London, February 01: British union authorities are mulling offers for huge job cuts at a council which would increase the number of threatened redundancies to 150,000 across the UK.
The Conservative-controlled Surrey County Council will lose at least 650 posts as part of the government’s spending review program and funding cuts plan, the daily Mirror reported.
This is while that Britain’s general trade union (GMB) said in its earlier estimates that the number of cuts could reach 1,000 at the council.
“GMB officials are assessing a new paper on the cuts going to Surrey County Council cabinet meeting Tuesday which seems to estimate that 650 posts will go over the next four years”, said GMB officer Paul Maloney.
“GMB officials are comparing this with the earlier estimate of 1,000 posts to go over the coming period. In particular, they are assessing whether this latest estimate included the large number of vacancies not filled during 2010”, said the official.
“Looking at the detail in the paper it is clear that these job cuts will have an adverse impact on frontline services for the most vulnerable in the county, he added.
The GMB said last week that councils across the country had announced or threatened more than 145,000, so Monday’s news takes that figure closer to 150,000.
“When the public realize what this means in reality, when their parents and grandparents lose the services they rely on, such as mobile libraries, when vulnerable adults cannot get support because there are not enough qualified staff, when young people turn to crime and delinquency because their youth services have gone, the people of Surrey will not just stand idly by and let the politicians decimate services”, Unison’s spokesman said.
——-Agencies