Redundancies at Sandwell Council cost £5m
Around 300 workers have been made redundant at Sandwell Council during the past 10 months at a cost of £5.5 million, figures have revealed.
Sandwell Council today confirmed the number of redundancies since the start of the 2014/15 period and warned there were more job losses to come over the coming year.
Officials have projected staffing numbers at the authority will be reduced by 111 during the 2015/16 financial year – but said not all of those would necessarily be redundancies.
Bosses have warned the authority faces 'meeting significant redundancy costs over the medium term' as it struggles to balance the books in the wake of continuing government cuts.
Officials say they are battling financial pressures after receiving up to £120m less in funding from central Government in the six years to 2015/16.
This year's budget will be agreed at a meeting of the full council in March.
A report to the council reveals £8.5m of the authority's reserves was put aside to meet the cost of redundancies during this financial year with £5.5m of this spent during the period.
Officials said the remaining £3m had again been put aside for the same use in 2015/16. A further £2.5m will be added to top up this sum to a total of £5.5m.
The report states: "The council will be faced with meeting significant redundancy costs over the medium term in order to operate within the funding envelope provided as part of the Local Government Finance Settlement."
Sandwell Council's deputy leader and cabinet member for strategic resources Councillor Steve Eling said the authority was forced to continue redundancies at the present time.
"If we keep getting cuts, we will keep getting redundancies," he said.
"We are shelling out money every year making people redundant. It's mad but that's the situation we're in."
