FIVE hundred jobs are being axed by Oxfordshire County Council.

The council announced today it was planning to make savings of £90m in its budgets over the next five years — with a tenth of its 5,000 staff to go.

While a spokesman said it hoped to “focus on natural staff turnover and managing vacancies”, he admitted there would be redundancies.

It is not known yet where the cuts will hit, but the figure does not include school staff.

The county is blaming an expected loss of money coming from central Government because of the recession and the bail-out of the banks.

Only last week the Tory-run administration at County Hall pledged to freeze council tax rises for the next three years if David Cameron won the General Election next year.

Council leader Keith Mitchell would not speak directly to the Oxford Mail tonight, but in a statement issued via the council’s press office, he said he stood by the pledge, saying it was one of his top priorities.

He said: “Times are hard for Oxfordshire residents as well as organisations and our position is we want to keep as much money in people’s pockets as we can.

“We wouldn’t want to try and set a council tax increase more than 2.5 per cent. It’s about how low we can get it.”

But Mark Fysh, of the union Unison, attacked the council for its use of consultants and interim workers, which he said cost the authority £12m a year.

Mr Mitchell said he wanted “to make a leaner, better organisation” but pledged to protect front-line services.

He said: “Obviously local government nationally and here in Oxfordshire would rather not be in this position, but we’re being responsible with residents’ money and protecting their services in the worst national economic climate in generations.

“This is a five-year plan. We can review matters as we set our budgets each year and, if the financial picture nationally improves, we can react accordingly.”

But an unhappy Mr Fysh said: “This is a Conservative council already supposed to be lean and mean. I would not want to see any redundancies, quite frankly.

“Where we would like to see the cuts is in the cost of consultants and interim workers the council uses.

“What do you want? Do you want proper service or do you want to pay consultants?

“We are here to serve the public and so are the politicians. It’s about time they did.”

tshepherd@oxfordmail.co.uk