A one-off team meeting isn’t usually organised so close to Christmas so no one is expecting good news. This means that unlike routine team meetings, everyone who can attend does and we quickly get to the point. It’s established that roughly 20% of posts in the team will go. It’s done well, with clear communication about processes and timescales. We all recognise that some things can’t be said at this point but we at least have some confidence that what we need to know is being covered.
The revised team structure is sparse. This is the fourth year of cuts and all those who wanted to take voluntary redundancy or didn’t want to stay in such an environment have gone. Most in the team are part-time now and, with few jobs in the locality, no one is likely to go of their own accord. The impact starts to sink in. Anxious glances are exchanged between friends, individuals stare down at their papers and there are some forced smiles.
The gallows humour comes later. A couple of people are on secondment and have substantive posts to go back to. They don’t want to return, but it’s a safety net. Some individuals are more at risk than others and some competitive interviews are likely. There is a clear favourite for one post but the others will be close, which makes us wonder about the equality of such one-off assessments.
Everyone contributes to the team in some way and there is no dead wood. One person, very capable and with huge potential, has a temporary job share post that comes to an end at the wrong time. We are losing the future as well as the present.
So what’s next? We’ve been here before. The older members of the team will carry on regardless helped by the more positive newer members, and there will be genuine efforts to find other jobs within the organisation for those affected. But there won’t be much redeployment this time round.
There’s no false political hope here, unlike in neighbouring authorities, that a more public service friendly coalition will take over after the May election and administer the kiss of life. Things have gone too far for that and the post-meeting discussions are grim. People will be gone by May at the latest.
We all know who is most vulnerable. Sympathy is mixed with guilt and relief – but no one considers themselves safe. In the next few days holiday plans change, builders are contacted to scale down scheduled works, fingers are trebly crossed for the car MOT. Some hit Black Friday with a vengeance, others avoid it even more than usual. A few have discussions about reducing hours to keep jobs - some income is better than none.
Senior management structure is untouched again for the fourth year, yet there are considerably fewer staff to manage. Pet projects driven by ideology rather than evidence are still not objectively evaluated. Elected members are equally reluctant to make big decisions. They won’t put the community charge up as much as they could and won’t look at radical models for service delivery. Nor will they cancel high-profile events for limited audiences that carry a six-figure cost, or make a proper commitment to pooling budgets with childcare or health, or share functions with neighbouring authorities.
Enough stories have filtered through from ex-colleagues who have struggled from one low-paid temporary contract to another to stimulate the fear of survival. There are no annual fee uplifts, and competitive tendering takes place to drive down hourly rates. We met a decent care provider this week to “negotiate” how much quicker staff handovers could be in a supported living house. On the bright side, safeguarding isn’t affected – this year.
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