Keith Barrow defends Shropshire Council staff cuts record

Shropshire Council leader Keith Barrow today defended the authority's record on job losses in the wake of 'huge spending cuts by the Government', after it was revealed hundreds of posts have been cut this year.

Yesterday it was revealed the authority had cut 529 jobs during 2011, including 119 compulsory redundancies between April and December.

But Councillor Barrow said the council was protecting jobs better than many others across the country.

He added the authority had worked 'extremely hard' to keep redundancies as low as possible and claimed Shropshire Council 'have done better than most councils at protecting jobs and essential front line services'.

He said: "Some councils have been making thousands of people redundant, but here in Shropshire job losses have been much lower than they might have been in the face of such huge spending cuts by the Government, which means the cost to the public purse has also been much lower than it could have been.

"We are also working hard to redeploy staff whenever possible, which further reduces redundancy costs."

Councillor Barrow said there were no plans for 'large-scale redundancies' by the council. He added the authority had been praised by the Government for its efforts in transforming services for residents by sharing resources with other organisations.

"It is not in the public interest to make mass redundancies, because it costs the council money and damages the local economy, so we are doing everything possible to avoid making people redundant," he said.

The comments come after Shropshire Council was yesterday criticised by councillor Alan Mosley, leader of the Labour group.

He said he was worried 'further big cuts are in the pipeline' and warned job losses at the council were having a 'severe impact on unemployment across the county'.

See also:

• Shropshire Council payroll falls by more than 500

• Disaster warning over more Shropshire public sector job losses

• 2,000 public sector jobs facing the axe