Dozens of Teachers in North Wales County Made Redundant Amid Budget Cuts

Dozens of teachers in a North Wales county have been made redundant as a cash-strapped council makes budget cuts.
Conwy Council has confirmed 51 members of staff have been lost – at a one-off cost of £883k.
Conwy Council cut school budgets by 5% earlier this year for the second year running.
The council said the redundancies would save more than £2m annually.
The authority raised council tax by 9.67% for the current financial year and slashed other front-line service budgets by 10%.
Headteachers in Conwy then signed a letter condemning the cuts, and Conwy initially released figures on school redundancies earlier this month, confirming the cuts caused 34 school job losses.
But those statistics didn’t include redundancies at foundation schools, which are also funded by the local authority but have more independence in their running.
Following a series of questions sent by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the council has now confirmed the full extent of the cuts.
A Conwy County Council spokeswoman said: “To set a balanced budget for 2024/25, 51 employees from 18 schools have been made redundant.
“Of these redundancies, 46 were voluntary redundancies and five were compulsory redundancies.
“Roles that have been made voluntarily redundant consisted of assistant headteacher, deputy headteacher, teacher, higher level teaching assistant, teaching assistant, administrative roles, and mid-day supervisors.
“Compulsory redundancies related to teacher, teaching assistant, and administrative roles.
“The total cost associated with the redundancies was £882,939 and consisted of severance payments to the individuals concerned and pension strain costs that the council is obligated to pay in relation to certain redundancies.
“These are one-off costs.
“Collectively, the redundancies have created an annual, recurring cost saving of £2,012,125 in the council’s budget.
“Due to the potential to identify individual employees from within the data, we will not be disclosing information in respect of individual schools.”

By Richard Evans – Local Democracy Reporter