A total of 1,500 jobs will go at Sandwell Council within the next four years as the authority makes £75 million budget cuts, it emerged today.

Around 500 staff have already been made redundant at the authority this year. And today it emerged that at least 1,000 more are expected to go in the next three financial years.

The council is having to make multi-million pound savings between now and 2015.

As well as redundancies, the council is also looking at other ways to save money such as selling off land and buildings to raise cash.

Sandwell’s cabinet member for strategic resources  Councillor Steve Eling said the authority had no choice but to shed more jobs due to the crippling savings it needed to make.

He said: “I reckon it is going to be 1,500 [in total] as a direct result of cuts.

“We could be looking at another 500 next year and we could well be in a couple of years after that looking at another 500.
Salaries

“Because local authorities are largely service organisations, it means that a large proportion of the budget goes on people and salaries – about 80 per cent.”

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