Jobs in cleaning and catering are in the firing line as Aberdeen City Council looks to slash a major budget by more than half as part of a cost-cutting drive.
The authority plans to save around £125million over the next five years – blaming ever-decreasing Scottish government grants for a big hole in its finances.
Documents prepared for the council’s transformation committee now show that around £24million of the cuts are expected in facilities management.
That includes the likes of cleaners, caterers, school crossing patrollers and building repairs.
Employing around 1,380 staff, facilities management had a budget this year of around £46million.
An outline business case says that the current way of working is “not an option” and that “significant” savings can be made by changing working patterns and moving to new technology.
The authority has a policy of not sacking workers but hundreds have taken voluntary redundancy and early retirement.
A full detailed business case is expected to be put before councillors next March to be voted on.
The report says that the implementation of the new system would take between 18 and 24 months.
“Doing nothing is not an option for Aberdeen – a strategic change in service configuration or to its delivery model is required to enable the council to make significant cost savings and operational improvements, as well as to potentially enable services to generate new revenues streams from external sources,” officials told councillors.
“The net effect of productivity gains is to require a smaller workforce which can then be achieved through a mixture of redundancy, redeployment and natural wastage.
“Labour cost savings could potentially be significant, driven by changing ways of working, increasing the productivity of staff and from deploying staff resources in a more intelligent way.”
Preparing a full business case for the changes will cost around £150,000 and will be complied by consultants PwC.
Unite union north-east regional representative Tommy Campbell said: “We have serious concerns about any cuts to these services.
“Frankly it is hard to see where any further cuts can come without cutting staff which is something we would oppose.”
Council co-leader Douglas Lumsden said that the PwC contract was temporary and being paid out of a special transformation fund and that savings across the council were “necessary”.