Almost one fifth of staff are being sought for voluntary redundancy About 2,000 jobs are to go at Manchester City Council because of government spending cuts, the authority has said.
The Labour-run council said it needed to reduce its workforce by about 17% after changes to local authority grants left a huge hole in its finances.
Officers need to find £110m of savings in 2011-12 – £60m more than they expected last year.
The council said it wanted to avoid compulsory redundancies.
However, it said it needed to reduce the workforce “quickly”.
All staff are being asked to consider voluntary redundancy or, for those aged over 55, early retirement.
When it announced changes to local government grants in December, the government said no council would face cuts of more than 8.9%.
But Manchester City Council said it was among the five worst-hit authorities in England, and in reality faced a 25% cut over the next two years.
Leader Sir Richard Leese said: “The unfairness of the government’s financial grant settlement for Manchester, one of the five worst in the country, has been widely reported.
“We now have to find £110m in savings next year – £60m more than expected – because of front-loading and the redistribution of money from Manchester to more affluent areas.
“The accelerated cuts mean we can no longer achieve the staffing reductions we have been forced into through natural turnover which is why we are proposing a time-limited offer of voluntary severance and voluntary early retirement.
“At the same time we will continue to invest through our M People employee programme to improve the skills and the productivity of the majority of our staff who will stay with us.”
The M People programme, developed in conjunction with the unions, aims to match the skills of the existing workforce to roles that can improve services.
The council hopes the scheme can help it make efficiencies while maintaining services.
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