Every new year at the council brings with it a fresh cycle of angst and fear, because the battle to keep jobs begins all over again.
But this year, I no longer care about losing my job – in fact, the prospect of facing redundancy fills me with relief. Relief that I no longer have to face a relentless cost-cutting cycle.
Things changed for me last spring, when I was diagnosed with a serious illness. By the time June hit – which tends to be when the annual battle for existence kicks off – I was not at work to spend hours collating the service-saving information I have put together every year since the cuts began.
I manage a service that works with vulnerable families; we’re cheap and we don’t cause referrals to other services.
After several operations I returned to work to be told that my team and I were at risk. The formal consultation of our posts is widely accepted as tokenistic and my only priority now is to get the best exit from the council that I can.
The cycle of cuts I will be leaving behind normally goes something like this:
June kicks off with a catchy new phrase, adopted to avoid the word “cuts”. It could be “the transformation programme” or the “change agenda”.
Then there’s a reshuffle at the top of the council or highly paid consultants are bought in as a fresh pair of eyes. By July, rumours abound and I start to get anxious. Random demands for data hit my inbox from names I do not know.
By August it is clear I will have a job on my hands to save the service I work for. So I spend the month poring through our databases and submitting long documents showing how much money our service has saved the council.
More requests for data hit my inbox and I start to lose sleep, worrying that I won’t have a job by the following April. I don’t tell the members of my team about any of this. Why put them through this every year?
September heralds a peak in my anxiety, and my insomnia. All staff are summoned to workshops where a vision of the future is laid before them. I hear phrases like “everything must change” and “no job is safe”. I have to divert our meagre resources to paying staff to attend these events, while reassuring them that their jobs are safe because of all the money we save the council.
By October, across children’s services there is a general loss of focus. Morale plummets and people start leaving. Some because they think they will be made redundant. Some because they can’t stomach any more change. The cracks in the system widen further than ever before.
November is always when I am promised some concrete news. But the haste with which decisions about cuts are made means there are too many legalities to iron out and the November deadline expires.
December and the truth is out there. The people who belong to services that are safe try and make the most of January to May before it all starts again. The constant nausea disappears and I start to sleep soundly again.
I am exhausted by this annual cycle, by the insecurity about whether I will be able to pay the mortgage and put food on the table.
I have recovered from my illness. My future is bright. My future is not in the local council, even though I am still driven to want to help the most vulnerable in our society. I don’t know what the future holds but I know I won’t miss the misery of the constant uncertainty of working for a council.
When my surgeon gave me the good news I shook his hand vigorously and gratefully. As I drove back to work it occurred to me that lots of the families I have worked with have shaken my hand in the same way. But no-one in the council has ever shaken my hand and I don’t expect that to change as I hold my head high and work my way towards my redundancy date.
This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact kirstie.brewer@theguardian.com
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Council job cuts have finally caught up with me – but I"m relieved
