'Nightmare' situation prompts more job losses at Darlington Council

6:26pm Friday 15th February 2013 in News By Alexa Copeland, Reporter (Darlington)

Bill Dixon Bill Dixon

MORE than 50 Darlington Council workers are facing redundancy in a new wave of council cuts.

The authority has begun consultation on the potential loss of approximately 57 jobs as part of an ongoing cost-cutting process that council leader Bill Dixon described as “a nightmare”.

Around 400 council jobs have already gone over the past three years as the authority attempts to make £17m worth of savings by 2016/17, on top of the £24m already saved in the last two years.

Coun Dixon said the continued loss of central government funding was threatening the very future of councils and that the situation has worsened since he first described the council as going through “its darkest days” back in 2010.

“If it continues like this you have got to question the future of local government,” he said.

“We can’t keep sustaining these kind of hits; this is the cost in very real human terms.”

He added: “It is inevitable that this will affect what we do and how we do it.

“You can’t take this many posts out over a period of time and expect it to be business as usual.”

Ada Burns, chief executive of Darlington Council, said: “The reduction in Government grant is such that every single service the council provides will need to be reviewed, inevitably, this will lead to job losses.

“Whilst we will try and avoid compulsory redundancies wherever possible; the scale of the funding cuts means that this may not be possible.”

Among those facing the axe is popular markets manager Peter Wilson who has worked in his role for 40 years and played a vital role in securing the future of the award-winning Darlington Sunday People’s Market Speaking after the announcement he said: “Not everybody lasts forever and things have to move on.

“I am confident the markets are going to continue without me, they are too important not to - you can’t come to Darlington without seeing the markets.

“You often go to retirement dos and people say ‘I won’t miss the work, but I will miss the people,’ but I will miss all aspects of the job, the work and the people.”

Comments(31)

Jonn says...
7:00pm Fri 15 Feb 13

How about scrapping the Darlington Together magazine? Mine just goes straight in the box for the cats tray. I understand, after reading a recent FOI request that it costs DBC £56k a year? Correct me if I am wrong.

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marilyn49 says...
7:00pm Fri 15 Feb 13

Soon the only occupants of the town hall will be the fat cat managers and the H. R .department. How about the councillors and Ms Burns show the way by taking a cut in their allowances and pay?

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laughingboy51 says...
7:53pm Fri 15 Feb 13

this is marvellous really.....the redundants will be able to have more time to got to the refurbished £5 million pounds Gym at the Dolphin Centre........

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billy56 says...
9:04pm Fri 15 Feb 13

Holiday entitlement and sickness payment should be reviewed! all staff get 31 days holiday as well as 8 bank holidays as soon as they commence employment .Gone are the days when you had to work for over 5 years to get extra holidays. Even if you are not contracted to bank holiday days you get holiday entitlement to take !

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detachedbystander says...
11:25pm Fri 15 Feb 13

Hang on - is it not the case that 6+ managers are on £100k+ each pa? For an electorate of 100k? That's £6 each MINIMUM for each individual, £15 each MINIMUM for each working tax payer.

Now, the world today is not the world of 5 years ago. Most of us have suffered. Most, but not all.

The real hurt at Darlo council will be felt by those at the front line that lose their jobs. There will be NO job losses at the top. It's not right and it's not fair.

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Hunty1 says...
12:03am Sat 16 Feb 13

That's what happens when too many pigs feed out of the trough, someone has to go!

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Jonn says...
8:07am Sat 16 Feb 13

How about weighing in that water feature that never worked outside The Arts Centre for scrap? Must be worth a few grand.

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Homshaw1 says...
10:11am Sat 16 Feb 13

Still lots of waste and extravagance

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startrite says...
10:16am Sat 16 Feb 13

poor Bill must be devastated whilst he drives around the town in his private reg BMW, bless him .

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vicky1975 says...
1:39pm Sat 16 Feb 13

Awwww poor Peter Wilson - such a shame he may lose his job. If he had been a pro-active markets manager from the start, Darlington's Markets may have stood a chance to be profitable. He should have lost his job a long time and let someone else give Darlington a market to be proud of - If only the public knew the harsh truths about the council markets and the dark ages views they still work with.

