Today (Friday 16 July) Learning Partnership West (LPW) will be announcing a restructure of its organisation and a series of cuts arising from central Government's decision to reduce the Area Based Grant given to the Local Authorities from which LPW is funded to provide the Connexions service.
The proposals, which follow a decision by ministers to cut £6.2bn in public spending this year, will see around 55 jobs lost in LPW over the next year, representing a reduction of around a third of staff in the Connexions service.
Keith Harrison, Chief Executive of LPW said: "We have worked with the four local authorities to identify the amount of money LPW will be required to save. As a result of these discussions we have no alternative but to reduce our staffing costs and reduce some provision which is no longer funded by the new coalition Government.”
Over the next 15 months a saving of £2.3 million will be made by LPW.
Keith continued: “These are not decisions that we take lightly and we are reluctant to make such cuts. It is very important to stress that these cuts mean we will be streamlining our organisation and prioritising our work in order to fulfill our statutory duties and to continue to provide a much needed and valued service to young people, schools and colleges and parents and carers in the West of England. We aim to ensure that LPW is sustainable after the cuts have been made so that key services can continue to be delivered.”
“We cannot confirm which areas and staff will be affected until the beginning of September 2010.”
Today and for the next few weeks, all staff will take part in a consultation process with redundancies being confirmed by September.
For all press enquires please contact: Aime Southgate (07747048726) or Matthew Anderson (07747048731) at Montage Communications on 0845 644 5404
