A TECHNOLOGY company providing services to three Gwent councils and Gwent Police is making seven voluntary redundancies to reduce its budget.

Shared Resource Service Wales (SRS), based in Blaenavon, needs to find savings of between £500,000 and £700,000.

The ICT shared resource centre provides services to authorities including Torfaen, Monmouthshire and Blaenau Gwent councils, as well as Gwent Police.

One of the redundancies for a chief officer will cost £133,000, with Torfaen council - the host authority - paying one fifth of the total - around £26,600.

However costs will be met from money already contributed by the five partners which has not been spent by the SRS.

No additional costs will be required, therefore.

The costs, approved at a Torfaen council meeting on Tuesday, include a lump sum redundancy payment of just under £70,000 and pension costs of £63,000.

A council report says the voluntary redundancies will reduce costs by around £359,000.

Cllr Ron Burnett said when the SRS was set up it was seen as "the flagship of technology."

"Why has it failed to create these redundancies?" he asked.

But Matt Lewis, chief operating officer at SRS, said it was not the case SRS had failed.

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Mr Lewis said the company was able to make the redundancies due to changes made which meant it could do things differently.

"I would not class this as something that has failed, therefore we need to get rid of people," he said.

"I would class this more as because of some of the successes we are now able to let some people go to achieve our savings target."

Sixteen voluntary redundancy requests were made from staff, with seven accepted and nine rejected.

Some of the changes will result in " reskilling people into alternate disciplines", a council report says.

Council leader, Cllr Anthony Hunt, said the SRS had been set up to improve the service and reduce costs.

It has since expanded, providing services to five authorities rather than the previous three.

Mr Lewis said the costs of individual authorities providing the service would be "considerably more" than the regional collaboration.