The voluntary redundancy programme is part of the States’ Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) which is looking for £70 million in savings from its staff budget. At present the States employs over 6,100 staff at a cost of approx £350million a year which is around half of overall States’ spending.
Three staff earning between £75,000 and £100,000 are going, with a further 20 on £50,000 to £75,000, taking voluntary redundancy.
The saving to the States for the 104 approved voluntary redundancies will be £4.2million a year. Staff were told Monday and will start working out their notice periods.
The largest number of redundancies comes from the Admin and Business Support sector, while the sector to see its greatest percentage leaving is management.
329 staff applied for the scheme, with 129 making applications. So far 104 of these have been approved with a further 10 under review. The second batch of 52 approved redundancies will cost around £3million and has yet to be approved by the States.
States Chief Executive, John Richardson said that for those who were refused voluntary redundancy the reasons were either that they were in a direct service provision role which meant they were needed, or that it wasn’t cost effective for them to go under the scheme.
He also said that around 100 staff have left since February and not been replaced under attempts to cut staff levels though natural attrition.
Deputy Chief Minister and States Employment Board member, Senator Andrew Green said, “We will also run future voluntary release schemes as we continue to find new ways of delivering serives and remove unnecessary duplication or processes from the system. Voluntary redundancy will always be used before compulsory redundancy, but given the scale of the changes we face this cannot be ruled out.”