A SURVEY of Sedgemoor District Council staff has found only one in five workers feels safe in their job.

The same survey found only 37% felt staff morale was good, although many other areas scored much more positively.

The survey was completed by staff earlier this year after a similar exercise in 2009.

Council leader Duncan McGinty said the results were more positive than in 2009, and more positive than most other council staff surveys.

But he admitted the number and frequency of redundancies at the council had made staff more anxious about their job security.

Tellingly, 438 staff survey forms were sent out in 2009; this year, only 351 were handed out.

Cllr McGinty said: “It's important that the environment is right for staff to work in and a survey like this allows us to learn lessons about where we can improve.

“At the recent local government conference in Birmingham, we were held up as a beacon in terms of how we deal with staff matters.

“The job security result reflects the uncertainty there is across the country, particularly in terms of local government, where we have had funding cuts of 38%.”

Positives from the survey included: 80% felt work gave them a feeling of achievement, 85% felt they had the authority and enough information to do their job well, 74% said their line manager acknowledged their good work, and 85% said they were treated with fairness and respect.

Negatives included: only 20% felt their job security was good, and few felt senior managers and councillors (23% and 12% respectively) were aware of the day-to-day issues they faced.

Cllr McGinty said the findings from the 2009 report had been acted upon and the same would happen following this year's survey.