Will Barnsley ever recover from 1,500 jobs blow?

Barnsley Council will slash 1,450 jobs during the next three years to cope with cuts to its Government funding, with business leaders and politicians warning the town faces the worst economic crisis since the closure of the pits.

Its economy is one of the most reliant on the public sector in Britain, employing more than a third of the population.

Further job losses are expected at town halls across Yorkshire, and unions claim 1,000 Bradford City Council staff have been notified their jobs are at risk.

The news came as the coalition revealed the full scale of its "bonfire of the quangos" – scrapping 192 organisations and putting thousands of jobs throughout the region in jeopardy.

Business Link is cutting 125 staff from its Barnsley operation and Yorkshire Forward, which employs more than 400 people and will be abolished by March 2012, also warned up to 6,500 jobs may be lost as its projects are left uncompleted.

Other quangos in the region that employ significant numbers of staff, such as the National Policing Improvement Agency in Harrogate, the Environment Agency, the Homes and Communities Agency in Leeds, the Forestry Commission and the Audit Commission, were unable to say what the future holds for their hundreds of employees.

Barnsley MP Eric Illsley said he fears the impact on the town – which he has represented since 1987 – will be devastating.

"This dwarfs anything that we have had to cope with in recent memory," he added. "The full scale of this may not yet be known – it could get worse with cuts to other public sector bodies.

"The private sector will also suffer as a consequence of this. It is going to be devastating. I do not see how the town can ever recover."

Andrew Denniff, policy manager at Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber of Commerce, warned the private sector will not be able to compensate for the loss.

"There will have to be a major realignment of the regional economy," he said. "This Government has an ideologically motivated economic policy. If it is asking the private sector to take the burden then it will need to support them."

Barnsley Council will have to save 40m over the next four years on top of 181 redundancies made this financial year.

Council leader Steve Houghton said that next year the authority will take out 250 posts which are currently vacant and be looking to make another 335 staff redundant. The rest of the redundancies will follow over three years.

The council's chief executive, Phil Coppard, said the authority planned to host a series of roadshows to explain why the cuts were being made.

"The Government have told us that we are simply returning to 2006 funding levels. I have to say it does not feel like that," he added.

"I have worked at this authority since the 1980s and this feels like going back to the really bad times. Even then it wasn't this severe."

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude yesterday confirmed that the axe will fall on 192 quangos and said a further 118 bodies would be merged and another 171 "substantially" reformed.

One of the more bizarre bodies to be axed is the Government Hospitality Advisory Committee for the Purchase of Wine which met four times a year at an annual cost of about 10,000.

It was responsible for advising on the "maintenance of appropriate standards of wines for use at Government functions".

FACING THE AXE

More than 25,000 people in Barnsley are employed in the public sector – 35 per cent of the population.

In Bradford unions claim 1,000 city council staff have been told their jobs are at risk.

Business Link will cut 125 staff from its Barnsley operation.

A total of 192 quangos will be abolished, 118 merged down to 57, while a further 171 will be "substantially" reformed. The future of another 40 remains under consideration.

The changes will cut the overall number of quangos from 901 to 648.

Yorkshire Forward, which will make all of its 400 staff redundant, warn 6,500 jobs may not be created as a result of the cuts.