Herts County Council announces cost-cutting 'accepted resignation' scheme

In a continuing bid to cut costs, the authority has already deleted vacant posts, frozen recruitment for non-essential roles and reduced spending with employment agencies.

And they have promoted a scheme that enables staff to purchase additional leave. But now they have drawn up plans for a new “mutually accepted resignation scheme” (MARS), where staff could choose to leave the council in return for a severance payment.

Officers suggest the scheme would provide a “fair and transparent” option for those looking to leave the council voluntarily. And they say it would help the council to “manage its financial position” – “supporting workforce cost reduction without resorting to compulsory redundancies”.

The terms of the scheme, which was endorsed by the council’s employment committee on Tuesday, have not been made public. Nor has the county council revealed how many staff they would expect to leave – or the amounts it would ultimately save.

Commenting on the scheme, in a statement issued to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, after the committee meeting, deputy chief executive Scott Crudgington said it would be “an additional measure to respond to the challenging financial position the council is faced with”.

“As a financially responsible council committed to delivering for our residents, we continue to work as efficiently as possible to reduce our costs and provide best value for money in the services we deliver,” said Mr Crudgington.

“We have already introduced a range of measures to manage our workforce costs, deleting vacancies, carefully managing recruitment to ensure only critical posts are filled, and reducing spend on agency staff. The council’s employment committee have agreed a time-limited Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme (MARS) as an additional measure to respond to the challenging financial position the council is faced with.

“The scheme will operate under clear eligibility criteria to make sure we can maintain critical services. Officers will now engage with our recognised trade unions on terms and scope for the scheme before it is launched.”

According to a report presented to the employment committee, the council would have “complete discretion” over whether an application was accepted or refused.

And among those excluded would be staff members who are going through a formal employment process, such as a performance or disciplinary process, or redundancy. Similarly, no one would be considered for the new scheme if they were going through the ill-health retirement process or had already resigned.

In addition, an application would only be successful, according to the report, if the applicant’s post could remain unfilled without further recruitment or reliance on agency staff. At the meeting of the employment committee, the leader of the county council, Cllr Steve Jarvis, acknowledged that they would prefer not to be in this position.

But he said that they needed to spend less money and had to deliver the best for the people of Hertfordshire with the resources available. Executive member for resources and performance, Cllr Chris Lucas, said that ideally he would like to encourage staff to stay with the council for as long as possible.

But he said the reality was that they could not do that – and that this was something staff could consider, if it was to fit their particular circumstances.

During the meeting, Conservative Cllr Fiona Thomson questioned the impact the scheme would have on staff morale. And leader of the Conservative group, Cllr Richard Roberts, suggested that it “smacks of an element of desperation” – asking whether it sent the right message to the council’s workforce.

Following the endorsement of the scheme by the employment committee, the county council’s director of people is now expected to engage directly with the council’s recognised trade union officials.