A MASSIVE staff and management shake-up at Waverley Borough Council is on the cards next year which could see the number of staff on its books cut by 30 per cent. It will tie in with the controversial plans to transfer its housing stock to a housing association, and will help the council to find the cash needed to plug a £1 million funding deficit. As previously reported by The Herald, the borough council has decided to sell off its 5,200 council homes and transfer them to a new housing association. The association, set up by the council, would then bring the homes up to a decent standard - something Waverley does not have the cash to do. However the move still has to be agreed by the council's existing tenants. Should the stock transference go ahead, there will be a major staffing change in the council's housing department. This could see almost a third of the council's existing staff having their jobs moved to a housing association and cuts being made to those who stay behind. However if the transference does not get the green light the council is promising change to "streamline" itself to make the massive savings. The news comes in the wake of massive debt with the council having a rolling financial deficit of around £1 million every year. It has also been stretched by poor government grants to pay for vital services which increases the gap between income and expenditure. The council has delayed taking radical cost- cutting steps to fill the void until the outcome of the future of its houses is known and has been plugging the gap with its reserves. A report to next Tuesday's meeting of Waverley Borough Council's executive reveals that an expenditure review has been carried out and so far savings totalling £394,000 a year have already been made over the past two years. The council is also reviewing its management structure and the way its departments are organised, with the possibility of redundancies on the cards to save cash. However savings could be found if the stock transfer goes ahead with some staff transferring to the new housing association. There could also be a shake-up of the remaining housing department and its staff. The council is now looking at putting a hold on its organisational review and tie it together with the stock transfer ballot result. "It is the view of the of the chief executive, as the council's head of paid service (HoPS), that now the the council has taken the decision that housing stock transfer is necessary a major organisational restructuring will now be required," the executive's report read. "Accordingly, the HoPS advised the council leadership that to remodel the council's organisational structure in advance of the final result of the housing options appraisal would be premature and, potentially, damaging to the council's corporate capacity. "Members of the executive now feel that a single stage restructuring review would be more appropriate to coincide with the proposed housing stock transfer or, if tenants vote against a transfer, a move to radically streamlined organisation." Tenants are due to vote in September and the different restructuring options are expected to be unveiled before November. Staff will then be consulted and a preferred option will be drawn up at the end of the year which will then be approved in February. If there are no delays then the new management structure and housing association, assuming stock transfer is given the go-ahead, will be in place from April 1 next year.
