City attempts to avoid mass jobs cull

COUNCIL bosses in Sheffield have vowed that there will be “no mass cull”, as the authority yesterday revealed its plans for dealing with budget cuts of £80m over the next financial year.

Sheffield Council’s budget proposals are published today and are set to be ratified by the Liberal Democrat cabinet at a meeting next Wednesday, February 23.

Only 270 jobs will be cut – in stark contrast to the huge swathes of redundancies at other large councils – and council leader Paul Scriven said he hoped there would be no compulsory redundancies.

Chief executive John Mothersole said: “What we’re trying to avoid is mass service closures. The proposals are more about doing things differently than cutting services.”

Increasing car parking charges by an average of 10 per cent and cutting the opening hours of both libraries and recycling centres are among the proposals.

The existing four park ranger teams would also be cut to three, while “back office” costs will be reduced by about 30 per cent.