Lancashire County Council offices

Major cuts at Lancashire County Council could see 2,500 jobs lost from County Hall over the next two years.

The county council is one of the major employers in Preston and it has signalled a bulk of its savings would come from redundancies.

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Councillors will meet next week to discuss cost-saving measures which mean the council needs to find £300 million worth of savings.

Leader of the council Jennifer Mein has signalled they can’t rule out making compulsory redundancies, although the bulk of staff savings would be through voluntary redundancy.

Leader of the council Jennifer Mein explained: “This is the harsh reality of the cuts being imposed by Government, as we seek to find £300m savi! ngs on top of the £220m the council has saved over the last three years.

“The council simply cannot make these savings without significant reductions both in the services it provides to local communities and in the number of people it employs to deliver those services.

“These are decisions we would rather not have to make, but I am determined to lead the council through this period in a way that makes the changes as fair as possible to the public and employees alike.

“That includes giving the people who work here a clear understanding of where we’re going and doing everything we can to avoid compulsory redundancies.

“My hope is that enough people will choose to go on a voluntary basis and our proposed approach has that outcome in mind.”

The cabinet meeting will take place at County Hall on Friday 24 January, when details will be announced of the redundncy scheme.

The £300m savings target is around 40 per cent of the county council’s non-schools budget.

Deputy Leader and portfolio holder for finance, County Councillor David Borrow, explained: “We’re currently consulting over our budget plan for 2014-15 and will spend much of the next 12 months having a transparent discussion about how services will change in the three years that follow.

“But we already know enough about the Government’s spending plans to realise it will have a big impact on the number of people we can employ.

“We’re being open, honest and proactive in our approa! ch by explaining these changes to our employees and proposing terms for voluntary redundancy that the council can afford during what will be an incredibly challenging period.

“Our priorities will remain to protect vulnerable people and promote economic growth, but there is no doubt this will be a very different and much smaller organisation in a few years’ time.”

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