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Jonn says...
5:30pm Sat 16 Feb 13

They are going to need as many frontline staff as possible come April. The new bedroom tax is going to cause all sorts of chaos plus the abolishment of help with council tax will mean many broke people being asked to find extra money they simply haven't got. I envisage a lot of arrear chasing by DBC.

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hemmi1 says...
6:00pm Sat 16 Feb 13

dont get me wrong i have never ever been a tory and have been old labour all of my life but this bunch of idiots pretending to run the country have never told any council to make anyone redundant or to close any services the way the council runs its own buget is not central goverments fault but i do see lots of similaritys with labour councils ie threaten to close big venues and services such as the civic / the forum etc then save them at the last second and claim a victory newcastle are doing the same with the city hall and the arts then they close front line services for the elderly and disabled (the easy targets) and blame the torys why not make the cuts at the top the world will still turn without bill ada and the fatcats

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g8crasher says...
7:17pm Sat 16 Feb 13

Good, the fewer "non" jobs that joke of a council has the better. Just got the wheelie bin expense farce to swallow now

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outragedofmiltonkeynes says...
10:35pm Sat 16 Feb 13

I had a nightmare last night. A bearded wino in a purple jumper chased me through the park.

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spragger says...
10:07am Sun 17 Feb 13

Get rid of the Chief Exec, thats £200k pa saved, year on year. He is part of the problem.
- Cut all discretionary overtime
- Cut all temporary staff
- Cut Cllrs expenses/allowances
- Cut all salaries by 15%
- Place all staff on a money purchase pension.
- Lose all european , climate change, compliance, diversity, political jobs. They do nothing for the taxpayer.

Another lazy, lying Labour council

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oliviaden6 says...
10:08am Sun 17 Feb 13

I wonder what the ratio of job losses are compareing loses of blue aand white collar? I imagine the blue collar will be hit the hardest as always. And as far as the Markets officer if he has served 40 years he should be looking at going early anyway and enjoying his retirement early. Even with the cuts i imagine DBC will still raise the council tax when all around are freezing theirs. Shame on DBC

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Jonn says...
10:32am Sun 17 Feb 13

I guess this means my car will continue to suffer excessive wear and damage indefinitely driving around this town as the roads are never going to be repaired properly now.

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the-big-yin says...
12:19pm Sun 17 Feb 13

spragger wrote:
Get rid of the Chief Exec, thats £200k pa saved, year on year. He is part of the problem.
- Cut all discretionary overtime
- Cut all temporary staff
- Cut Cllrs expenses/allowances
- Cut all salaries by 15%
- Place all staff on a money purchase pension.
- Lose all european , climate change, compliance, diversity, political jobs. They do nothing for the taxpayer.

Another lazy, lying Labour council
Spagger i like your thinking...Although i cannot ever see this happening....
I have been having a laugh at d.c.c. this week...I live over Crook and have been watching the council workers planting trees and what look like weeds on roundabouts...There were 8 of them doing this with 5 standing leaning on shovels.... Why do the council think it is necessary to waste a fortune planting everywhere they can.....millions to be saved there..Also the workers take vehicles home with them and drop off and pick up work mates on a morning and night...Is this not our tax payers money they are using there...What other companies allow their workers to do this, also are the vehicles insured to be stood outside of peoples homes.......Jobs for the big boys for life at all councils....Time for change.....

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Lifetime Townie says...
4:36pm Sun 17 Feb 13

Less services and less council employees ======== don't need so many Councillors for a lesser workload! Cut down some of this deadwood and save on the expenses and their Local Gov. Pension contributions

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Lifetime Townie says...
7:09pm Sun 17 Feb 13

spragger wrote:
Get rid of the Chief Exec, thats £200k pa saved, year on year. He is part of the problem.
- Cut all discretionary overtime
- Cut all temporary staff
- Cut Cllrs expenses/allowances
- Cut all salaries by 15%
- Place all staff on a money purchase pension.
- Lose all european , climate change, compliance, diversity, political jobs. They do nothing for the taxpayer.

