There are fears for Fife Council’s celebrated community learning and development service, which faces £618,000 in cuts.
Levenmouth councillor Alistair Hunter said trade unions were “livid” about the service being slashed, with the loss of around 14 jobs.
He said the community learning and development (CLD) service was set to be stripped of management, leaving the remaining staff with huge responsibilities.
Mr Hunter said: “The trade unions are absolutely livid about this and staff are in a huge state of fear.
“It’s effectively all the top and middle management coming out of the service altogether. Team leaders in local areas will have to take on a huge amount of responsibility.
“In my opinion, this completely undermines and rips the heart out of one of the council’s highest-performing and vital services and needs immediate and decisive action.”
Mr Hunter raised the issue at the last full council meeting. At the time, council leader Alex Rowley said he could not intervene. The Fife CLD covers all youth work, adult education and work with community organisations.
Mr Hunter said the service was among the highest-performing in Scotland. As part of the education service, CLD is absorbing the majority of the £650,000 in cuts affecting the service.
Fife Council has implemented a workforce change policy to manage staffing, amid drastic cuts to public spending. The policy has the aim of “fewer employees at all levels with a further reduction in layers of supervision and management”.
Mr Hunter said the policy was flawed. “Members of council might like to know that the managing change process that governs this cut is deeply flawed,” he said.
“The project board that set up the managing change process never had anyone from CLD as part of the project board, which has left numerous vital staff positions in the new proposed structure without any clear line management or accountability arrangements and has a raft of flaws, despite being more than half way through the 90-day consultation process.”
Mr Hunter said the process should be immediately halted and investigated.
Mr Rowley said: “In terms of the managing change exercise, meetings and discussions have taken place between management and trade unions. These meetings are continuing to take place.
“It’s not for me, as a council leader or any councillor, to get involved with these negotiations.”