ALMOST 900 workers could lose their jobs as the county council bids to save £58m a year.

It said a complete overhaul of services would ensure that it does not need to make any cuts to frontline services – ending years of ‘salami slicing’ them.

But to implement the project in full, up to 890 full-time members of staff could be cut over two or three years. Currently the council has about 4,500 staff – so this would cut the workforce by a fifth.

The council said it was faced with the choice of providing services at the “floor of statutory obligations with major impact on residents’ or ‘asking whether a major change to its operation can release resources to support services, offer policy choices and deliver financial sustainability’.

Consultants have already been paid £2.1m for their advice as part of work which was completed last month. It would take another £18m to implement their suggestions in full as part of the council’s Fit for the Future programme.

Council leader Ian Hudspeth said: “These proposed changes are a crucial part of the county council’s commitment to supporting thriving communities for everyone in Oxfordshire.”

Work by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the council could expect to save between £34m and £58m a year by cutting staff and streamlining other services.

The council said some services could be put online. Other innovations could include booking p Continued from page 1

school transport online and Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service using drones more in its work.

Studies released in March showed that council staff are hampered by the need to navigate 400 IT systems and that they spend 15 per cent less time delivering services than other councils’ workers.

Mr Hudspeth said: “Our systems currently do not support staff as well as they could do for them to do the best job they can – and we know how frustrating that is because staff tell us that. There’s no doubt they are working hard and trying to do their best for Oxfordshire but our systems and structures need to better support them.”

He added: “The advice from PwC will more than pay for itself by finding financial savings that we could not have found on our own. This is a golden opportunity to make real changes that would save money and benefit the public. The report clearly says that we can make these changes without reducing the quality of services for residents.”

The council said the expected staff turnover about 650 a year and that it hopes most of the jobs lost would be taken out of that pool. That is likely to make the number of compulsory redundancies much smaller, it said.

But the council said it had not yet earmarked jobs which might be lost.

Last month, Labour group leader Liz Brighouse said her party would not support any extra money being paid to consultants – insisting work should be carried out in-house.

But David Bartholomew, cabinet member for finance, said it had to employ consultants because it has too few staff to both run the council and undertake that work.

But yesterday Mrs Brighouse said she was still unclear of the path the council might be set for.

She said: "My concern is that I don't think it's very clear about what it is that is going to be delivered.

"We have obviously paid PwC a lot to do [the work] and it appears that we are looking at is paying more"

She added: "We don't seem to have identified the people [who might lose their jobs] and the skill sets and the impacts on service users. We talk about customers without looking at the fact that the vast majority of people who use council services in Oxfordshire don't have another choice."

The council's audit and governance committee will analyse the proposals at a meeting next Thursday.

It will already save £33m as part of its medium-term financial plan.

Papers that will be seen by councillors next month say implementing further savings plans would mean the council is ‘agile and resilient to change with greater capacity to manage risk and deliver agreed political objectives’.

Richard Webber, the leader of the Liberal Democrats’ group in the council, said: “This is the first I’ve heard of any savings other than efficiencies in IT and efficiencies with customer contact. There are clearly some ways we could save money there.

“With the impact of employment, there’s a concern that all councils are being cut down to the absolute bone. I want to make absolutely sure that whatever the finances are we monitor these efficiencies very closely.”

He said that included the ‘hefty’ sum it had paid PwC for its work so far.

The council has already needed to cut £300m from its budget since 2010. During that time its workforce has been reduced by about a third. About a third of the axed staff were managers.

According to PwC, a third of councils think a financial ‘cliff edge’ is imminent and don’t feel confident about delivering services next year.

All suggestions could be accepted at a full council meeting on September 11. They are then expected to be rubber stamped by the cabinet at a meeting on September 18.