Plans to 'delete' jobs at Central Bedfordshire Council will not impact services, says chief executive

Speaking at last night’s Executive (Tuesday, February 18) chief executive Marcel Coiffait gave an overview of plans to save £9.9 million in the next financial year.

“They are all proposed changes to how many people the council employs, how they’re organised, how their work is undertaken, and the potential for avoiding some areas of external spend,” he said.

Mr Coiffait said the proposals, which are split into two parts, are designed to have “no detrimental impact” on service delivery to residents compared to current practice.

Part one, which is to save £5.5 million, includes the “deletion” of some existing vacancies.

“Posts that have been vacant for some months, several months in some cases, and we’ve found ways as an organisation to continue to deliver service without people in those posts,” he said.

“There are a total of 25.4 full-time equivalents which will be deleted.

“[Another] part of the work that we’re currently doing is deleting posts where we’ve found alternative ways of delivering that work.

“But these are posts that have people in them.”

He said consultations with staff and unions are currently underway, which may result in alternative proposals being agreed.

“I want to make it really clear, although it’s deleting 61 posts, that level of change in the organisation and the disturbance that it creates is not insignificant.

“Actually 170 members of staff have been told that their jobs are at risk.

“Say the choice is to delete one post out of a team of six, you have to consult with all six people and potentially put all six of them at risk.

“So it’s a bit more wide-ranging and obviously in terms of the kind of impact on staff and how they’re feeling – it’s bigger than 61 posts.”

The council acknowledged that while the reduced staffing would not mean a "substantial change" to public services, it will have consequences - with the potential to impact how many new projects the council can take on at any one time.

It said this might mean a need to prioritise projects and "increased response times for queries and questions".

The second phase of the cost-saving plan aims to deliver the remaining £4.4 million in savings.

Key strategies include further reducing reliance on agency staff—an area where the council has already cut spending by £4 million over the past year.

The council also plans to implement targeted process automation in departments, where digitisation could streamline workflows and reduce staffing needs.

Additionally, efforts are underway to improve cost recovery from NHS partners, which Mr Coiffait said had placed additional financial burdens on the council.

“We will still be a council post the budget that spends hundreds of millions of pounds a year on making a difference to people’s lives, a positive difference,” he said.

“I want us to continue to be a great council, we are a good council and we can continue to be it despite the challenges on resources.

“We need to be able to deliver great services and we need to be absolutely focused on making sure that the valuable staff time we have is spent doing things that really add value.

“And not on things that actually we could either not do or we could automate easily.”