Anglesey Council has offered voluntary redundancy to its entire 3,300-strong workforce as it struggles to deal with funding cuts.

The authority has to find £20m in savings over the next four years and earlier this month received one of the lowest provisional local government funding settlements in Wales. All staff can apply for redundancy, including teachers and school support staff. The council said it would also consider requests for sabbaticals, secondments and career breaks.

‘Each year it becomes harder to find savings and many of our services now have little option but to look at their staff,’ said chief executive Richard Parry Jones.

‘It must be stressed that this will not guarantee that an employee can be released. We must still be able to keep the right balance of skills, abilities, experience and knowledge to ensure we can provide the best possible services to the people of Anglesey.

‘There are also a number of key posts that the authority will be unable to do without and in those instances redundancy isn’t applicable.

‘We will, therefore, still reserve the right to refuse individual requests for voluntary redundancy where these might result in a less effective service provision or not be cost effective.’

Last year Shropshire Council made a similar move when it offered voluntary redundancy to staff, although it excluded teaching staff.