Early retirement and voluntary severance considered by Council
Tuesday, June 16 2009
Scottish Borders Council (SBC) will consider a private report at a special meeting tomorrow (18 June 2009) which recommends the approval of early retirement and voluntary severance (ER/VS) for 27 members of Education and Lifelong Learning staff.
The report is part of the implementation of the Transforming Children’s Services (TCS) recommendations which were approved by Council in December 2008.
The financial plan for the project included proposed efficiencies in both Education and Social Work to help reshape both services to make them more effective, cost efficient and meet the many challenges facing them both locally and nationally.
All volunteers were evaluated against a number of criteria including length of service, cost and facilitating the transformation agenda. A total of 27 applications have been supported by the Director of Education, Glenn Rodger and Director of Social Work, Andrew Lowe. 20 of the applications are early retirement and the remaining seven are voluntary severance.
Glenn Rodger, Director of Education and Lifelong Learning said: “This process enables us to move forward with implementing our plans to re-structure our service without making any compulsory redundancies. I am confident the new structure will give us the capacity to deliver the national curriculum for excellence effectively through for example, making all our headteachers non-teaching, increasing teacher numbers in the primary sector and giving more newly qualified teachers the opportunity to join our service.”
An assessment of potential savings was considered against the estimated costs incurred and overall efficiency in terms of non-financial benefits. The total estimated savings per annum from ER/VS is £529,604.
For more information on TCS visit www.scotborders.gov.uk/tc
Notes
Early retirement is voluntary retirement in the interests of efficiency for staff over 50 who can access pension.
Voluntary severance is where staff are allowed to volunteer to leave the organisation with a compensation payment but without their posts being declared redundant and where there is no access to pension or an individual chooses this compensation instead of enhancement to the pension.
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