COMPENSATION for staff who lost their jobs after the county council outsourced its school support service to a private company is just 'a hollow gesture' says Worcestershire's Labour leader.

UNISON has reached an agreement with Worcestershire County Council on the redundancies caused by the transfer of staff and education support services to Babcock earlier this year.

We have previously reported that 103 staff would go by last Christmas out of a staff of 391.

This came as a deep shock to staff at the time and UNISON who said they had not been warned.

However, the Worcester News was shown a letter which proved that Babcock had notified County Hall in July about the cuts three months before the takeover.

Worcestershire County Council said it could not confirm how much had been paid in compensation as this was 'confidential'.

Cllr Peter McDonald, leader of the Labour Group, said money was being put before services.

He said: "You can never compensate for a family having to suffer the loss of a job, the loss of security.

"You can never compensate for a lack of services and a lowering standard of those services.

"People have dignity. When you take their work you take their dignity.

"It's a hollow gesture. People don't want compensation. They want a job. The money soon goes.

"It's all about big money and not worrying about the families sent to the food bank.

"The privateers are never open and transparent. They're only interested in making as much money as they can. They're not interested in the suffering of employees."

The agreement was reached after protracted legal negotiations between UNISON, the council and Babcock regarding which organisation knew and when, that around a third of the workforce would be made redundant following the transfer

UNISON Regional Organiser Charlie Sarell said: “The transfer of staff and services to Babcock from Worcestershire County Council was handled badly. At no point prior to the transfer were the union or our members aware that they would be facing redundancy after the transfer.

"The settlement that UNISON has been able to reach with the council reiterates the importance of open and frank negotiations between the council and the union over difficult issues such as this.

"UNISON members who lost their jobs will at least see some compensation as a result of this settlement.”

Jim Price, branch secretary of UNISON Worcestershire Branch, added:

“We hope Worcestershire County Council will have learnt valuable lessons from this process - and we call on them once again to look again at the benefits of maintaining in-house services, for the good of staff and our communities”

Cllr Andy Roberts, cabinet member with responsibility for transformation and commissioning, said: "Our number one priority has always been to improve outcomes for Worcestershire's children.

"We commissioned Learning and Achievement services in order to deliver those improvements.

"To avoid any further stress associated with a tribunal and to minimise the disruption that it would have caused, we are pleased to have reached an agreement with Unison.

"We will look at what lessons can be learnt.

"We are not able to comment any further because of legal reasons."