Job losses on the way across Dorset councils

The story so far: Council leaders in Dorset agreed to work more closely together in the name of efficiency. West Dorset’s leader Robert Gould blogged about this, and then his blog got taken down. I speculated that this must mean job losses; why, otherwise, the sensitivity? Now Dorset County Council’s Pathfinder Programme Manager Ali Henderson has this to say:

“The decision that has been made is to integrate the management team and officer structures of the three ‘southerly’ councils (Purbeck District Council, Weymouth & Portland Borough Council and West Dorset District Council) and do the same for the three ‘easterly’ councils (Christchurch Borough Council, East Dorset District Council and North Dorset District Council).

“This will mean the creation of some joint posts to manage the services for all three council areas. The detail has not been finalised on whether this will require some managers to accept redundancy, or whether the new joint positions can be created through the natural process of retirement or voluntary arrangements.

“For many services we are looking at merging all staff to deliver services jointly across the entire county, for example in waste collection and disposal, which is currently done separately by individual councils.”