Reprinted with kind permission of Gazette and Herald STAFF at Ryedale House were celebrating after controversial plans to merge frontline council services in Ryedale and Hambleton – and slash jobs – were thrown out by one crucial vote.

The scheme was designed to cut costs by combining the collection of council tax and business rates, as well as the payment of benefits, for both district councils.

But staff dealing with those services – which would have been effectively transferred to Northallerton under the scheme – wrote to councillors with concerns not only about their jobs, but about the effect on quality of service.

They felt that Hambleton's IT system, which would be adopted, was inferior.

The scheme was blocked when councillors voted 11-10 against it at a special meeting of Ryedale District Council onMonday night.

Coun Stephen Preston said: "Our staff here do a marvellous job, we should be proud of what we do. If we've got £8million in the bank and we've got an excellent service being provided, it just doesn't ring true to make staff redundant.'' Coun Allin Jenkins said: "This council has entered into a number of very good partnerships but the initiative came from staff themselves. I believe in management you've got to take staff with you, and my feeling is that at the moment we're not." But other councillors praised the scheme.Coun RobertWainwright said:

"The Revenues and Benefits Working Party has spent a long time deliberating and discussing this and we feel it's the way forward." Coun Keith Knaggs said: "There's less to this thanmeets the eye. It is fairly obvious that our staff provide standards that can be compared to anywhere, including Hambleton, but we do not have the strength in depth.

"It only takes one of these people to be off sick and performance plummets.

With robustness we have the possibility of better service." Speaking after the meeting, branch secretary of the public service union Unison in Ryedale, Paul Hunt, said: "I think many staff will be relieved. It's created a lot of uncertainty for a lot of people who work in the units affected.''