Cornwall Council to cut 2,000 jobs in £110m budget cuts

The council's website will have a section for suggestions about cuts

Cornwall Council is expecting to make about 2,000 employees redundant as it cuts £110m from its budget over the next four years, it has revealed.

An emergency budget is being drawn up in a bid to meet an anticipated 30% reduction in government funding.

Members of the public and council staff are being asked to give their ideas on how money could be saved.

The council said all services it did not have to provide, such as leisure services, were vulnerable.

Council leader Alec Robertson said: "It's a major challenge, but it's also a major opportunity.

Services 'vulnerable'

"We have got this council shaped up to do what it should be doing, to focus on essential services and not to divert energy and resources to things that should be done by other people."

Subsidies could be reduced to swimming pools, raising the prospect of increased charges.

The council's website will have an area for people to suggest cuts.

Mr Robertson confirmed that about 2,000 jobs would be lost as a result of the cuts.

He said: "Although we can work more efficiently, we are now at the stage where, having found all those reductions, there is no fat left in running the operation.

"We are now at the stage where we now have to look at reducing services.

"The problem is to identify which services are essential.

"Anything that is not a statutory requirement is vulnerable."

Staff pay amounts to half the council's expenditure, with six council employees earning more than £100,000 a year and Chief Executive Kevin Lavery earning about £200,000 a year.

Mr Robertson said the council had already reduced numbers of middle management employees.