The £30m black hole facing East Renfrewshire Council could increase workers’ stress levels, it is feared.
Councillors are concerned the threat of potential job cuts could have an impact on the mental health of staff.
Their comments came before the council announced the scale of the expected shortfall last week when council leader Owen O’Donnell issued a stark warning to residents.
READ MORE: East Renfrewshire Council concerns at rising staff absence rates
He said East Renfrewshire had already made savings of over £80m since 2015/16 and the prospect of no extra money, in real terms, from the Scottish Government as well as soaring inflation had created the budget gap.
A council tax rise, job cuts and higher fees for services will all need to be considered as the council tries to balance its budget, the council announced.
At at a recent audit and scrutiny committee meeting, Cllr Gordon Wallace, Conservative, said: “Given that how funding is going to be next year, what are we doing in order to ensure that our staff are being properly communicated on this because I suspect there will be many thinking: ‘Crikey, is the axe going to fall somewhere near me’.
“I’m just concerned about people’s general kind of feeling about the workplace at the moment and the possibility of being under threat.”
Cllr Andrew Morrison, Conservative, added the situation “could well add to feelings of stress” and absence.
A council official said: “It is something we are very, very concerned about for our own staff. None of us want to be in the position we are in, in terms of the budget targets and challenges we have ahead of us.
“But all councils find themselves in that space just now and we have unfortunately quite a long way to go in the budget process. As we know from past experience, things move along that timeline so we won’t have our council settlement until later in December.”
She added: “We are concerned about the budget challenges ahead for councils generally and what that will mean for our staff and the worry they will face as part of that as well as the cost of living more generally in their lives.”
Public engagement on the budget will be carried out by the council to outline the pressures faced, including inflation and the cost of energy, to staff and East Renfrewshire residents.
“That’s the start of us getting that message out there, there will be further iterations of that as we get through the budget process,” the official added. “The aim is to open up a public engagement on the scale of the budget savings and some of the proposals early in November.”
Unions have been briefed on the plans and the council wants to “work closely to involve staff on that as well as the public”.
The official was commenting on an annual report on local government from Audit Scotland. She said: “Councils have had a difficult year, they’ve had a difficult couple of years actually.”
Employees were “working additional hours, they worked during the pandemic, we didn’t furlough staff and they have had to take on additional duties while trying to keep services going as well”.
“We are seeing the strain of that in our staff in terms of well-being, perhaps not had good breaks, not had good holidays etc, because they were trying to keep on these duties and all credit to our staff for doing that.”
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