Dundee City and Angus councils are saving more than £400,000 every year after a staff merger which saw 11 people made redundant.
Janitors and school crossing patrollers transferred over to arm’s-length organisation Tayside Contracts last year, following a lengthy and often heated consultation with the staff affected.
A new report has shown the move is saving the taxpayer £430,000 every year.
Overall, there were 18 redundancies within Tayside Contracts 17 of them being voluntary with a combined saving of £570,000.
The figures were revealed in a report by Tayside Contracts managing director Iain Waddell.
He said: “The majority of redundancies relate to the integration of the facilities management services in Angus and Dundee.
“Following the implementation of an integrated school cleaning, janitorial and school crossing patrol service in both the Angus and Dundee areas, there were 10 voluntary redundancy requests granted.
“This presented an opportunity to remove 10 posts and all requests were granted given the efficiency savings that would be generated as a result.”
The additional job lost in the facilities services was a cleaner, following the closure of the Pictavia Centre in Brechin.
That was a compulsory redundancy and Mr Waddell said that “no acceptable work” could be found for the person involved.
Mr Waddell added: “The total cost of severance payments, including redundancy payments and employer’s pension costs, is £404,000, which was contained within the 2014/15 revenue budget.
“The staff costs saving, directly arising from the 17 voluntary redundancies amount to an average annual saving of £573,000.”
The merger sparked controversy when it was first mooted in 2013 after janitors claimed they had not officially been told about the plan.
The janitors in Dundee schools even threatened to go on strike over the issue however, industrial action never materialised.