Council may trim motoring and holiday ‘perks’ to help save £1m

Unions are negotiating over changes to terms and conditions, which the Labour administration says is needed to help protect jobs.

While workers on the lowest grade get 25 days a year leave, rising to 26 after 10 years service, those on grades 12 and above eventually end up on 33 days a year.

All staff get an extra two day statutory leave on top of the normal Bank Holidays. The national average is 28, but many private sector workers only get 25 days.

The council also wants to replace a range of generous mileage allowances – which go up to 65p a mile for staff who use their own cars for work – with 45p across the board, in line with the standard HM Revenue & Customs rate.

It has emerged that staff can also claim a petrol allowance on top of the mileage allowance of up to 11.3p a mile.

The top mileage rate – also paid in Leeds and Bradford – was criticised by Local Government Minister Bob Neill earlier this year as a “preferential and privileged” motoring perk.

The original date for an agreement on changes to terms and conditions was August 31. Council leader Steve Brady said the 33-days of leave for senior grades needed to be “reduced substantially”.

He said: “What I am saying is that we have got to be seen as being fair to staff and staff, I am sure, understand that all these things are up for discussion and hopefully we can come to a satisfactory conclusion.”

He added: “I want to see the least possible slippage in the possible time-frame, so we don’t have to look for further cuts next year.”

Coun Brady, a former convenor for the TGWU in the 1980s, said: “We had to accept the realities at the time and that was flexibility, annualised hours, which meant no overtime, and the return for that was job security and good pensions and enhancement of skills.

“I don’t see why the same principles can’t be applied to public service.”

Coun Brady dismissed as “waffle” claims by the Liberal Democrats that they are mismanaging the council’s finances, claiming they were on track “to being proved to be one of the healthiest councils financially by the end of this financial year.” He said their intention was to freeze council tax next year.

However the Lib Dems deputy leader Coun Mike Ross said they needed to see how they were going to make up the £6.68m budget overspend, revealed in recent forecasts:

“I am not saying the budget isn’t going to balance; at the end of the day it’s a question of what changes they are going to make, what services are going to be put at risk to deliver a balanced budget.

“The key date will be when they release their budget proposals, that will be an indication of how they intend to manage this. Until we actually see on paper what they plan to do, we won’t really know.

He added: “Before the election they stated they had agreement with the unions on £3m of savings now they are in power, they are looking at £1m. Who is really calling the shots?”

According to research by the Taxpayers Alliance, the average rate paid out by councils across the UK was 56.4p in 2010-11 – well above the HMRC-approved level at the time of 40p – meaning that a typical council worker would have ended up £164 better off for every 1,000 miles driven.

Co-ordinator Andrew Allison said reducing mileage allowances was the “right thing to do” - but was surprised by the additional payment for petrol - calling it “another of the hidden perks inside Hull City Council.”

He added: “It is outrageous that senior council officers are receiving effectively 35 days of holiday a year while the majority of British people only have around 25 to 28 days a year.”