Aaron Boland, Liverpool Daily Post

MORE than 60 jobs in Wirral Council’s children’s services department are to be cut as part of a bid to make up a massive budget shortfall.

A report to the scrutiny committee which oversees the department will tonight outline how the authority plans to shed 64 posts.

Conservative group leader Cllr Jeff Green described the job losses as “outrageous and cowardly”, and accused senior figures in the council of trying to hide the impact of budget cuts on services.

But cabinet member for children’s services, Cllr Phil Davies, said the job cuts would not affect schools, and the posts had been chosen to minimise the impact on frontline services.

Two months ago, the authority’s leadership admitted it was facing a £60m shortfall over the next three years.

Council leader Steve Foulkes said they had “a lot of efficiencies to find”, and said: “We have not got a figure but we know at the end of the three years we will have to be a slimmer organisation.”

Tonight’s report by Howard Cooper, Wirral’s director of children’s services, outlines the plan to save more than £2m from his budget.

He says reducing the number of posts in the department by 64 has “significant staffing implications”.

He said: “Every reasonable effort will be made to manage this process through voluntary measures.”

The effects of the cuts range from “potential reduction in quality and outcomes” as a result of five job losses in the family support section, to “lower staff to child ratios” as a result of job cuts and reductions in hours in play services.

Three job losses in the youth offending service will result in “increased workload across teams, potential reduction in quality and outcomes” according to the report.

Hardest hit will be administrative services across the department, and the music service will lose a manager, one of the three Saturday music centres will close, and charges increase by 10%.

Cllr Green said the Labour and Liberal Democrat-run authority was trying to announce job cuts “in a cowardly and insulting way”.

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