Town hall posts to go as council struggles with funding cut

Scarborough Council says it has no choice but to reduce staff following last month's cut to its Government funding of 14.6 per cent in 2011 to 2012, requiring savings of nearly 1.6m.

It is also facing a 9.2 per cent cut for 2012-2013 – translating to more than 860,000. Before the announcement, the council had been braced for cuts of 7.4 per cent.

Some posts are vacant. The rest will go over the coming months.

Chief Executive Jim Dillon branded the cuts "severe," adding: "The council will continue to seek to achieve these targets through efficiency savings rather than service cuts and seek ways of exploring partnership opportunities with other service providers."

Adding to the town hall's financial woes, a pension scheme review is forcing council bosses to provide a 1m per year top up to the fund over three years.

Meanwhile, the GMB union has claimed the number of redundancies being forced on councils by the Government's spending cuts has topped 100,000.

It says figures show more than 100,000 jobs under threat at 131 councils across Britain.

Brian Strutton, GMB national secretary for public services,

added: "No job in local government is safe from these swingeing cuts.

"It's sickening council workers are taking the rap for other people's mistakes."

Local Government Minister Grant Shapps said: "It is very

sad that Labour and their union barons persist with

trying to scaremonger public sector workers on a daily

basis."