Ernie Clark. Hilperton Division, Wiltshire Council.

More redundancies threatened if unions stand up for council staff.

Earlier this month Wiltshire Council leader Jane Scott outlined a number of ways the council intends to make its staff bear the burden of getting the council out of the red.

In a message to council employees, chief executive Andrew Kerr claims £8million will be saved in the current financial year through 'losing' 240 managers, and £5.5m will be cut from budgets by using fewer temporary and agency staff.

The duo also want to get a further £2.5m from existing staff by cutting car mileage allowances, cutting the bonuses paid to staff in departments where recruitment was difficult in the past, reducing overtime payments, removing anti-social hours payments, withdrawing subsidised lease cars, cutting back on incremental pay increases, and raising £500k by getting staff to pay for their car parking. (As nearly everyone else that works has to pay to park, the final idea is not too radical).

Unions were threatened with further job losses should they not agree to these proposals, and individual staff have been threatened with reprisals if they dare speak to the media.