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Scarborough job losses fear as budget cut by £2m - COMMENT ON THIS STORY
FURTHER redundancies will be made at Scarborough Council after it was revealed that the local authority will have its budget cut by around £2.2 million for the next financial year.
Despite the record cut, council chiefs have insisted service levels will be maintained and that staff will only be axed as a last resort.
The exact amount the council will be forced to save will become clear after the government's comprehensive spending review is published on October 20.
However it has already become obvious that staff will be let go in the drive to balance the books, and formal consultations with trade unions are expected to begin in October.
Last year, when the council was forced to save 1.7 million, 21 members of permanent staff across various departments were forced into redundancy, costing more than 285,000 in payouts. The previous year, a total of 88,000 was paid out to eight laid off workers.
For the current financial year, 1.4 million was cut from the council's budget resulting in 17 redundancies, at a cost of 200,000.
Between 2007 and 2010, the number of full-time council employees fell from 1,275 to 1,144.
Roger Kaye, the council's head of HR performance, said: "The council has to achieve further savings, and it is likely that this will have a direct impact on the workforce and could result in further redundancies.
"Our policy is to identify savings proportionate to our budget size. All public service organisations and I would imagine those in the private sector are tightening their financial belts, and we are no different.
"We are doing all sorts of things to save money and it is getting harder, but we are doing our level best to maintain the delivery of our core services.
"We are committed to keeping redundancies to a minimum. We want to retain as many jobs as we can for people in the community.
"We don't do these things lightly and we will consult extensively with trade unions, the community and our workforce before any final decisions are made."
Nick Edwards, the council's head of finance and asset management, said while 2.2 million was a "ballpark figure", it was already apparent that the authority would have "a lot of decisions to make" in coming months.
Mr Edwards will report to the council's cabinet on September 21, and again in October when the exact budget is revealed.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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