Survey delivers damning verdict on staff morale

A shock survey of Dudley Council staff claims workers do not feel valued and have unmanageable workloads.

Trade Union Unison published the data after receiving responses from 275 of its members working at the authority.

The report, which says 73 percent of respondents do not feel valued and 67 percent feel their workloads were unmanageable, was debated at a meeting of the full council on April 13.

During questions to the leader, Cllr Pete Lowe from The Black Country Party said: “I recognise we have for many years debated the impact of austerity but how will we go about rebuilding the trust and confidence with our workforce to address the reasonable real concerns that have been raised?”

Council leader, Cllr Patrick Harley (Conservative) said some of the comments in the report made disturbing reading but added: “You have got to put this into context, we employ close to 6,000 people.

“A lot of the questions, I think, are front-loaded to get a particular response.

“We have just been awarded a rating of good in adult social care – if this was a miserable place to work those staff members would not have achieved that result.

“There may be some underlying issues but I don’t recognise this as Dudley.”

Cllr Harley went on to point out caseloads for some social workers had ‘reduced greatly’ in the last few months.

The report also says 84 percent of respondents say there are not the right number of staff on their team to complete allocated work while 60 percent say they work extra hours to get work done.

One of the workers who responded said: “It varies, depending upon work allocated but there is always the management expectation of more, with little thought for work/life balance.”

Speaking outside the meeting, Cllr Karen Westwood from The Black Country Party, said: “Our role as councillors is to highlight the failure of this council and that the erosion of services directly impacts on the communities we wish to serve. We will be clear in doing all we can to offer an alternative that protects services, staff and as a result our communities.”