The council has apologised after Brighton and Hove park rangers were informed their jobs were at threat by text message yesterday.
The Cityparks department is set to lose six of its nine rangers under plans in the draft budget set to be published later today – just a few of 550 jobs expected to be shed by the council in the next five years.
But while the news was broken to staff from other at risk departments in face to face meetings with managers, six park rangers were instead informed by text message.
Mark Turner, branch secretary of the GMB union which represents the rangers, said: “In the case of the park rangers the council is proposing to reduce that service by 66%, going from nine rangers down to three.
The management decided in that department for whatever reason that because they didn’t bother to get the staff to be available, they decided to send them a text.
“Senior management would have known about this for at least a week or more. They would have had ample time to set meetings up. They met three of them on Tuesday morning, and the rest of them got the text message.
“We have had telephone calls from the senior manager for that area responsible apologising.”
Richard Bradley, interim executive director, environment, development and housing said: “I sincerely apologise to the staff concerned for the way this has been handled.
“This is absolutely not how we would wish to communicate with our staff and we will be investigating how the decision to send this text came about and how we can prevent a repeat situation from occurring.
“I will be arranging to meet with staff and their trade union representatives as soon as possible.”
