SO savings cuts of a staggering £19.5 million pounds have to be made by Herefordshire Council. This is said to prevent the council from going further into the red!

There should be simple savings to be made. Many posts in local authorities are filled by overpaid staff, regrettably there is no way that salaries could be reduced as the unions would make that impossible.

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So the council is now looking for 140 staff to consider early retirement (oh, how many people in the private sector would look forward to that situation and the over-generous pensions that will result).

140 staff to retire early... surely that is enough proof that the council is overloaded with people looking for something to occupy them from 9am to 5pm. Private business could never afford to run a company on those lines.

A plan to be considered is to convert 30 agency social worker positions into permanent jobs, if that can be done then why employ agency workers in the first place?

What are your thoughts?

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It surprises me that the council believe that savings can be made to the tune of a third of a million by March 2025 by cutting 14 social worker posts “based on the assumption of reduced demand”, with the country in such dire straits I would have expected that more social workers would be required.

One only has to look at the all too depressing figures of suicides, school bullying, often malign influences from the likes of Tik Tok and associated platforms to believe that by 2025 things will be much worse.

A cheaper corporate mobile phone contract should save £170,000. Again, is the council looking for a cheaper contract just because of wasting rate payers’ money by not getting a competitive quote in the first place?

Yours exasperated.

TIM TOWNSEND

Hereford