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
Young people in the Highlands can call a dedicated helpline offering expert advice to anyone receiving their full Higher, National, and Advanced results on Tuesday, 5 August 2025. The pupils and students- along with their parents and carers - will be able to get support with their results through Skills Development Scotland's (SDS) Results Helpline, which opens from 8am on results day.
Wick Business Park has welcomed wind energy technology company ENERCON as the first occupant of one of four new units completed last year. ENERCON specialises in designing, producing, installing and servicing onshore wind turbines and has been operating in the Caithness area since 2013.
Additional empty homes officers are being recruited to bring more privately owned houses back into use. The new posts are being supported as part of a £2 million investment through the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership in 2025-26 which will see staff take a more proactive and targeted approach to tackling local housing issues.
The Highland Strategic Local Action Group (LAG) met in June 2025 and considered and agreed funding for 28 projects submitted to the Community-Led Local Development fund (CLLD), which makes up part of The Highland Council Community Regeneration Fund (CRF) programme. CRF is an umbrella term used to cover multiple external funding programmes administered by The Highland Council.
Highland Council has provided 12 ‘Talking Tub' resources for use in primary schools across the Highlands, in partnership with Union Technical who deliver community benefits as part of the Energy Efficient Scotland: Area Based Scheme programme. Chair of Highland Council's Education Committee, Councillor John Finlayson, said: "This is a fantastic initiative being rolled out across Highland primary schools which brings innovation and inspiration to early years children.
Visitors will find it easier to dispose of their litter at several popular spots across Highland after the rollout of additional bins. The rollout has been planned to support the tourism season as part of the Council's ongoing commitment to improve and support sustainable tourism in the area.
Members of the meeting of The Highland Council (26 June 2025) have considered and agreed the Accounts Commission's Best Value report, which was published in April 2025 and highlights organisational improvements across leadership, performance management and community engagement. In April’s report, the Accounts Commission recognised and welcomed significant progress within the organisation since the 2020 Best Value Assurance Report (BVAR) and commended the embedded culture of transformation.
A new generation of community facilities is being planned for the Highlands. At a meeting of The Highland Council (Thursday 26 June), elected members approved the work to date in progressing the Highland Investment Plan workstreams - masterplan for Thurso and agreed to nominate the current Thurso High School site as the preferred location for the new Thurso Community Point of Delivery (POD).
At a meeting of The Highland Council (Thursday 26 June 2025), Members received a progress report on the partnership approach and important successes since declaring a Highland Housing Challenge in November 2023. Since establishing the ambitious Highland Housing Challenge, important successes included: A call for sites delivered 250 sites, with a potential 25,000 housing units which will support delivery against the target of an additional 12,000 houses over the next 10 years.
The Highland Council will deliver a transformative programme of energy efficiency upgrades across Council housing supported by a £9.2 million Energy Company Obligation (ECO) funding proposal secured by Union Technical. The funding proposal will deliver approximately 1,000 individual energy efficiency measures to Council owned properties across the Highlands.