Highland Council may cut senior managers to protect front line services
A confidential report seen by The Northern Times today signals plans by Highland Council to merge two of its arms length organisations in a move that could spell job losses in senior management and save up to £300,000 a year.
High Life Highland and Inverness Leisure currently operate as entirely separate companies, with different boards and individual advertising and marketing budgets.
The council believes there is sufficient overlap in the operations, with Inverness Leisure in charge of the day-to-day running of Inverness Aquadome and High Life Highland running the council’s other leisure centres.
A report to the council’s education children and adult services committee, not due to be made public until tomorrow, says each organisation has a management team "appropriate to its remit and the scope of its activities", However, it warns that in the context of the council’s "worsening budget position" it will be necessary to further review funding levels to both Inverness Leisure and High Life Highland in the years ahead.
The report continues: "An obvious and constructive way to reduce costs without impacting on front-line services is to rationalise back-office functions including the costs of management roles duplicated in each organisation.
"A single management team could, at significantly lower cost, plan and deliver more integrated services and more efficient support functions. A larger single organisation would also allow benefits for staff in terms of career progression and geographical mobility."
The controversial plan will be debated by the committee at a meeting in Inverness next Thursday - 27th August.
The report to members recommends the council’s chief executive Steve Barron should write to the chief executives of both organisations "asking them to work together to appraise the options and produce a rationalisation plan resulting in a single organisation to deliver the functions of both existing organisations".
This plan is required by 30th September.
Highland Council declined to comment on the proposed merger. Its press handling team compiled a press release for journalists today - shortly after The Highland Times began making enquiries about the plan.
The press release is embargoed until midnight.
A council spokeswoman said: "A statement was prepared in discussion at senior level with HLH and IL over the past few days and scheduled to go out at lunchtime today with an embargo to allow both organisations to brief their Board members and staff and for ECAS committee members to receive and read their papers."
