Dozens of posts set to go amid ferry service cuts
Malachy TallackThirty one posts look set to go within the council’s ferry service, after proposed cuts totalling £3.1million were agreed by the full council on Monday.
Tucked away in an appendix that was not available for public viewing and was not discussed at the meeting, the figure only came to light on Tuesday afternoon.
Speaking to The Shetland Times, the director of infrastructure services Phil Crossland said the loss of posts would be “service wide”.
“It will be 31 posts across the whole of the ferry service” he said. “We will look to be downsizing in line with our policies, which is to avoid compulsory redundancies wherever possible.
“In the first instance we’ll be looking to end temporary contracts and [cut posts] through voluntary severance means. Yesterday’s decision effectively means we’re now into a 12-week formal consultation with staff and unions.”
More details will follow.
Stewart Mack
Looking at the Scottish Government figures for employment in Local Authorities which are freely available the numbers listed against Shetland are quite startling. According to the statistics, there were approximately 3000 employed by the Local Authority in the year 2000 and despite dropping from a high in 2009/10 of over 4000 there are still 3800 shown as being employed at the end of the last quarter of 2012. The stark reality is that with such poor financial management in the past the only way to even hope to balance the books is to reduce staffing levels back to earlier levels. cutting services simply will not cvome close.Even taking staffing back to the levels at the millenium would appear to make a huge saving. It should perhaps not come from “front line” services but i fear that every area will suffer the same cuts before this is finished.
Sandy McMillan
The cutback in manpower on or off the Ferries, does this mean that there will be less trips by the ferries per day, if the ferries are idle they will make less money, Its like a guy running his taxi, if his car sits idle he makes no money, surely this would be similar to the ferries, they only make money when they are on the move, of course it is typical within the SIC they have not published hoe they came to the figure and facts, on where exactly the savings are are coming from, they seem to be blundering there way through this mess, the person or persons that were responsable for the financial management of the ferries are the ones that should be given there jotters and give them a calculator as a parting gift, and leave the honest hard working ferry men alone, Todate I have never heard of any the management being told to go after all the buck is in there court for the mess of the ferries,among a lot of other cutbacks It all leads to a lack of insight from every one of the top brass of the SIC MANAGEMENT.and the 22 Councillors, (sorry i forgot about David Clark. who recieved a raw deal from SIC), That does not include his pay off,