1,000 more council jobs could go in coming years
9:21am Friday 10th February 2012 in Your Town
UP to 1,000 more jobs could go at Bolton Council in coming years, it has been revealed.
Finance bosses will tell councillors next week they expect to have to make a further £70 million of cuts over the next four years.
This comes on top of the £60 million of savings the council has already put in place for 2011/12 and 2012/13, which has seen 833 jobs go.
The latest figures will put the total amount of council budget cuts at £130 million over six years.
Council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said: “This is a huge challenge. There weren’t any easy options last time when we were taking £60 million from the budget.
“There are potentially significant further job losses.”
As reported in The Bolton News yesterday, having sanctioned £42 million of savings last year, the council is expected to formally approve its budget for 2012/13, with £18 million of savings, at a meeting of the full council at Bolton Town Hall on February 22.
The budget report for next year, published ahead of the meeting, estimates £35 million of savings will need to be made in 2013/14 and 2014/15.
But The Bolton News has learned that finance chiefs will next week tell councillors that a further £35 million may be needed in each of the following two years after that.
This estimate from council accountants comes after the Government announced in its autumn budget statement that austerity measures would continue after 2015.
Cllr Morris said the cuts to council services could end up “pushing more people into the vulnerability bracket”.
A reduction in the money the council receives from central Government has already seen cuts to library services, with five libraries being axed.
Chief executive Sean Harriss said that while the council was yet to identify how the next set of cuts would be made, the next £35 million of savings could amount to the loss of 500 posts, with the same amount of jobs under threat from the following year’s cuts of £35 million.
Mr Harriss said discussions with the unions were ongoing and that the council had kept staff and management informed at every stage.
Martin Challender of UNISON Bolton said: “There has so far been a commitment to prevent compulsory job losses and that is a principle we want to maintain.
“We have maintained discussions with the council and we will maintain those.
They are not easy discussions given the climate
