Blackpool Council has announced that its new budget proposals will result in 75 job losses as it seeks to close a £5m budget gap.

The local authority’s budget proposals for 2020/21 show that £19.6m of savings need to be found in the coming financial year.

They anticipate that this will result in up 75 job losses, most of which will be voluntary redundancy, the deletion of vacant posts, and the end of temporary contracts.

The budget also proposes investment into children’s services with £4m allocated to address the additional staffing requirement and £10m to address the demographic demand pressures of children in need and the increasing intensity of care required.

Cllr Simon Blackburn, leader of Blackpool Council, said that the proposals contained in the Government’s fair funding review would remove another £6.3m of cash from social care in Blackpool ‘which would break the system irreparably.’

‘Our staff are not only adept at performing their duties day in and day out, but they are also extremely resilient, innovative and creative,’ he said.

‘Staff continually invent smarter, more effective ways of working, so that despite the cuts the public they serve do not notice a difference to frontline services.’

‘Unfortunately it isn’t possible to make cuts of this magnitude without some redundancies,’ he added.

‘We have been able to keep those to a minimum this year but there are workers and their families that will have received bad news this week. Rest assured we will do everything possible to support them through this difficult time.’