The following is a letter from Labour’s Group Leader Richard Williams to the Southern Daily Echo, regarding leaked plans by the Tory Council in Southampton to cut 1500 Council jobs. We’ve made these secret plans available to the public: you can download the Tories’ plans here (pdf).
Many Tory councillors appear to have been kept in the dark about the job cuts intentions of the Tory Council leadership. The claim of former Tory Councillor Linda Norris that the 1500 council jobs at risk is a “Labour plan” is simply wrong. Labour has never had any such plans to sack staff. The plans were drawn up by senior Council staff working on behalf of the Tory administration as a part of their budget proposals for next February.
The fact that the Labour Group had the figures leaked to us before many of the Tory councillors had even seen them is not our problem, it is theirs. We see it is as our duty, as the opposition, to expose them. Furthermore, to assist everyone in understanding this we are happy to post the whole presentation on the potential job cuts that was given to the senior management of the Council on July 5th on behalf of the Tory Administration, on the Southampton Labour Party web site. They total 1220 potential job cuts over the three year period from 2012 – 14. These are in addition to the 285 job losses already announced by the Tories in their budget of last February, making the 1500 jobs that are at risk, as correctly reported in The Echo last month.
Councillor Richard Williams
Labour Group and Opposition Leader
SCC
