A CONTROVERSIAL decision to change staffing structures at four tourist attractions in Monmouthshire will stand despite a call-in request.

Cabinet approval was granted without prior scrutiny, a move which proved contentious amongst four Labour councillors – Tony Easson, Jim Higginson, Alan Davies and Dave Evans.

The restructuring could lead to redundancies, alongside the creation of new jobs, at Caldicot Castle, Chepstow Tourist information Centre, Shire Hall and Tintern Old Station.

The “vague” report was criticised at an economy and development select committee meeting, where members had the choice to accept the decision, send it back to cabinet or refer it to full council.

Cllr Easson expressed fears that any severance payments could cost the council more than £10,000 – a view shared by the cabinet member responsible for tourism, Councillor Bob Greenland.

But the Conservative deputy leader added: “But with any of these situations, we cannot know exactly what the cost of the redundancies is going to be – it’s impossible to give an accurate figure in a restructuring of this sort.”

The four Caldicot councillors had also expressed concerns about the decision being pushed through on July 4 without any input from the committee.

Cllr Greenland argued that scrutinising every decision would “clog up” the decision-making process at Monmouthshire County Council.

“One of the things that local government is always criticised of is the amount of time it takes to make decisions,” he said.

“If you now want to also put a process where every decision before being taken by cabinet is going through a committee, you will have a council that is almost at a standstill.”

The chair of the committee, Conservative councillor Paul Pavia, responded by saying that the proposals had not appeared on the forward work programme.

“We had no idea it was coming,” added Cllr Pavia.

“We wouldn’t necessarily pull in every decision and pore over it no reason, we do it because we feel there’s a purpose to it.”

Cllr Greenland replied: “There are decisions that are timely and there are things that happen which don’t fit in with being put in months head, and this was one of those decisions.”

Another reason for the call-in was the apparent lack of discussion around reorganisations alongside the council’s plans to transfer management of tourism, leisure, culture and youth services to a trust.

But the meeting heard that the restructuring needed to happen regardless of the potential move to an alternative delivery model (ADM), which has yet to be approved by full council.

Ian Saunders, head of tourism, said: “It’s been a very difficult time for these services.

“To delay this anymore is going to cause further unrest – not with managers but with teams that just want to get on and deliver the service.”

The majority decision of the committee was to accept the restructuring as approved by cabinet.