Cash-strapped council to shed 450 jobs

UP to 450 jobs will go at a Yorkshire council which is having to make £48m cuts in the next two years.

The figure is an increase on those released last month as it includes at least 60 posts which face the axe after management and unions at Hull Council agreed new terms and conditions which saved only half the £2.8m the council had hoped for.

The mobile library service will close and opening hours will be cut at libraries and museums, while ratepayers will see a 1.95 per cent increase in their council tax bills, just under the threshold to trigger a referendum.

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Leisure services and streetscene look set to become wholly-owned arms length council companies and the frequency of grass-cutting and street-sweeping will be reduced. Deputy leader Coun Daren Hale said they’d decided to increase council tax as one-off Government payments to help bridge the gap would eventually be withdrawn, leaving the council with a “very significant” problem.

They’d done their best to maintain services, he said, adding: “The public should be under no illusions because there is a real and genuine fight for the very survival of local government and local democracy in this country.” Tory group leader John Fareham said Labour had been “supine” in their dealings with the unions, adding: “Their key mistake has been not getting the full £2.8m that the officers advised was achievable.”

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