KIRKLEES is recruiting a worklessness co-ordinator – just as hundreds of council staff face losing their jobs.

Clr Tony Woodhead can’t see the point of the £35,000 a year post, especially as budget cuts will force Kirklees to reduce its workforce.

The Lindley Lib Dem said: “These people produce lots of paper and chase targets. Is this job really necessary?

“It could come down to a choice between losing this job or losing a social worker who helps vulnerable children.”

Last week Kirklees announced that the council’s budget would be cut by between £250m and £400m over five years, meaning many hundreds of the 11,000-strong workforce will lose their jobs.

The budget reduction plan – which is being drawn up by council officers – comes ahead of an expected cut in the level of funding from central government.

Clr Woodhead believes, with finances likely to be squeezed, Kirklees needs to concentrate on frontline services, rather than recruit a new worklessness co-ordinator.

He said: “Considering we are looking at cuts, we’re going to have difficulty providing core services like social care and education. We should only be employing people who help us with these activities.

“Dealing with worklessness is not part of our core business – there’s JobCentre Plus.” Clr Woodhead, who has read the eight-page job specification, said he wasn’t sure what a worklessness co-ordinator would actually do.

He said: “I’m not sure how this person would help anyone who’s unemployed to stop being unemployed. Something has to be done for the many people who are out of work but I don’t know how a worklessness co-ordinator would help.”

Clr Woodhead also criticised the salary for the post of between £33,328 and £35,079.

He said: “You could make a case that it’s overpaid. What’s the equivalent salary for this kind of job in the private sector? This kind of job probably doesn’t exist in the private sector.”

Applications for the post closed on September 18. But Clr Woodhead said Kirklees must have known long before this that cuts were on the way.

He said: “Everyone in the public sector has been thinking about plans for cuts for the last six months.”

No spokesman was available from Kirklees Council to comment.

IN June Kirklees asked for applicants for the new role of director of organisation development, with a salary of up to £119,000 a year.

The Plain English Campaign criticised the advertisement for using terms like “cross functional experience”, “people effective” and “using information proportionately”

The Taxpayers’ Alliance said it was “a classic example of management gobbledegook”

The council’s human resources director, Cliff Stewart, said: “We’re hitting our target audience.”