COUNCIL staff and hundreds of civil servants relocated to Sheffield from London could be hit by savage job cuts, a report has warned.
All main political parties are proposing to slash public spending to help tackle the huge national debt, with the Conservatives proposing to cut civil service costs by a third.
Sheffield Council is preparing for a five per cent budget cut in the n
ext financial year – regardless of when the general election is held – and council leader Paul Scriven has refused to rule out the possibility of town hall job cuts.
A report by the Centre for Cities national research group predicts that, nationally, there could be 200,000 job losses in local government and 90,000 in the civil service.
Sheffield is home to branches of the Home Office, Department for Children, Schools and Families, and the Department for Work and Pensions.
In the past five years, the number of civil servants based in the city increased by 820, as staff were moved out of London.
There has also been considerable investment in civil service buildings, with new offices built at Riverside for the Home Office.
And officials from the DWP and Department for Schools and Families are being moved from the former Manpower building on The Moor to plush new accommodation at St Paul's Place.
Nearly a third of Sheffield's workforce is employed by the public sector – including the council, schools and health services.
In Barnsley 34.9 per cent of jobs are public sector, while in Doncaster the figure is 31.5 per cent.
The Centre for Cities report said "public spending will need to fall" and the civil service and public sector are "vulnerable".
It added: "The spending reductions required will be considerably larger than the previous programmes of efficiency savings.
"Local government will be hit hard. With 40 per cent of their expenditure on employees, much of the remaining expenditure fixed, and demand for services rising, it will be impossible to meet these cost savings without reducing the size of workforces."
Sheffield Council is drawing up its 2010/11 budget on the basis of a 10 per cent cut in its annual government grant, which makes up around half of its income – equating to a reduction of five per cent of total funds for the year.
Council leader Paul Scriven said: "I think we have to be realistic. Everyone knows that because of the way the Government has handled the economy that there are going to have to be significant cuts.
"Sheffield needs more private sector jobs to balance our economy. When Government spending is cut, it's clearly going to affect the economy and there are choices which will have to be made about public sector jobs.
"We have a commitment to making these cuts in a way that protects frontline services – we will look at reducing the mushrooming waste and bureaucracy that developed under Labour."
Coun Scriven added he could neither "rule in or rule out" the possibility of job cuts among the council's 13,000-strong workforce.
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