Yorkshire council job losses top 18,500 in five years

Barnsley Council has lost more than a third of its workforce since 2015

Yorkshire councils have cut more than 18,500 jobs in the past five years, figures obtained by the BBC show.

Barnsley Council has lost more than a third of its workers with 2,233 losses, while 1,981 jobs have been cut in Hull - a 32% reduction in staff.

Peter Davies, from the GMB Union, said it was a "miracle" councils were able to deliver "any resemblance of public service".

The local government minister said councils had managed budget cuts well.

The BBC asked all 20 councils in Yorkshire how many full-time jobs, excluding school staff, had been lost since 2010.

More cuts to come

Craven District Council, Ryedale District Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council did not respond.

In Sheffield, 1,733 jobs have gone - a 24% reduction in staff - while Leeds City Council has axed 2,500 jobs, which is 17% of its workforce.

North Yorkshire County Council has cut more than 11% of staff with 757 losses.

The total number of job losses among all the councils which responded is 18,513.

Some of these losses include council posts that have been transferred to other organisations.

All of the authorities have seen between a 30 to 54% reduction in government funding over the five years.

The leader of Leeds City Council said more cuts were likely

Launching his spending review on Tuesday, George Osborne told government departments to prepare for cuts of up to 40% by 2019/20.

Leeds City Council labour leader Judith Blake said the situation was likely to get worse.

"We know that there is a real loss of experience and we are anticipating more cuts next year.

"We've got a situation in Leeds where over 60% of our budget is spent on (looking after) adults and children and if this carries on we do not know where we are going to go with the limited resource we have got coming in."

Local government minister Greg Clark said he had "huge admiration" for councils, which had made savings in a "responsible" way.

He added: "Council spending is a quarter of all public spending so it was always going to be the case that there were going to be cuts, but actually what the public has said is that their satisfaction with services has been maintained and sometimes increased."