Cost of council exit packages revealed by new figures

New data from the Department for Levelling Up and Communities shows the council spent £227,000 on 13 staff settlements in the year to March 2023.

The council said the figure included one compulsory redundancy, with the other exit packages including voluntary redundancy and settlements.

Each package had an average cost of £17,000 each.

Exit packages including redundancy cost £453,000 the previous year,

But a council spokesperson said the payouts represented only about half a per cent of the workforce.

They said: “Despite the pressures on our local authority to provide much needed services we have continued to minimise the need over the last few years to make compulsory redundancies and have also worked with people to arrange voluntary redundancies.

“As a percentage of our total workforce which is around 2,000 people the figures are extremely small at about half a per cent of the workforce.

“Also, exit package settlement figures overall during the last four years have actually fallen.”

Nationally more than £185million was spent on staff redundancies by councils across England, the lowest annual amount in nine years. Last year more than £214m was paid out to departing employees.

The number of staff taking redundancy also hit the lowest point since 2014, with over 7,800 exit packages agreed, at an average cost of £23,000.

Coun Pete Marland, chair of the Local Government Association’s Resources Board, said: “Despite increasing demand for services, local authorities also face challenges in getting the right people into the right roles, such as in children’s services, adult social care and planning.

“Our own workforce survey shows 94 per cent said they were experiencing recruitment and retention difficulties.”

He added: “Only long-term, consistent funding from central government will be enough to meet inflationary pressures and the rising costs of the National Living Wage, on top of increasing energy and other costs, if we are to avoid more redundancies and prevent exacerbating an already acute capacity crisis in some areas.”

The figures also show nationally there were 325 senior employees made redundant last year, an increase of 70 on the year ending 2022.Together they received a total of £28 million, at an average of £85,000 each.