Up to 73,000 local government jobs could go in 2010/11, warns CIPFA

Up to 73,000 local government jobs could go in the next financial year, research by CIPFA has suggested.

The brunt of these job losses are likely to be felt by managerial and back office staff, but one-third will affect frontline, non-managerial roles.

The survey of 166 councils also found that almost half of local authorities (44%) expect to cut their expenditure on capital investment projects by more than 20% in their 2010/11 budgets.

The other areas of expenditure under most pressure are:

• Property and assets (30% of respondents expect total cuts in excess of 20%)
• Finance/HR/IT (29%)
• Community safety (28%)
• Economic development and regeneration (28%)
• Public libraries, archives, arts, museums and heritage (27%)
• Leisure, parks, open spaces, sports and recreation (27%)
• Trading standards (18%)
• Statutory services – licensing and registration (17%)
• Highways, transport and parking (16%)

The CIPFA survey also reveals widespread acceptance of the need to collaborate with other authorities.

Some 96% of the respondent authorities said they were exploring shared services with other councils. More than half (52%) said they were developing partnerships with other local public service bodies, while a similar percentage (50%) are working on partnerships with the voluntary sector.

Outsourcing with a commercial partner is meanwhile being explored by 45% of local authorities. A third are also examining the scope for shared services with health bodies.

Steve Freer, CIPFA chief executive, said: “These are not final budget figures. But they illustrate the scale of the significant cuts which councils are contemplating and which will be firmed up as 2011/12 budgets are finalised over the next few weeks.”