THE number of redundancies set to take place at a Teesside council is not expected to be as high as first anticipated.

Workers at Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council were initially told to expect about 150 redundancies.

However, that has been reduced to about 100, according to new official reports which will be discussed by the council’s cabinet committee next week.

The authority, along with others across the region, has had its grant from central government slashed in recent years. Council chiefs have calculated they need to cut £19.4m from its budget over the next three years, and £33.8m by 2020.

It is proposed that £10.1m be cut from the 2014-15 budget.

The cabinet report explains council has made £32m savings in the last three financial years. More than 600 jobs have already been lost. Nine reviews examining ways to cut back on expenditure are underway.

When the 150 redundancy figure was cited in October about 390 people were told their job was at risk. However, after negotiations with Unison and the creation of new posts it is now estimated that between 90 and 110 jobs will eventually be lost.

Council leader George Dunning stressed that no final decisions have been made.

He said: “Everybody knows that the Government costs are coming too fast and are too deep. We are doing our very best to continue providing services to the public and, hopefully, we’ll keep the majority of our best people to do that.

"This level of cuts is bound to have an impact on services but we’ll do our best to mitigate it as far as we can.”

Duncan Rothwell, regional organiser at Unison, said: “Job losses on this scale will seriously impact on services provided by the council. Unison continues to work tirelessly to save as many jobs as it can.”