Council says 6,000 jobs to go

A further 6,000 jobs will be cut at Birmingham City Council in the next four years, the authority's leader has said, making the workforce about a third of the size it was in 2010.

Sir Albert Bore said forecasts suggested there would be just 7,000 full-time staff by 2018.

He said the cuts equated to double the number of workers who lost jobs at the Longbridge car plant in 2005.

He blamed an "unfair distribution" of national government cuts.

'Catastrophic consequences'

"Colleagues, there is a ticking time bomb under this city council," he said.

"Over many years we have not given enough attention to how we manage staff reductions and plan the workforce we will need in the future.

"If we don't act now then the consequences will be catastrophic for the future functioning of this organisation."

Sir Albert said whole services would have to be discontinued but said a decision on which services would go had not yet been made.

"Clearly we cannot continue with anything like the range of activities we have delivered in the past," he said.

'Toughest ever years'

The Labour-led council has so far saved £460m of its £822m target by 2018. The leader said there were currently 13,000 workers at the council - not including school staff - compared with 20,000 in 2010/11. He said the figure was likely to drop to 7,000 by 2018.

He admitted it was likely most of the cuts would have to be made through compulsorily redundancies.

Sir Albert said they had launched an action plan to support council workers and help them gain new skills and redeployment elsewhere.

"The years ahead will be some of the toughest this city council has ever experienced but by working together as a council and a city we will get through it," he said.

He denied the authority had been overstaffed previously.

He said there would be asset disposals but stressed there were no plans to sell off Birmingham Airport shares or the city's museum and art gallery.

Council says 6,000 jobs to go