Another lazy, lying Labour council
Would these comments fit the Darlo council aswell

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hemmi1 says...
11:17pm Sun 17 Feb 13

why not replace this bunch of clowns and replace them with inanimate objects that just sit and collect attendance fees

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hottopic says...
7:48am Mon 18 Feb 13

Outsource more services, let the private sector drive down the price to what it should be, employ the same people for a salary which is determined by market factors instead of private sector pay scales.

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lechef says...
10:07am Mon 18 Feb 13

spragger wrote:
Get rid of the Chief Exec, thats £200k pa saved, year on year. He is part of the problem.
- Cut all discretionary overtime
- Cut all temporary staff
- Cut Cllrs expenses/allowances
- Cut all salaries by 15%
- Place all staff on a money purchase pension.
- Lose all european , climate change, compliance, diversity, political jobs. They do nothing for the taxpayer.

Another lazy, lying Labour council
spragger-shows how much you know when you call the Chief Exec a "he" Ada Burns is a "she". There is no overtime, temporary staff are cheaper than full time in an uncertain world, Cut salaries by 15%, yes some of the senior staff need to take a pay cut. Pay has been frozen for over 3 years anyway. The pension scheme is contributory anyway and the redundancy has been reduced. Problem is the senior management and councillors only think short term not long term and will do anything to save the "jobs for the boys/girls" whose faces fit.

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pager11 says...
12:05pm Mon 18 Feb 13

Go into the darlington.gov.uk website and type in the search engine councillors salaries, it comes to over £630,212, plus expenses are on top of this and the mayors office. Add in Ms Burns salary & pension etc and you are nearing £200k. Also you have directors, asst. directors all costing this town money,all this is available to view on the darlington website. This is not a large council in comparison to other councils in the north-east, stockton, newcastle are all cutting their budgets and they are bigger than ours. It is about people in this town woke up to this fact!!!! These salaries only go up to March 31st, so watch this space.

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johnny_p says...
9:25am Wed 20 Feb 13

All these council workers are paid well to reflect their true worth- in other words what they'd earn in the "real" world.

Funny they all seem to see loosing their jobs as a "nightmare" situation though isn't it?

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johnny_p says...
1:23pm Wed 20 Feb 13

Incredibly I've just seen Bill Dixon at Sainsburys on Victoria Road.

Guess he's got a day off, my employers certainly wouldn't let me disappear off for lunch.

Funny mix of a man- looks like a geography teacher only with tattooed forearms. Hope he enjoyed his luxury picking of groceries and the case of Shiraz though. After all- we're paying for it......

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Lifetime Townie says...
3:23pm Wed 20 Feb 13

For such a small council I'm told we have 1 Chief, 3 Directors and 12 Assistant directors before we come to a layer of managers and foremen before we get to the front line workers. And then on top of that the 53 councilors make it look like a "jobs for the boys" set up paid for by the public!!

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kathlem says...
11:33am Thu 21 Feb 13

3$ for "every link Visit" by Just invite 10 friends daily - 300$ weekly. See http://goo.gl/uWuvL

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janaliii says...
4:37am Fri 22 Feb 13

how can anyone no matter how high up the ladder justify near £200,000 per year salary and then shut down village toilets due to a lack of £15,000 a year costs leave roads full of pot holes and the history and heart removed from its town centre by a bunch of brainless idiots masscarading as council employees in turn overseen by even thicker brained managers.

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Lifetime Townie says...
11:16am Fri 22 Feb 13

janaliii wrote:
how can anyone no matter how high up the ladder justify near £200,000 per year salary and then shut down village toilets due to a lack of £15,000 a year costs leave roads full of pot holes and the history and heart removed from its town centre by a bunch of brainless idiots masscarading as council employees in turn overseen by even thicker brained managers.
Thousands of Darlo residents would agree with your comments, spot on!!

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marilyn49 says...
5:50pm Fri 22 Feb 13

johnny_p wrote:
Incredibly I've just seen Bill Dixon at Sainsburys on Victoria Road.

Guess he's got a day off, my employers certainly wouldn't let me disappear off for lunch.

Funny mix of a man- looks like a geography teacher only with tattooed forearms. Hope he enjoyed his luxury picking of groceries and the case of Shiraz though. After all- we're paying for it......
Hold on there Johnny. What have you got against Geography teachers?I was one for 30 years and I look nothing like Bill Dixon....

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