Council reassures IT staff on jobs before signing deal with IBM

Bradford Council signed a £158m IT outsourcing deal with IBM after reassuring worried staff that their jobs were safe.

Unions had threatened industrial action over the Bradford-i programme which involves cutting staff numbers by 40 over four years.

But the council has now promised staff that there will be no compulsory redundancies and they will only transfer to the supplier on a voluntary basis.

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Chris Jenkinson, regional officer for Unison, told Government Computing News that the union was now satisfied with the employment terms offered under the Bradford-i programme.

“We have secured very strong staff protection as part of this deal,” he said. “No staff will have to transfer over to the supplier and any staff reductions will be voluntary. It means that if staff positions are cut, people will have to be retrained and reskilled in order to be employed either in different IT functions or in other areas of the council administration.”