MORE than 500 council staff have put their names down for voluntary redundancy as their authority desperately tries to balance its budget.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council had asked workers last week to express an interest in taking redundancy by 4pm yesterday.

Senior officers had hoped for between 370 and 430 employees to come forward, but the final tally was 530.

For reasons of confidentiality, the council would not say whether absent interim chief executive Chris Harman was among those who wished to go.

The high figure means it is almost certain that finance chiefs will press ahead with a voluntary redundancy scheme within weeks.

The council, which employs 11,500 people, had said it hoped to save £2 million this year and £10 million next year through job cuts.

Last month it revealed it was facing a forecast budget deficit of up to £17 million by April.

But it has now revised the prediction to a maximum £12 million overspend.

It says the reduction is due to a review of purchasing procedures, a freeze on non-essential recruitment and use of consultants, agency and interim staff.

Cabinet member for resources, councillor Kieran Clarke, said: "The financial situation faced by the council is serious, but we are making progress in managing it. We have reduced the worst case scenario by 25 per cent and we expect to cut the shortfall.

"We have had a good response to our call last week to say whether staff would be interested in taking voluntary redundancy. We need to examine what the costs, savings and impact would be now."

Council leader Ross Irving, pictured, said it was "regrettable" that the authority was having to consider staff cuts to balance books.

He said: "We have reduced the forecast deficit to between £5 million and £12 million. We knew that the £17 million figure was a worst case scenario and would come down.

"I am also pleased with the high number of expressions of interest in taking voluntary redundancy.

"Our officers will sift through the applications and see whether there any in pivotal jobs not considered.

"But the initial numbers appear to show that we could apply to capitalise the cost of a redundancy scheme and spread it out over a number of years in order to deliver immediate savings."

But Non-Aligned Group spokesman councillor Mick Salih said he wants assurances that frontline services will not be put at risk by job cuts.

He said: "My worry is that a large proportion are frontline staff.

"We have got services to maintain and a lot of people rely on the council, so before we make any redundancies we need to ensure that our services will remain operational."

Labour group leader councillor Mohammed Pervez said he wanted to see more details about the current financial situation before the council pressed ahead with staff cuts.

He said: "I am surprised that we are talking about voluntary redundancy when we have not had any discussions about the budget proposals."

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