Cuts are criticised (From Banbury Cake)

Cuts are criticised

6:00am Thursday 9th July 2009

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FIVE hundred jobs are to be axed by Oxfordshire County Council, the newly-elected Conservative group has announced The ruling Tory group has revealed that it is planning to make ten per cent savings of £90m in its budgets over the next five years — with a tenth of its 5,000 staff to go.

While the council said it would “focus on natural staff turnover and managing vacancies” it admitted that there would be redundancies.

The announcement immediately sparked a row about why there was no mention of the job losses in the Tory manifesto, upon which local Conservatives had fought the county council elections only last month.

The Conservative group pointed to an expected loss of money coming from the Labour Government because of the recession and the bail-out of the banks.

But their political opponents say the cuts are based on assumptions that have been known about for many months. And it was claimed that council leader Keith Mitchell had given assurances there would be no job cuts in a radio appearance before the election.

Zoe Patrick, Lib Dem leader on the county, said Mr Mitchell had ruled out job cuts in the local media before the election.

She added: “This is a shock to us all. Before the election they had assured us there would be no job cuts.

“Right up to the last moment in May, the council was still recruiting for high level posts that we felt were unnecessary jobs, in the media and marketing office for example.”

During the election the Lib Dems criticised the appointment of a director of communications on an £80,000 salary.

Liz Brighouse, leader of the Labour group, said: “There was nothing in the Tory’s manifesto about the prospect of people losing their jobs. The assumptions now being made about the economic outlook, landfill taxes and so on were all known about well before they set the budget in February.”

It is not known yet where the cuts will hit, but the 500-job figure does not include school staff.

Mr Mitchell said the Tory group was having to respond to “an unfolding story”.

And he said he was determined to be open with staff about savings that would have to be made in “the worst national economic climate in generations”.

He said: “The responsible thing to do is realise what is on the horizon and plan in advance. But what we must stress is that this is an estimate of where we could be. This is a five-year plan and it won’t happen in one go.”

He said the delay of the Government’s spending review meant it was impossible to know how seriously councils would be squeezed over the coming years.

“What we have is only an estimate. It is based on guessing where we might be if the settlement is really tough. We have to be prepared if the floor is taken away and we are allowed to fall through.

“There is no point in fighting an election on estimates. But in planning finances, there is every reason to look ahead, with estimates based on sensible guesswork.

“We could not have undertaken this work for very long without council staff knowing and creating real worry. It is far better to be open.”

Mr Mitchell said the savings drive would be reviewed annually, adding: “If the financial picture improves, we can react accordingly.”

Despite the cuts he said the Conservative group would seek to avoid a council tax increase of over 2.5 per cent.

Mark Fysh, secretary of the Oxfordshire branch of union Unison, warned industrial action remained an option and criticised the council’s wage bill for consultants and agency workers.

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