Campbell hits out at jobs blow

12.00.00am GMT Tue 3rd Jan 2006

The Alliance Party has hit out at the extent of the job losses estimated for Government as a result of its review of public administration. Deloitte has been revealed this week as having recently advised Government that 3,847 jobs would go on the basis of a similar model to the one the Government has opted for in its announcement on the reorganisation of administration in local government, education and health services.

Party Spokesman, Newtownabbey Cllr Tom Campbell, said that the information on the Government's own adviser's estimates of job losses had been dragged out of it under the Freedom of Information Act and that it revealed job losses of around 4,000, much more than had been previously anticipated.

Cllr Campbell said: "The Government made no effort to reveal its own internal advice setting out estimates of the extent of redundancies amongst staff. It was significantly not referred to when the Government made its recent announcement reducing the size and scale of public

administration here.

"It is shocking to think that Ministers opted for a model opposed by political parties representing three-quarters of the population here in the knowledge that around 4,000 public servants would lose their jobs in the interests of savings particularly when there were other less drastic options available. Significantly when the Task Force Team involved in making RPA recommendations came to my Council, it was unable to answer my question as to the scale of employment losses involved. The Government knew this information all the time, which makes its decision all the more sanguine in the cold light of day.

"This also emphasises the foolishness of Government failing to heed Alliance warnings concerning the lack of an economic strategy to create jobs in other sectors to replace those lost in the public sector."

ENDS