Aberdeen City Council Jobs

Is there interest in Aberdeen City Council jobs?  Well, according to a report by the council’s human resources department, there were 1,670 vacancy adverts in 2006.  50,058 people applied for those positions.  Those HR people were certainly busy.

2006 was long enough ago for many things to have changed.  Arguably, the current global recession has caused the greatest change to the local job market.  But I want to talk about the changes made by the HR department of Aberdeen City Council.

In December of 2007, coincidently when the global recession started, the council’s HR department put out a performance report which was based on the surveys of people who applied for jobs in 2006. 

As a result, several areas were pointed out for improvements.  These included the availability of information on specific terms and conditions of employment; notification of the outcome of applications; notification of the outcome of interviews; diversity and equality; employee development; and health and safety performance measures. The report is available for more details on the council’s website. But there are other employment related reports put out by the city council of Aberdeen.  For example, the council has a gender equality scheme which generates annual reports on the matter. 

To summarise the vision of this scheme: the council strives towards achieving equal opportunities for all its employees and the citizens of Aberdeen by providing an environment that’s free from prejudices and unlawful discrimination.

A 2008 BBC article said the city council made about £6m in equal pay compensation to more than 3,000 workers.  Many of them were women who worked in social care, cleaning and catering.  The article went on to say that the council was confident the payout could be made without affecting its budget or resorting to redundancies.

However, another BBC article, this time in 2009, spoke about the possibility that as many as 600 Aberdeen City Council jobs could be lost.  The city council was facing a shortfall of £17m.  These events were good examples of how drastically things can change in the job market.

Fast forward to 2010, as I write this piece I can see 47 job adverts on the Aberdeen City Council job vacancies page of the council’s website.  It would appear that cutting jobs doesn’t necessarily mean a city council will stop hiring altogether. 

Councils need a large workforce to deliver services the citizens of their cities.  A large workforce will certainly present opportunities where positions open up as people retire, move on, are promoted, etc.
If you are interested in applying for a job with the city council of Aberdeen, you may find it useful to visit their website for guidance on how to apply.  Whatever you do, don’t send your CV because it won’t be accepted and they’ll simply destroy it.

You need to fill out their application form in order to be considered for any position they have posted.  The form is available online and is printable, but if you printing it, it would be for your own records as the form can only be submitted online.

Did you know that on April 20th, 2010, First Minister Alex Salmond announced some 740 jobs with a budget of £9.3 million? Obviously you know this is true, shall we move on to some important people sitting on council. Communications Officer Gordon Lyon has a job that can take him in many directions throughout the day. He may be setting up a press conference or writing and issuing press releases, who knows what his day can bring. His unit produces “the Aberdeenshire Council internal magazine”, which is responsible for keeping the website and Intranet up-to-date on news content. This runs the new Aberdeenshire Live system and helps promote and maintain a positive overall public image. The unit, including Communications Officer Lyon, work closely to the Chief Executive and service directors to help them with media and strategic communication plans. Oh, I almost forgot, he is also a mild-manner reporter for the committee meetings, perhaps a superhero in the making? Or just a great guy how loves his work? Either way, brilliant job, mate.

Communications is a cornerstone of any successful operation but technology is costly and budgets need to be kept to a bare minimum, as tax payers enjoy lower tax rates. Principal Accountant Alex Stephen is behind these decisions. Mr Stephen and staff provided Council Services with wide ranging information and advice. In addition, to the preparation of the 3 Year Revenue budget for the Council; and he still has time to monitor regular budget(s), reviewing spent against budgets and anticipating the outturns. With over 10 years sitting on City Council, Mr Stephen climbed the ladder of success just like we all have to do. He started as the Education, Learning & Leisure Accounting Team as a Service Accountant. Within just 4 short years, he was promoted to Principal Accountant for Central Services.

Now isn’t it true that if you speak about money, you must also speak about the legal advice? Of course, this brings me to Laura Bremner. Trainee Solicitor Laura Bremner provides legal advice to the Council, in both general litigation and conferencing matters. Laura works with a team that represents the Council’s interest in Courts and Tribunals. What makes her unique is that she commonly deals with child law matters, education law, police-related matters and mental health tribunals. This is just a few of the many tasks she deals with. In addition to her legal role, she also buys and sells land and property for the Council, which includes Council House sales. Laura Bremner and the team are the people that are watching over your children and helping people acquire low-cost housing. You may call her a modern day working class hero.

As of today, Wednesday, May 5th, 2010, there is high demand on 25 different Council jobs. They range from Architecture to Environmental Health and Registration Service, Social Care to Teaching. I shall briefly discuss a couple more in-depth. ICT or Information and Communication Technologies. As a member of an ICT, you would be able to perform a wide range of tasks which include, Customer Liaison & Service Desk, Strategy Development, Business Analysis Investigations, Information Management, Package Evaluation and Implementation, Software Development and Support, Network and Systems Management, Desktop Support & Information Processing. With these tasks, you also have to deal with people and have an understanding of business processes. The ICT members also address the needs of all of Aberdeenshire, through maintaining information systems in both Internet and Intranet facilities. Another job is a Social Worker; there is Adult Services and Children / Young People Services.

Adult Services provide assessment, advice and support for people in need of community care services. They work hand and hand with people of all walks of life, plus people with mental health problems and also help people with substance misuse problems. Their job is not over just yet, they also work with offenders by supervising them in the community and supporting them in finding work. This is also the same for Children / Young People Services, in addition to these tasks they also help children who have problems at school and facing difficult times brought on by a family illness. I suggest to look more into this as the Council is always looking for graduates who relish the challenge of working with individuals, families and communities. All it takes is a 4 year Honours Degree in Social Work but you can change the lives of many in all your years helping these people overcome truly difficult times.