Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese said the cuts process at his local authority was "unpalatable". The council also confirmed that 2,000 jobs will go, or 17 per cent of its workforce. It said 41% of job losses would be among managers. All public toilets will shut, except those on Mount Street, and swimming pools at Levenshulme and Miles Platting will close.
This month has been identified as the worst period of the year for staff absenteeism due to seasonal and economic factors.
Dr Laurence Buckman, of the British Medical Association, suggested it was too early to fully judge the merits of a new pay bonus system for doctors.
Hundreds of online jobs and hundreds of websites will be closed at the ‘Beeb’ as a means of meeting their reduced budget for web services. The BBC said it is seeking a "more streamlined" approach to its online service. Bosses are cutting their online budget by 25 per cent over the next three years.
A hospital trust had to play down reports of mass redundancies after a member of staff gave wrong information to the workforce. The workers in Greater Manchester panicked when a junior manager wrongly told them that at least a quarter of them would be made redundant. The NHS Trust apologised to 240 staff, and added that management hoped to avoid compulsory redundancies.
A ‘memorandum of understanding’ on managing job cuts was drawn up following talks led by Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones. Mr Jones led discussions with council leaders through the Welsh Local Government Association and the GMB, Unison, Unite and Ucatt trade unions through the Wales TUC. The talks will take place between councils and unions.
The government denied its funding allocations were unfair after the news that Liverpool City Council will axe around 1,500 jobs due to cuts. "If councils share back-office services, join forces to procure, cut out the non-jobs and root out the over-spends, then they can protect frontline services," said a spokesman at the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Planned for completion in 2012 is a centre which will help small businesses to start up and grow by offering office space.
A union has said it will refuse to negotiate over calls for voluntary redundancies at a firm which employs dozens of disabled people in the north-eastern region.
A community grant has helped a council balance its books as finance staff have been working on the final grant allocation from central Government. Ealing has been given a community grant of £140,000 in the first year for its voluntary sector, but it still needs to fill a financial black hole of two per cent as cuts to front-line services at the council are much more than forecast.