Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 11th April 2024 Issue no. 1109
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Council to cut 45 street cleaning and open spaces maintenance jobs in bid to save £1.395m
Scotland's Dundee Council, has announced that it is to cut 45 jobs in its street cleaning and open spaces maintenance operation in a bid to save £1.395 million of the £28m it has to shave from its budget over the next two years.
The council hopes that all the proposed job losses can be achieved through voluntary early retirement and voluntary redundancy over the next three years and that making its street cleaning operation more efficient will allow savings to be made without sacrificing cleaning quality. Currently, some city streets can be swept three times a day but the council now wants to switch focus to how clean streets are rather than how often they are swept.
Dundee West End councillor Fraser Macpherson told The Courier last week:
"Dundee has continually, over many years, scored highly compared to other Scottish local authorities in terms of the quality of its street cleaning service, and what we do not want to see is a reduction in this service and messy streets as a result.
"Council tax payers are entitled to a high-quality street cleaning service and I will be raising questions and seeking assurances about that when the report comes to council committee on December 7th.
"Councillors had a briefing about the proposed cuts to the street cleaning and grounds maintenance and we received an assurance that the reductions in posts would be through voluntary early retirements and transfers to work on capital projects and undertaken over three years, although I have to say I have concerns about the proposals.
"There have already been good initiatives to make the maintenance of open spaces more efficient and I can therefore understand the proposals to do more of these sort of initiatives as a 'spend to save'."
Image: Sometimes legislation prevents councils from responding quickly to cleaning problems. Local residents have complained to the council about this graffiti but the council cannot remove it until it has the property owner's permission.
3rd December 2015