40 staff out of a staff of 200 made redundant in Tees Valley as Connexions disaggregates to 5 local authorities one year ahead of the 2008 deadline with a transition cost of £2.3 million. How many more may follow suit in 2008?
The remunicipalisation of Connexions, some 12/13 years after careers guidance services were privatised out of local authority control, is being handled differently across the country. In Tees Valley the "musical chairs" approach to TUPE meant that when the music stopped in March 2007 ,all staff based in the Head Office delivering pan Tees Valley services were made redundant and all staff based in local areas simply transferred to local authorities. As the Connexions budgets for 2007/8 are the same as 2006/7 and local authorities benefit from not paying 17.5% VAT ,and there have been no additional staff apointed in the local areas,one may wonder what is happening to the resource let alone ponder on what service improvements could have been produced with the £2.3m of DfES money spent on redundancies, pensions, forfeiting building leases etc. Four qualified staff with over 125 years of delivering & managing careers guidance between them are amongst the 40 - what chance has the careers guidance industry of surviving the latest round of staff coups to be led by qualified & experienced personnel in future?
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Redundancies now here for Connexions staff - 2007
