£60m Wolverhampton council cuts approved by cabinet
Cuts of £60 million that will lead to potentially hundreds of job losses have been approved by senior councillors in Wolverhampton.
More than £17m has to be cut from the budget of Wolverhampton City Council over 12 months from April, with the rest to be found by 2018.
It comes on top of £80m of cuts and 600 jobs lost over the past four years.
This evening there were warnings that hundreds more posts could go as the Labour cabinet met to approve the next year's £255.6m budget.
It includes controversial plans to close nine out of 17 children's centres across Wolverhampton - with details still to be drawn up concerning which ones will face the axe.
Respite care beds at Warstones Resource Centre will also be moved elsewhere along with day care services in order to save £1.15m over two years, with 50 jobs threatened.
But council tax is set to be frozen for the fourth year running after the cabinet agreed to accept a government grant worth the equivalent of a one per cent increase in return for not hiking the rates.
Council tax was first frozen in 2010, 12 months before Chancellor George Osborne made grants available nationwide, by the former Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition that lost power to Labour in December of that year.
But the council has had to cope with losing £202 per head in government funding since the coalition government came to power, Labour finance chief Councillor Andrew Johnson said.
The budget was passed without debate as Councillor Johnson said the time for discussion would be at next Wednesday's full council meeting, when all 60 elected members take the final vote.
After the meeting he said: "It is very challenging. There are more savings to be found over the coming years.
"Around 70 per cent of our budget is spent on jobs therefore we are having to make cuts that will mean some job losses.
"We hope to be able to do this without compulsory redundancies."
