Yorkshire 'worst hit by public sector jobs axe'

Both Leeds and Sheffield are in the top 10 of areas throughout the country expected to suffer the most impact from Government spending cuts.

The warning came as the leader of Hull Council, which is facing 90m cuts, said its workforce would be drastically reduced in coming years – but not through compulsory job losses.

According to the research by a consultancy group, Leeds will loose an estimated 8,864 jobs, making it third worst area in the country, only Birmingham and Glasgow being expected to face a worse jobs bombshell.

Sheffield is predicted to loose 7,014 jobs, making it the eighth worse.

The other urban areas in the top 10 are Westminster, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Newcastle.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast there will be more than 600,000 job losses nationally in the public sector and the consultancy group Local Futures has examined the distribution of the sector's jobs and forecast where the axe will fall.

"Not surprisingly, areas with the greatest dependence on public sector jobs will be most vulnerable to the spending cuts announced by the new coalition Government," the report says.

Growth in public sector employment has taken place across the country but has been particularly high in certain areas, including Yorkshire. In Leeds, for example, there are 104,749 public sector jobs, which the report says is almost certainly due to the relocation of the NHS Executive and Department of Social Security to the city in the early 1990s.

The report warns: "Unless the spending cuts are carefully managed at a local level, the Government risks forcing parts of the country into a spiral of decline.

"The chasm left by the decline of heavy industry, combined with a weak private sector presence, could well widen further still the North-South divide and place significant new demands on some of Britain's most challenged communities."

In Hull the local authority hopes to avoid compulsory redundancies.

Hull Council leader Carl Minns believes a large chunk of the savings which will have to be made will come from not replacing the 700 or so workers who leave the authority every year.

The exact amount councils and other bodies will have to save will not be known until the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review in October. Hull's share could be between 60m and 90m.

Coun Minns said: "If we had to make savings up front in year one compulsory redundancies would be unavoidable but we know this is going to come over three, maybe five, years.

"If it is staggered over time, even taking a conservative estimate over five years, 3,500 people will be leaving the authority, through retirement, finding other jobs, going to college or university.

"That's a lot of flexibility in the system to play with. It shouldn't be beyond the wit of senior management to sit round the table to design a redeployment and retraining scheme that can minimise and hopefully avoid the need for compulsory redundancies."

Some areas of spending are. however, already being scaled back to make savings of 3.9m this year.

These include cutting funding to Safer Roads Humber, which manages speed cameras, by 130,000 this year, and potentially withdrawing completely next year, saving 400,000.

Latest figures show that Hull Council employs a total of 13,799 people.

SOURCE OF GROWTH FOR LAST DECADE

Over the last decade the public sector has been a major source of jobs growth.

It is a rise that has benefited some of Britain's most deprived and peripheral localities and helped regenerate areas.

The north of England and parts of Wales and Scotland, have higher numbers employed in the public sector, than the South-East and East of England and will therefore be harder hit, says consultancy Local Futures.

"Between 2000 and 2010, employment in the public sector surged 16 per cent, generating over 800,000 jobs." The cutbacks will also hit the private sector, as public sector contracts dry up and higher unemployment means people will have less to spend locally.