Council's £4m war chest to pay for redundancies

A council has created a £4million war chest to fund the cost of making staff redundant, it has emerged.

Southwark is preparing to slash its workforce in the wake of government cuts.

Officials have described the fund as a "modernisation reserve" that will meet the costs of reorganisation and redundancy.

Union officials estimate that about 300 workers have already been made redundant by the Labour-run council.

Unison represents about 3,500 workers in the borough, with approximately half of those working for the council.

Branch secretary Chris Cooper said: "When I look at what is going on over in Barnet, a Tory council that wants to tear up the terms and conditions of its staff and outsource all its work to the private sector, I'm glad we have a Labour-controlled council here.

"My biggest fear, though, is what is going to happen next April. Are we going to see more job losses? Until we see the mid-term financial position we will not know."

Richard Livingstone, cabinet member for finance, resources and community safety at Southwark, said: "We moved just over £3.9million, around one per cent of our general working budget for last year, into a fund to pay for future costs arising from the need to redesign services to make the council fit for the future, to meet the challenge of massive cuts in central government funding.

"This fund will be used for redundancy and other costs not only for this year but also for coming years."

He added: "It's important that we are completely fair to our staff in any dealings concerning their redundancy."