Eight employees at James Butcher Housing Association鈥檚 head office have been made redundant as part of a review of operating costs.

The job cuts included the Reading-based association鈥檚 director of housing and a rent officer. They follow the discovery in February that it needed to find an extra 拢75m to spend on its 4200 homes over 30 years (HT 4 February, page 14).

A further 17 job losses are expected at the end of March in the association鈥檚 catering division as it prepares to end the in-house preparation of meals at sheltered housing schemes.

David Hucker, James Butcher鈥檚 interim chief executive, said: 鈥淲hile redundancies are regrettable, they are necessary to ensure that we achieve a balanced budget this year while continuing to provide services to our most vulnerable tenants.

When asked about the likelihood of further redundancies, he said: 鈥淚 am not going to commit on that ahead of the review. I am certain that we need to reduce our operating costs further into the future.鈥�

Hucker said the association had shortlisted eight associations as potential merger partners. The list will be put to the James Butcher board for approval in two weeks.

Source

Housing Today