Agenda item

            The Committee considered a report which was seeking agreement to implement a Voluntary Redundancy programme as part of the Leisure Transformation Programme and generation of £2million savings and a potential contribution to the District Rate.

            The voluntary redundancy process had been initiated at the request of Belfast City Council Trade Union Group at the very start of the considerations relating to Leisure Transformation.  The Trade Unions had asked for a voluntary redundancy process to allow those staff who did not wish to work in a new regime which would involve significant and far-reaching change for individuals given they had worked historically in a particular way for a considerable time.  All of the staff who had applied to be released from the Council under the scheme had done so on an individual and voluntary basis.  The release of staff under the process should not be confused with the proposed Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) Regulations transfer as the two matters were not interrelated.  Even without the proposed service transfer to the Trust model, there was recognition of the need for modernisation of the staffing arrangements at the leisure centres which would have involved an overall reduction in staff numbers.

            It was pointed out that the requirement to reduce staff levels and introduce modern and more flexible staffing had been identified in the Deloitte Report which had been presented to the Committee in December, 2013 and more recently in the report which had been commissioned by the Trade Unions.  Following Council approval in October, 2013, the Parks and Leisure Department had initiated an exercise inviting all staff working within Leisure Operations, excluding Business Support Clerks, to express an interest in voluntary redundancy as part of the ongoing transformation programme.  Any staff released through a voluntary redundancy process would not be replaced by new staff carrying out the same job functions.  There would need to be a range of new jobs created which fitted within the structure of the target operating model, which would be developed over the coming months.  Those new jobs would be substantially different and would require flexible working and would be more aligned to the needs of the service.  It was reported that, following completion of the expression of interests, a total of sixty-one applications had been received requesting voluntary redundancy.  Each individual request had been evaluated against the agreed voluntary redundancy criteria.  In the past, the Council had worked on the basis that the cost of voluntary redundancy should be recovered by savings over a period of 3.2 years.  Sixty-one requests had been received and sixty had met the agreed criteria, including meeting the payback period, whilst one request was still under consideration.  The cost of the release of the employees who had requested voluntary redundancy would be approximately £1.6million.  In crude numbers that would suggest that a saving on staffing costs equivalent to £500k per annum would achieve the target return on investment.

            The Committee was advised that it was generally acknowledged that there was a need to change the inefficiency of the current staff structure and working practices.  A very significant saving on staffing costs should therefore be achievable via the combination of reduced headcount and greater flexibility in working practice.  The Deloitte Report had suggested that savings of £1.57million through reduced staff costs and the report by the Association for Public Service Excellence commissioned by the Trade Unions had indicated that a reduction of staff costs could achieve around £1.04million.  Both figures were predicated on various factors, but exceeded the £500k required per annum for the return on investment.  The level of staffing in any model for the operating of leisure facilities should not be considered ‘static’.  A pro-active approach to the use of staffing resource was required and that involved using various performance indicators.  The current staffing costs as a percentage of income was likely to exceed 80%.  The industry benchmark was closer to 50%, but that was dependant as much on the income growth as it was the staffing costs itself.  The longer term aim should be to encourage income growth in order to create more jobs and training opportunities for local people.  Should the Committee approve the voluntary redundancies, it would need to start putting staff on notice from September/October 2014, allowing for continuity of service up to the time of transfer.

            The Committee agreed to the implementation of the Voluntary Redundancy Programme and the release of 60/61 employees who had met the necessary redundancy criteria.