£7m to axe 1,000 jobs at Wolverhampton City Council

It comes as the local authority looks to save £123m by 2019.

In total, bosses have to axe 2,000 jobs and – as of December – they had had 715 voluntary redundancy applications accepted, with the majority of the shortfall filled by compulsory redundancies. Talks are ongoing with trade unions on the impact of the cuts.

Finance chief Councillor Andrew Johnson said: "Nobody wants to be doing this but we have no choice, and in making these tough choices we will always put the best interests of Wolverhampton first and take the views of people on board."

As reported last week, finance chiefs still have to find £40m of the £123m total, with the next round of savings proposals being announced later this month.

The local authority's latest budget report makes for grim reading.

As well as the redundancy spend, it has also emerged that consultations on which services and jobs will get the axe may only last a third of the time they normally should.

Consultations are supposed to last 90 days where possible. But because so many jobs and services need to be cut in the financial year 2015/16, they will be reduced to 30 or 45 days.

In the report, finance director, Mark Taylor said: "The accelerated timetable for achieving savings in the light of the financial settlement is likely to require the council as an employer to utilise the statutory 45-day and 30-day consultation periods for some service reductions, rather than the best practice position of allowing, where possible, 90 days."

He then warned of the redundancy costs.

"It is projected that redundancy costs in the region of £7.5 million will be incurred during 2014/15," Mr Taylor said.

"It is worth noting that the redundancy costs for 2014/15 are an estimate, and are subject to change dependent upon the number and nature of applications."

The budget for 2015/16 is being finalised ahead of cabinet members giving it the green light on February 25.

Council bosses have regularly pointed out that spending millions of redundancies will save them far more money in the long term.

From 2012 to 2014, they spent £11.5m on redundancies but the job losses would cut £15.9m from the annual revenue budget.