More than 400 council staff furloughed

More than 400 staff have been furloughed across Gwent councils, since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Three of the five Gwent councils – Newport, Monmouthsire and Blaenau Gwent – made the decision to furlough members of their workforce using the UK Government’s Job Retention Scheme.

As public bodies which are publicly funded, councils can only access the furlough scheme where they could demonstrate that services were only being significantly or exclusively sustained by external income sources.

A total of 404 staff were furloughed across the Gwent councils, with Monmouthshire County Council accounting for more than half.

Monmouthshire council has furloughed 251 staff during the coronavirus pandemic. The furloughed staff were primarily from the leisure centres, the Borough Theature, cultural and heritage attractions and the Outdoor Education Service.

Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council has furloughed 140 staff members since the scheme started. They are mainly school-based non-teaching staff such as cleaners and caterers.

This was due to school closures and the operation of just a small number of childcare hubs for key workers.They will be brought back to work for the start of the new academic year in September.

Newport City Council, however, only furloughed 13 members of its workforce.

The city council said they were furloughed at the end of April because the service they provided ceased due to lockdown and they met the criteria. All 13 are on full pay and will return to at some point in the future.

Caerphilly County Borough Council and Torfaen County Borough Council were the only two in Gwent not to make use of the scheme.

Caerphilly and Torfaen councils both said that no staff were furloughed to support flexibility and enable redeployment to services that were critical as part of the coronavirus pandemic response.