IT is extremely regrettable that the Cabinet of the Forest of Dean District Council is outsourcing its Linkline Call Monitoring Service particularly as this places a dozen staff at risk of redundancy. It is hoped that most of these staff will be redeployed or volunteer for redundancy but it still means that some 12 jobs will no longer be located in the Forest of Dean and potentially available to local people. This decision will not help to 'promote thriving communities' or 'encourage a thriving economy', both declared priorities for the district council. Therefore we cannot understand why elected councillors did not challenge or call in the cabinet decision through the scrutiny process.

Linkline achieved and retained chartermark status and a recognition of excellent by central government to demonstrate the professional service and dedication of its staff. Something must have undermined this service for it to be identified as a potential area to reduce spending. Your article last week hinted that mismanagement had damaged its cost effectiveness. However, the service had been subject to a review and restructure during 2008 and there was an air of optimism that the service could have been turned around, by focussing primarily on customers within the district and having the potential to either break-even or generate income for the council.

The Linkline monitoring staff have provided a highly professional service and are committed to do so until the last call is taken. The council will continue to provide the Linkline service for its customers in the district, even though the call monitoring element will be outsourced to an external provider. The external provider will be expected to provide an equivalent quality of service to what the council currently provides and this will be difficult to achieve if the monitoring service is going to retain a personalised approach to its customers. The council will be required to monitor the quality of standard being provided and ensure the highest standards are maintained. At the current time we do not know how much outsourcing this service will cost and what pitfalls can occur if the contract for the service is not carefully considered up front. What we do know is that in just over a year, it is extremely unlikely that there will be a Forest voice on the end of the phone. – Mike Butler, GMB chair, Forest of Dean Branch.