Somerset County Council and Natural Environment Services

The Council apparently had its Budget meeting and passed buget with its significant cuts and no reaction from the Somerset Wildlife Trust. An interesting account of the situation can be found in the article in a local news paper by an Independant Councillor Mike Rigby which you can read at the link shown below.


/http://mikerigby.org/2013/02/09/somerset-county-council-partial-climbdown-countryside-cuts/



Here is a bit of it!

 

 

Environmental services inc countryside management & flooding received the fourth highest number of votes in the Council’s poll for additional investment.

Before the proposed changes, Somerset County Council’s Countryside Team comprised the following posts: -

• Team Manager
• Arboriculturalist
• Biodiversity Officer
• Project Officer
• Ecologist
• Part-time project officer
• Works team comprising 3 staff

In January, the Team Manager, Biodiversity Officer, Project Officer, Ecologist and the Works Team were all told that they were being made redundant on varying timescales. In the last week, the Biodiversity Officer and Project Officer have been told that their redundancy notices had been a ‘mistake’. This would be hilarious if it were not for the sad fact that the Project Officer had decided to take a job elsewhere having been told that she was being made redundant. The Ecologist has now been told that he is also to stay because a belated attempt has been made to charge his fees to the District Councils – and while some of them have agreed, there is no guarantee that this arrangement will endure for longer than a year. So, some partial success in retaining parts of the Countryside Team, which had been scheduled for complete abolition. But what a way to treat people. I have never in 20 years of business and local authority experience heard of staff being ‘accidentally’ notified of redundancy. 

More on the link given.