County council facing job cuts

Up to 400 jobs could be cut at Hertfordshire County Council as the authority grapples with increased costs.

The cuts come as part of the authority's "organisational resourcing programme" to deliver £8m savings in 2024/25, rising to annual savings of £16m on current costs from 2025/26.

The programme aims to consolidated similar functions across the Council to bring about more efficient and effective operating models and eradicate duplication, along with a review of any vacancies, in order to limit any potential redundancies which may arise from proposed changes. The Council is also looking at better use of technology to enable increased productivity.

The Council's workforce headcount has increased by around 10% during and post-pandemic period and now sits at nearly 8,900.

A report delivered to the council highlighted the fact that the local authority has a high numbers of low span managers - where a third of managers have fewer than 3 direct reports. The Council also has broad management hierarchies, with ten layers from Chief Executive and multiple handoffs at lower layers with potentially unclear accountabilities.

Overall, the council are looking at the removal of 150.7 funded job vacancies,  the removal of 242.8 full time equivalent posts; and the creation of 99.5 new full-time equivalent roles – a net position of 143.7 reduction of occupied full time equivalent posts. This would results in potential savings of £14.8m.

Consultants PWC have been engaged to support the Council in delivering the next phase of the programme.

The Council will spend more than £1.1 billion in 2024/25, some £98m more than 2023/24. To deliver a balanced budget the council intends to draw on £11m of the Council’s reserves, increase council tax by 4.99% and deliver further savings of £46m of which the "Organisational Resourcing" Programme accounts for £16m.