Doncaster children’s services staff to take redundancy as funds are redirected

Children’s services staff at crisis-hit Doncaster Council have been offered voluntary redundancy as part of plans to redirect £700,000 to improve safeguarding services.

The council has confirmed that 16 staff will be leaving, although 30 employees expressed an interest in taking voluntary redundancy.

Chris Pratt, director of children’s services at the council, said the changes would lead to better local services.

“In order to make the necessary service improvements, we need to use our resources differently,” he said. “For example, in this year’s budget the council approved for the Children and Young People’s Service to benefit from a major investment in safeguarding services.

“As part of preparing this year’s budget, staff were given the opportunity to express interests regarding voluntary redundancy. This enables us to redirect resources without compulsory redundancies.”

Last year Ofsted slammed the troubled council, which has a poor record on safeguarding children. The government took over its running earlier this year when the Audit Commission said the authority was unable to improve without intervention.