MORE than 750 full time jobs have been cut at North Yorkshire County Council as the authority battles to make the books balance in the face of savage government budget cuts of £167m.

The authority has revealed the extent of the job losses made over the past five years after an inquiry by The Northern Echo. The axed posts include both compulsory and voluntary redundancies, but do not include staff in schools.

Officials say they have battled to keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum, redeploying staff where ever possible.

In the latest round of cuts over the past year, more than 1,200 staff were involved in redundancy consultations with 360 jobs axed.

Of those 124 staff were made compulsorily redundant; 57 voluntarily redundant; 100 staff left voluntarily, 72 staff were redeployed and 11 retired.

It’s part of a massive restructuring dating back to 2010, since which the authority has lost 34 per cent of its budget. In that time the council says back office and support staff have been reduced by 24 per cent, senior managers by 20 per cent and frontline staff by around three per cent.

The number of full time equivalent jobs has been cut from 6,432 in 2010 to 5,680 this year.

Council leader Carl Les said: “It's always disappointing for decision makers and distressing for the person concerned when jobs have to go. We have tried wherever possible to make changes when posts become vacant through retirement or people changing jobs.

“However, sometimes we have had to make some compulsory redundancies but again where possible we have looked at redeploying people. It is a fact though that in any organisation that depends on people to deliver services, when we have to make thirty per cent savings inevitably workforce numbers will be reduced.”

Many of the jobs have gone in Northallerton where the authority’s headquarters are based at County Hall.

A council spokesman said: "With a reduction in its overall budget of £167m over eight years, this is inevitably going to impact our staff. However, the majority of staff affected to date have been those within the back office which has significantly limited the number of frontline staff and services affected.”

The concern is that more redundancies are likely, the authority still has five further departments to restructure including a major shake up of library services with 21 due to be transferred to community use and staff cuts at others.

No one from the public services union UNISON could be contacted to comment.