Redundancies

LBWF claims penury, but compared to 2020-21 it now employs 9 per cent more staff, and pays out 36 per cent more in wages

November 26, 2025 Redundancies, Senior Staff Pay 0

Both the current LBWF Leader, Cllr. Grace Williams, and her predecessor, Cllr. Clare Coghill, repeatedly have warned that LBWF is under financial pressure, and argued that this necessitates ‘savings’ and service cuts. Their particular focus frequently has been on annual deficits, which are said to have accelerated from Covid times to anywhere between £20m. and £30m. today (the exact sum changes wi... »

LBWF’s recent voluntary redundancy programme: grass roots staff culled, even as ‘senior managers’ mushroom in number

May 9, 2025 Redundancies

In November 2023, LBWF introduced a voluntary redundancy programme, which, it claimed, was necessary to help bridge an overall funding gap forecast to reach £26.7m. in the next few years.  Subsequently, little if anything more has been said about this in public, but a recent Freedom of Information response reveals some of the details. Altogether, 92 staff have accepted the terms offered to th... »

LBWF CEO Linzi Roberts-Egan’s message to council staff: we are in a much more challenging financial position than we hoped we would be, so save money or else!

October 10, 2024 LBWF finance, LBWF spin, Senior staff pay

LBWF CEO Linzi Roberts-Egan has just circulated the following message to staff: ‘We are facing a significant budget deficit this year, with a £17million forecasted overspend. This is a much more challenging financial position than we hoped we would be in at this point in the year, and together we must all take immediate action to address it. This will mean making difficult decisions over the... »

The number of senior staff in the Town Hall keeps rising, with a 38 per cent increase between 2021 and 2023 alone, but the explanation remains a mystery

October 4, 2024 Redundancies, Senior staff pay

Recently released figures show that, between 2021 and 2023, the number of senior staff in the Town Hall increased from 317 to 437, that is by 38 per cent. This continues a trend going back to 2015 (the earliest year that is comparable): As a graphic illustration of the cohort that has been created, in 2023 the top team in the Town Hall consisted of the CEO, Linzi Roberts-Egan, her deputy, four ‘St... »

LBWF is making 150 employees redundant, and imposing 105 separate spending cuts, but its long-term habit of appointing expensive senior staff apparently continues

February 23, 2024 Linzi Roberts-Egan, Redundancies, Senior staff pay

Some of the choices that LBWF makes about the expenditure of public money are perplexing, to say the least. Consider first some recent history. Over the years, and when speaking publicly, leading Labour councillors have repeatedly insisted that dwindling central government funding is threatening the council’s financial stability. Yet behind the scenes, as this blog has revealed, these same leading... »

Private Eye reports LBWF’s mushrooming number of expensive senior staff, their failure to improve performance, and the redundancy programme that is the consequence

February 14, 2024 LBWF spin, Redundancies, Senior staff pay

From Private Eye, No. 1617, 16 Feb to 29 Feb. 2024 »

EXCLUSIVE From 2015 to 2022 the number of senior staff in the Town Hall grew nearly fourfold, the cost of employing them did too, but service levels remained average

January 9, 2024 Cllr. Grace Williams, LBWF finance, LBWF spin, Senior staff pay

What follows looks in greater detail at an earlier post’s revelation (see links) that in the past few years, despite repeatedly complaining about government imposed cuts, LBWF in fact has spent millions more from the public purse appointing expensive senior staff.  To get a better handle on this surprising development, I have analysed the annual series which LBWF publishes about its senior st... »

LBWF embarks on staff redundancies but quietly admits that it’s allowed senior staff hires to mushroom, even as resident satisfaction with the council plummets

December 19, 2023 LBWF spin, Redundancies

LBWF never ceases to amaze. Take its current voluntary redundancy programme. Of course, the timing, just before Christmas, is deplorable, and says everything about how little the Town Hall leadership really cares for those who work for it. But putting that point aside, it’s very interesting to see how LBWF justifies itself.  Predictably, the story being spun for public consumption is th... »