UNIONS have welcomed a potential backtrack on Dorset County Council’s plans to force staff to take unpaid leave.

The move is part of a raft of changes to the originally proposed staff terms and conditions put forward as part of the authority’s cuts package as it seeks to save £55million over the next three years.

The council initially put forward plans to make workers take 12 days’ unpaid leave over each of the next two years, a proposal that was later halved to six days.

However, new proposals going before the council’s staffing committee on Tuesday, May 24, include withdrawing the plans to introduce compulsory unpaid leave and instead continuing to make voluntary unpaid leave available.

Dorset branch secretary of the GMB union Gary Pattison said: “We are delighted at the withdrawal of the unpaid leave and we have pushed the idea that they should encourage people to take unpaid leave rather than compulsory. Members have made it very clear that they are not at all happy with the idea of unpaid leave.

“I think that’s gone back and I’m pleased to say that so far council members have listened to that message, which is a good sign for the future.”

Other changes to the initial package include ending the subsidised lease car scheme, changing overtime and call out payments as well as standby allowances to reduce costs and reducing the period of salary protection in cases of redeployment from three years to 18 months.

The new proposals also include retaining the current redundancy multiplier of 1.75 until December 2012. Mr Pattison said that the new proposals were a positive sign, even if they still failed to meet all of the unions’ demands.

He said: “It’s a step in the right direction. It doesn’t give us everything we want but it’s an awful lot better than what was on the table originally.

“And I’m pleased that, as an employer, Dorset County Council has been prepared to sit down and negotiate a reasoned outcome.”

Berny Parkes, chairman for the Dorset Branch of Unison, said: “This period of negotiation has been robust but conducted in a calm atmosphere of co-operation despite the difficult issues under consideration. I believe that both sides have listened and understood each other’s views and a compromise has been reached worthy of consideration. However, it is clear that there are still very difficult times ahead and the era of cuts is not over.”

The new proposals are expected to reduce the amount of savings the council will achieve through changes to staff terms and conditions from an original estimate of £4.4m down to an estimated £1.3m.