Two-thirds of local authorities do not believe the economic downturn will prompt a need to reduce the headcounts of highways and transportation.
Around two in three councils responding to Localgov.co.uk sister title Surveyor’s questionnaire said they did not expect tighter financial settlements for local government and transport to reduce their authorities’ staffing requirements for transport planners and highways/traffic engineers.
Chancellor Alistair Darling said in his pre-Budget report in November that government spending would have to be reined in post-2010/11, given the downturn in tax receipts, and the level of public borrowing.
However, while many senior council officials acknowledged there would be increased budgetary pressures, given the decline in developers’ contributions and the future likely fall in Whitehall allocations, most believed that denuding departments of staff would be a mistake.
Dave Crisp, major works manager at Sandwell, spoke for many when he said: ‘While we need to think more carefully about recruitment now, it’s important to keep away from short-term planning.’
Richard Hawkins, head of transport and traffic services at Bexley, agreed. At a time of recession, ‘the demand for the service does not decline, and can even increase as resources are not available to produce solutions for transport problems’.
Some were even more upbeat. A spokesman for Cardiff said: ‘Our schemes require increasing numbers of staff to see them through.’
Surrey council, too, said: ‘We currently have an extensive programme of major transport schemes that are likely to require additional staff in the short to medium term.’ However, five respondents – 16% of the total – predicted that, if government capital and revenue allocations reduced, workloads would reduce, as would the money available to pay staff.
However, most, such as the London Borough of Lambeth, believed it was ‘unlikely we’d permanently delete posts’. Authorities such as Manchester and Wandsworth reported that staff might need to be paired back, but this would involve temporary agency staff used in times of increased workload.
Others said they were responding to the recession by re-deploying staff from areas where there was a reduced workload – most notably highways officers scrutinising planning applications – to areas where there was a continuing need for work, rather than to simply make them redundant.
These included Dorset County Council, which, according to Paul Willis, group manager for transport planning, would ‘re-train highway engineers released by the reduction in planning applications to assist in assessments of sites for the preparation of local development frameworks’.
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