Liverpool offers severance scheme to all staff earning £40k+, frontline workers ineligible

Liverpool City Council has invited all staff earning more than £40,000 to apply for voluntary severance under a discretionary compensation scheme.

The move comes after the local authority opened the scheme earlier this month to 80 senior staff earning more than £60,000.

The council’s executive management team have also agreed to a 15% pay cut after foregoing bonuses for meeting performance targets. These were worth £150,000 a year.

The initiatives are part of a drive by Liverpool to reduce its wage bill for senior staff while protecting front line services.

The compensation scheme will not be made available to front line employees such as social workers.

Council leader Joe Anderson said: “There are tough times ahead for local government and we are acting now in readiness for the reductions in spending which we know are coming down the track. We are concentrating out efforts on taking out posts which will have the least impact on the most vital services.

“We are focused on streamlining the organisation, but the bottom line is that we will try wherever possible not to have reductions in staff that impact on the quality of services we deliver.”

Applications will be considered individually on their merits.

A spokesman for the council said there would be members of the legal team that will be able to apply under the scheme. However, he added that approvals would only be made “when in the interests of the organisation and they deliver real savings”.

The council will accept applications until the end of August. “After this date the scheme may be withdrawn and there is no guarantee of any future discretionary compensation schemes,” it said.