21 jobs gone at transport company

Apr 25 2009 by Alison Rennie, Paisley Daily Express

MORE than half a million pounds is to be saved by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport after 21 workers agreed to be made redundant.

The transport giant, which operates train, bus, subway and ferry services across the west of Scotland, had asked all its staff if they would be willing to be made redundant last December.

An initial 78 members of staff expressed an interest when the plan was first announced.

At the end of March, 42 people were still interested and, of those, 23 were offered packages and 21 accepted.

A total of 19 applications were declined by SPT on operational grounds.

The gross salary saving of the 21 posts is approximately £520,000, while the costs of redundancy payouts and pensions is £480,000, meaning the initial cost of making the people redundant will be met in less than two years.

Meanwhile, bosses are going to look at other ways of cutting SPT’s wage bill.

A report by SPT said: “Given the success of the programme, it is proposed to remain open until March 2010 on a self-funding basis and to utilise this time to seek alternative delivery methods which may result in a further headcount reduction.”