Leicestershire County Council to axe another 1,100 jobs

An estimated 1,100 council posts will be cut at Leicestershire County Council over the next four years under new budget proposals.

County council taxpayers are also likely to face a 1.5% tax increase from April 2014, but the tax rate will be frozen for the next year.

Councillor Byron Rhodes of the Tory-led council said the cuts were a result of lower government grants.

The council has already made 750 redundancies over the past three years.

'Radical changes'

Mr Rhodes said: "Everything is in the pot - but we will strive to make sure the cuts do not affect the most vulnerable people.

"We face a very challenging situation of reduced grants, increased demand for services and lots of uncertainties.

"Although we've taken prudent decisions to balance our budget over the last four years, faced with further pressures, we have to save more and consider small tax rises in the next few years.

"But even that isn't enough - we know from the chancellor that austerity cuts will continue until at least 2018.

"In the next couple of years, we will have to look at making radical changes to the shape of the council - the scale of the savings required means we can no longer find most of them from doing the same things more efficiently."

The county council is also hoping to save £79m from its budget over the next four years - of which £49m has already been identified.

The proposals include cuts of £300,000 in rural bus subsidies and £2.5m in cuts to children's and young people's services due to restructuring.

The council will also save £3m from reducing management and administration and a further £16m from reducing overheads and "simplifying processes".

A final decision on the budget proposals will take place at a full county council meeting on 20 February.