Highland Council Leader Corrects GMB Union On Wrong Statements Re Employee Numbers
13th March 2013
Leader explains Council job statistics.
The Leader of The Highland Council Councillor Drew Hendry is to write to the GMB trade union to tell them they have got the wrong end of the stick over job statistics.
The GMB issued a statement on Monday reporting that the fall in the number of staff employed by the Council - 2,900 between the first quarter of 2010 and the third quarter of 2012 – was the highest of any council in Scotland.
Councillor Hendry is concerned that the impression has been given that these jobs have been lost, whereas the large majority of staff have new employers as a result of services being delivered in a new and more effective way.
He said: “The fall in the number of staff employed by The Highland Council can be simply explained. The large majority of staff are still employed – they just have a different employer.
“In October 2011, the Council outsourced the delivery of culture, learning, sport, leisure health and wellbeing to charity, High Life Highland. More than 1000 staff transferred from the Council to High Life Highland.
“On 1 April, 2012, the Council entered into a partnership agreement with NHS Highland to integrate care services. A budget of £86 million transferred to NHS Highland for the delivery of adult care services. So 1,400 staff delivering, adult care services, including home carers, transferred to the employment of NHS Highland. At that time, staff employed by NHS Highland delivering children’s services transferred to the Council.
“Like every other Council in Scotland, we have significant savings to make and we are continually examining ways of delivering services more efficiently. We have been managing vacancies very closely to avoid job losses and we have a policy of no compulsory redundancies.”
The Council now has 8,673 FTE. Its revenue budget is £548 million; its capital spend is £73 million and it spends £43 million on housing maintenance, upgrades and new house building.
Related Businesses
Related Articles
At the Highland Council Economy and Infrastructure Committee. (Thursday 2 May 2024) Members had the opportunity to review the work the Council is doing to progress active travel and improve road safety before approving the next steps.
At the meeting of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee members had the opportunity to review the last two years of the Community Regeneration Funding Programme before agreeing changes to how the 2024/25 programme will be delivered. Committee Chair, Cllr Ken Gowans said: "Following a successful two years, it is a good time to review what has gone well and what can be done better so we can continue to build on success, and seamlessly move the focus onto how best to support the delivery of projects." "With 279 live projects and over £6million of committed funds still to be claimed, there is no doubt as to the value and impact of the programme's potential.
The Highland Council's In-House bus service pilot project was launched in January 2023. The success of its first year of operation in delivering savings and creating a valued and reliable service was highlighted at today’s Economy and Infrastructure Committee.
Members of Highland Council's Economy and Infrastructure Committee today (2 May 2024) approved the local authority's draft Ecology Strategy and Action Plan which will now move forward to an 12-week public consultation. The Ecology Strategy sets out an ambitious set of actions to tackle biodiversity loss and address the ecological emergency.
Economy and Infrastructure Committee members today (2 May 2024) agreed to direct £100K from the Council's share of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) to fund a new staff training programme at the Inverness Castle Experience. The funding will enable the project team to provide specialist visitor attraction training to young people identified through partners at Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) and the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI).
The Housing and Property Committee met on Wednesday 1 May 2024 and noted the Housing Service performance report 2023/24 that met the agreed priorities and associated initiatives in the Local Housing Strategy 2023-2028. The report highlighted a number of achievements in 2023/24 in increasing housing supply.
Kate Lackie, Malcolm MacLeod and Allan Gunn have been appointed as Assistant Chief Executives with The Highland Council. Convener of the Council, Cllr Bill Lobban said: "I am delighted to say that Kate Lackie, Malcolm MacLeod and Allan Gunn have been appointed as Assistant Chief Executives with The Highland Council.
As intimated in Highland Council's budget plan, a new senior management structure is to be implemented following approval by Council 14th March. It reconfigures the senior management team into two layers, rather than three and brings Highland Council into line with other benchmarked authorities.
Today, Morrison Construction introduced some of their local apprentices who are working on the UK Governments' Levelling Up Funded refurbishment project at the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness. All these apprentices have been recruited from the Highland area.
The by-election to elect a councillor to represent Ward 19 - Inverness South on The Highland Council has been won by Duncan Cameron McDonald - Independent who was one of the eight candidates who contested the vacancy. Voters in the ward went to the poll yesterday (Thursday 11 April) and the by-election count was held this morning in The Highland Council Headquarters in Inverness.
