The equivalent of 800 fulltime posts are to be lost at Birmingham City Council as the authority tries to plug a £2.2bn financial hole.
The council hopes that the posts will be lost through natural wastage, not refilling vacancies and reviewing its use of agency staff.
Chief executive Stephen Hughes has said that 'no one will be sacked' to save money, but the lost posts will be on top of the 3,500 earmarked to go in the next decade as part of the council's Business Transformation Programme.
Birminghams £2.2bn debt has doubled in the last five years but council leader Mike Whitby told the BBC's Politics Show that as the largest authority in the UK the level of deficit was not surprising.
'There’s no doubt that there’s going to be a constraint on the public purse and we want to be part of that,' he said.
'We will be looking at ways where we are not going to be filling job vacancies and we will certainly be looking at natural wastage.'
He added that he would not be looking to cap the pay of the councils top earners unless his hand was forced by central government.
Two ways to improve local authority finances
The NAO has concluded insufficient action has been taken to address weaknesses in council finances. Teams from TLT LLP consider what councils should do next.
