The Department of Community, Culture and Leisure has been provided with a copy of the statement of the Employees’ Side of the Isle of Man Whitley Council in respect of the recent announcement to staff in Public Transport Division that an initial consultation on the necessary process of savings was beginning and would wish to comment on a number of points. The Department would like to emphasise that all that can possibly be done to avoid redundancies will be done; this first communication to staff can never be easy and the Department has offered support to all affected staff. The Department is fully aware that as part of the Isle of Man Government’s Policy for use in the event of redundancy the Unions have an important role to play and the Department is seeking to make use of the Unions’ expertise in these matters in order to work together in a constructive way. Indeed, the full time officer of the union that represents the vast majority of potentially affected staff was informed of the situation on 17th January. The Department has today begun informal consultation with staff and is engaging in an open dialogue on any solutions that might be identified to resolve the financial difficulties the Department is expecting to face next year. 34 staff members have been advised today of the reasons why savings have to be made, why the Department has no option but to consider making savings from salaries budgets and how these savings could be found in a variety of ways. It was made clear that if posts are to be lost then this is likely to be initially in a group of up to 11 staff. However, the agreed policy makes it clear that once a Department considers redundancy to be a possibility it must inform its staff of this and this Department intends not only to comply with the policy but to act honestly in respect of informing its staff. The Department chose to invite staff in the affected areas to a meeting today, and arrangements had been made in the previous week for letters to be passed to staff at work on the afternoon of Monday 31st January so that staff were informed in good time but not so early as to leave them in a state of worry for days. Arrangements were indeed made for letters to be taken to staff who were on leave so that these staff were not deprived of the opportunity to attend the meeting. The Department confirms that it will continue to follow the procedures laid down in the Isle of Man Government Policy in the Event of Redundancy and that it will do what it can to avoid having to make redundancies. It would add that there was never any intention of making redundancies today, only of commencing the initial consultation on the process of savings. No staff members were described as “surplus to requirements” in any letter; the letter to staff refers simply to how the Department plans respond to the any potential “staff surplus” after restructuring. -Ends-