Ministers blamed for county job cuts
Aug 28 2008 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal
THE leader of the new Northumberland authority has insisted Government-forced cuts are behind future job losses.
As politicians argue over who is to blame for looming job cuts, Liberal Democrat leader Jeff Reid has told his critics they need to accept the harsh reality of the Government’s three-year efficiency savings.
Northumberland County Council will write to staff in September asking for voluntary redundancies and a final figure for job losses will then be decided.
Coun Reid told The Journal the redundancies were because of reductions in Government grants, which would have hit the county even harder if there had not been a change to unitary status.
He was speaking after Labour councillor Bob Watson revealed worries of a four-figure job cull which could see as many as 3,000 positions cut.
While admitting there were some redundancies coming, Coun Reid insisted the 3,000 figure was “nonsense”.
He said: “I do not underestimate how difficult this job is going to be; we could not be clearer on the task facing us.
“But it will certainly not be as frankly ridiculous as Bob Watson seems to belive it will be.
“I don’t want to bring it down to a blame issue. Yes, the Government has to take responsibility for forcing the efficiency savings on to us, but now it is a case of doing what we have to do. The new chief executive starts next week and we will be looking to see where we go from there.” Coun Reid said that if the unitary authority had not been forced upon Northumberland, the situation would have been even worse, with some district councils having to find savings as high as 17%.
His suggestion that the Labour Party could not avoid some responsibility for the current situation was backed by Berwick MP Sir Alan Beith.
He said: “They cannot try and get away from this. Their Government has forced this through on us and to shout out now is useless.
“The Labour Party is to blame for this, alongside those who voted for it, and now we have to make the best of the situation we are in.”
The claims were last night denied by Coun Watson, of Blyth. He said: “We in the south east of Northumberland argued long and hard for the Government to take a two-unitary approach to this, to drop their plans.
“We advised for years that the figures, the projected savings and the expected job losses were wrong.
“There is a feeling that the new council is now prepared to close its eyes and head towards the problems in the hope that things will work out fine.
“But eventually the number of people complaining about bins or potholes will force them to wake up to what has happened.”
